This Is a Holdup! An action card from the base set that may have been forgotten. Here is the challenge are you ready? What are some brews, combos and/or interesting ideas you might have on this action card.
4 Likes
Iām a fan of this card. Itās a lot more effective than youād think. When Iāve used it itās been alongside movement effects and other economy denial style cards. Mustang, Walk the Path, Shadow Walk and the 108 Righteous Banditsā movement tricks all allow you to steal some ghost rock and then move somewhere safe. Taking someoneās ghost rock can seriously disrupt their plans and the boost can accelerate your own. Combine it with Tummy Twister and Deliberate Infection to increase the upkeep of their dudes, and deny them as much production as possible, and youāll soon stall your opponentās deck. Itās on value with the California Tax Office which is at its most powerful in such a deck.
While not something Iāve got round to, using it in a Sloane deck to build up bounties and set up situations for an Experienced Allie Hensman to exploit would be another way to use it. It can combo with The Place - if youāre lucky it could net you four ghost rock and four bounty in one use, which Desolation Row would love. If youāre trying to make Plasma Drill work, then using this to remove your opponentās ghost rock reserves before you drill sounds like a good idea. Running this and Confession to remove your bounty gets you even more ghost rock from it, and if you donāt want stacks of bounty making your dude a juicy target you can always discard The Evidence.
4 Likes
http://dtdb.co/en/deck/view/21718
So itās not the most original deck in the world. Infact I stole the starting posse from one of AdmiralGTās videos.
The premise is simple, deny them resources. Run the job with Alice (or AngƩlica if you expect Pistol Whip), move bounty on to Makaio and go Hold Up their Deed. If they call him out, Alice and AngƩlica are both there to jump in. Some of the others dudes in the deck take advantage of them having low cash.
LeMat revolver is just there as on value cheating punishment.
4 Likes
Go to opposing deed with Rick Henderson. Play This is a Holdup. Opponent comes to collect bounty play missed on rick and pistol whip them home.
3 Likes
I forgot about Rick. I will have to dust off my āThis hold up will hurt in the morning deckā. Itās built around keeping your opponent from ever gaining momentum. Block their production, steal their GR, and ace out cards when they cheat. Itās how I feel Sloan should play.
2 Likes
I like it, but man - no tax office? Iād almost want 2 but at least one.
1 Like
Youāre right, I somehow completely overlooked them. Definitely 2 of those.
Hereās a slight modification using a 2x16 structure with a straight flush, hopefully enabling better legal hands later in the game.
http://dtdb.co/en/deck/view/21748
The last 2 slots should be either shotgun or pearl handed revolver, not sure which.
This holdup will hurt in the morning. v2
Not the most reliable deck, dependent on opponent playing a deed, and winning early game shootouts. Seems like it should be a fun deck, but have only played it twice.
So Allie Hensman exp, Rick Henderson and California Tax Office seems the way to go, good thing they are all one the same value. As if someone planed this 
I like this challenge because it helps get cards out of the binder, but at the same time it is hard. Iāve tried the same thing with the card Extortion and all you end up doing is giving yourself 4 dead draws against certain decks.
Besides Sloane any other outfits that might break this?
Any deck with horses or Shadow Walk can do some quick āsteal and runā maneuvers. Itās a bit tricky because you need one turn to move there, then another one to use This Is A Holdup. Then if they move there, you can use Shadow Walk or a horse to run away. Much easier to accomplish on out of town deeds.
Ornithopter helps make this much more doable - simply move to the deed. They move to the deed. Do your hold up, then use ornithoper to run away when they call you out (bonus points if itās Irving and you get another GR in the process). Sounds obnoxiously fun!
3 Likes
Iāve used it with Law Dogs Blessed using Walk the Path to rescue the booted dude if necessary, and with the 108 Righteous Bandits using Asakichi to send dudes places and the home to bring them back to safety.
Thanks to the wonderful Wendy Cheng, one of my local players got so annoyed playing against my Law Dogs heās ended up building his own very aggressive take on a bounty hunting deck so This Is A Holdup! isnāt the smartest card for me to be playing at the moment 
Iāve found that any deck that can move quickly to effectively contest your opponentās economy deeds can make good use of this card and its combos to keep them on the ropes. It isnāt a particularly fast deck though, and can struggle against a dedicated aggressive shooter. Noone plays hexes at the moment in my local group but I imagine that would also be a tough matchup.
1 Like
Played about 8 games with this card yesterday. Ran Sloane Desolation Row. 2/4/J
Basic plan was to use āThis is a holdup!ā and āSunday Bestā to deny and steal as much econ as possible. While also using the bounty based movement capabilities of 2 (Bluetick / Back Ways). Kinda Janky but was interesting at least.
Played against 4R Control, Blessed Law and Other Sloane Decks mostly and had a large amount of success. The deck has an unusually decent matchup against slide and 4r control because of A: Its ability to move around post booting and B: it happens to have values where most of the dudes with influence have 2 influence which makes it slightly more capable of handling rumors and blood curses. While I wouldnāt even begin to claim that this deck beats both of those decks on a consistent level it was interesting to see fairly underused cards and values affect of established meta decks.
3 Likes