On the face book group a discussion started about HLF which was used in an Outlaw Event and eventually won Congrats. My questions to the community what are your folks thoughts on the action card?
Do you think it’s to powerful?
When building your decks do you keep HLF in your mind?
Does this card force you to build with it or tech against it?
I’m not a fan of Hot Lead Flyin’ (and lose-to-win in general). I think that decks that punish you for winning a round of a shootout are far more of a negative play experience than clown control or landslide.
If you’re wise to an opponent who’s using Hot Lead, it’s fairly easy to play around unless your deck is dedicated to shooting and doesn’t have a Plan B. What makes it really problematic is when it’s used in conjunction with a card like Allie Hensman that puts a clock on the game. You have to take out Allie, but she’s in the middle of a horde of expendable dudes and won’t be joining the posse unless you call her out. Thing is, you’re not going to get to pick the callout unless you’ve got a Bounty Hunter or Run ‘em Down - removal jobs can be defended by everyone but Allie. If you win the shootout, sure, you take out an expendable dude or two but then you get hit with Hot Lead Flyin’ and are taking multiple casualties yourself. You need to try and win, because the Hot Lead decks are decent shooters in their own right and use Hot Lead as insurance in the case of a loss, but as winning is more painful than losing you’re going to end up coming out of the shootout worse off whatever you do.
As for tech against it, No Funny Stuff shuts it down if you can get it to stick. Shield of Faith will keep you safe as long as you win the round, and Martyr’s Cry can reduce your casualties win or lose. A solo dude with Holy Roller is also safe. So… Blessed seem to be the answer to Hot Lead decks, but they haven’t fared too well overall over the past year.
Another option is making use of things like Cookin’ Up Trouble, Nathan Shane and Sight Beyond Sight and removing Hot Lead Flyin’ from your opponent’s hand before they can get to use it. I’m sure there are other things you can do to beat it that I can’t think of just now.
To add to Doomdog, another option is to simply force your opponent to spread out so that they have less dudes to bring in the big fight, then engage them in multiple skirmishes so that you can outmaneuver and pick them off one by one. If you’re playing with some big studs, like Gadgets decks tend to do, In a critical round send one stud to fight them alone, assuming he’s going to win and soak the HLF, and then use the rest of your studs to clear them up.
I think No Funny Stuff is the easiest card to use as a tech against it. If you wait until they played a few cards already that turn and have 2-3 cards left in their hand (or 1 even better), a NFS can be a guarantee you won’t run into HLF that turn.
The thing for me is the cost - or rather lack of cost. The cost in an optimal setting would be that it is hard to structure the deck around it - however this is not the case anymore. You are able to construct a deck with a lot of dudes so you can play attrition shootout and the same time hit with several casualties using hlf if you lose the shootout. There is no real cost in it other than the card slot.
If we compare it to Take Ya With Me, which is a Q value so other costs should apply, however, you are not only dependent on your own choices you are depending on your opponent to enter a shootout with dudes with fewer bullets than you AND it only gives 1 casualty.
Another issue - and this might just be me, but I find that it is difficult as it is a react on taking casualties rather than a resolution - which you could then see coming. There is a lot of casualty reduction out there that is resolutions but if you use it, in front, your opponent can hold on to HLF to the next round. I would have liked it to be a resolution (my secret agenda of course is to be able to cancel it with A Slight Modification).
I just played a Law Dogs voltron cas reduction deck (I can stay longer in the shootout as I take no casualties). Although the HLF decks I played against were concerned with my deck it really fell to the ground (mostly because of mugging - which I really like). My experience with the actual cas reduction was that most of them as resolutions didnt work well, while the shootout abilities that at the same time reduced casualties were quite strong.
The last thing, not mentioned already, I see against HLF is Mario Crane - the problem is winning shootouts just with him.
Ive played with and against HLF alot over the last 4 months, so here is a bit of what i’ve learned. If your deck is a shooty deck, and you’re not running either HLF or shield of faith, then you will have a 90% loss rate against another deck using HLF. Since its possible to build a HLF deck that starts high value dudes and runs super tight structure in 3 values lower than the starting posse, its unrealistic to think that by forcing a shootout with a single dude that you will represent enough pressure to force them to use it.
Decks with Shield of faith are a good option, but then again, it doesn’t auto beat a HLF deck as long as they’ve built for solid shootout structure, they may just choose fight you with their 10+ cheap dudes they have in play and win thru attrition. But yeah, Shield of faith + quickdraw revolver+good shootout actions does represent a solid way to matchup well against HLF decks, if not be favored. If there’s a way to make this deck out of Crusaders, and make it competitive against Slide, then Law Dogs may get to make it back to the adults table.
No funny stuff may stop it for a round, and if they dont randomly discard it by truying to turn NFB off then they just retreat and wait for next round, possibly without taking any casualties if they won that first round. Sight beyond Sight will possibly discard 1, and is a reasonable option as well, but by no means with either of these cards flat out “stop” the deck. They simply provide a small window where you may be able to bet that you wont get hit in the face with it, which again doesnt auto win you the game.
Playstyle wise, its not realistic to believe that you’ll spread them out far enough that their HLF is ineffective, unless its very very early game and you are also playing 4th Ring control, mostly because they dont care enough about what you’re doing on your side of the board. Out of Den, Allie is the clock, so the HLF deck really doesn’t need more than 2 deeds in play, and unless you are slide, probably doesn’t care about yours enough to want to decommit from town square.
Did you ever run into anyone using Flight of the Lepus to kick either your casualty sponges or your high value dudes out of the shootout? Your Den deck looks very tough to beat. Having recently played against @Whizzwang’s 108 HLF which can operate in a similar fashion - horde of dudes protecting Allie in the town square - I know how much of a pain they are and I’ve been trying to think of ways to counter it. It isn’t easy!
Im glad you asked that. The Jia Mien deck currently posted in DTDB as reaching top 4 in the same event is a great example of a shooty deck without HLF that stands a chance at winning the game, as it runs Flight, Sight beyond Sight and No Funny Stuff.But even with all that hate, it still has a win percentage under 50%. Flight actually ends up mattering less than the other 2, as i can just choose to make a legal full house and not worry about losing to a 4 of a kind, cause of the HLF.
I havent played against Whizzwang’s version (though to be honest after looking at the deck on DTDB i dont understand its economy) but my top 4 matchup was against a 108 desires HLF with Rico piloted by Kilian Downey and we went into a long game 3 where we each had 3 HLFs in hand, 10+ dudes, but i had town square and Allie ratcheting up. our “big Shootout” started with us both revealing legal full houses 3s/4s to tie exact hands, then i just went with a 3 of a kind legal to ensure that i lost next round, and cause 20+ casualties with the 3 HLFs in hand
My thoughts are either hit ‘n’ run shotgun/legendary holster decks out of Law Dogs for Bounty Hunters and Mortimer/Morgan Stables with Run 'em Down & Personal Ornithopter, or an Eagle Warden pile of hex jank that relies on too many cards to actually work (Danny Wilde + Idol of Tlazolteotl + Mayfair Family Deck + Puppet).
Flight of the Lepus helps counter HLF, reducing overall potential casualties.
Combine that with actually winning by a few hand ranks (my favorite: Force Field + INWYK) means they often don’t have the ability to wreck you afterward, maybe just take a casualty or two.
That said, I’m the main person using HLF in my meta…and I know it stings quite a bit for the others…
I’m not convinced of HLF’s superiority/inevitability as the main or dominant archetype. There are plenty of tools and tactics available to have at least an even chance. It might be brutal and powerful, but so is clown control, and slide, and in some cases fortress decks.
I’m glad that a shooty deck has officially made it into the ‘OMG the game will be dominated by X now!’ category. At Gencon it was clowns, after that it was Fortress, at the first Outlaw event it was slide, and now it’s HLF. Imagine what it’ll be next…
PS. Also, I understand that if this solely dominates your meta that it can be frustrating, but if so send me a message. I have a fun deck that already does well against it, but could be tweaked more to really kick its ass. I’m playing a version of it in the league, so I’d rather not post it publicly QUITE yet.
wow, hey that’s an idea. Not posting a deck during tournament. I agree that HLF is so agrivating when you get hit by it. What I dislike is that many of the ways to deal with it are thought as cheap, or as not fun as HLF.
Hey, I’d love to be wrong about it. I’ll be playing in the OCTGN league with Den of thieves primarily, so if anyone thinks they have a deck that can beat it and be competitive to the rest of the field at the same time then i encourage you to join the league play starting on the 22nd and show me what im missing.
I dont think you are missing anything as such - I think you built a really strong deck.
However, I also think it has some weak points. Basically it builds on drawing a HLF or on attrition due to the large number of dudes. However it doesnt have any card drawing and due to the somehow low number of studs (barring Stakes) it cheats fairly often especially if you use Barton and/or Den. That combined with only 2 cards that can force a shootout gives your opponent time to set up. The good thing about that though is that you put down a lot of dudes in that time - but you give the opponent the initiative and choice of when to face you. Again there is the Allie timer - which might be able to force a shootout earlier than she would like.
Now there are different ways of countering HLF, but I think it is more prudent to think about how to counter your deck instead of finding the ‘silver bullet’ to HLF.
Rope & Ride would be an interesting thing to try against a Hot Lead deck. You’re either picking dudes off without the threat of HLF or drawing a lot of dudes out of position making it easier for you to move around and do stuff.
Yeah, low number of stud guys can definitely be a risk at times, no disagreement there. I would only say to your analysis that for card draw there is 4xTusk, 2xPony Express and the 1st Baptist Church, which i dont consider to be a negligible amount
But i will say you’ve probably pinned down the best way to counteract the strategy, which is not to answer HLF but to play with an archtype that uses a Den or 108 desires deck’s weaknesses for its strengths. Im not sure what that deck would be, im extremely confident it isnt Slide, but in building this is probably the best direction to take. Happy hunting!
“i will say you’ve probably pinned down the best way”
There’s a card right there that will help lots vs HLF - Pinned Down If you can get rid of their high value dudes, even just a couple, they quickly lose steam because most don’t have very many high value dudes outside of their starting posse.
In fact, Pinned Down is one of those vastly underrated cards these days, where the need to take out a certain dude is getting more critical with each saddlebag.
One thing I really like about this game is the fact that you can just pick up a base set and build a decent competitive deck because a lot of the cards in it are still solid choices.
I’ll confess that I’m not a fan of lose to win in general and hot lead flying in particular. Classic negative play experience (particularly as the HLF deck will often tie shootouts and then lose due to having a lower value hand at its particular rank). I also feel it limits the field: while it is pleasing to see a shootout deck doing well, this shutsdown a lot of other shootout decks.
I think hot lead flying has grown stronger as we now have more cheap high value dudes than were present at the beginning of the game. This problem is exacerbated by some of these cheap high value dudes having influence.
I agree with Suzy309 that as the game has grown the deck construction costs of HLF have diminished. I fear this problem will grow worse as more sets are printed.
- which I really like). My experience with the actual cas reduction was that most of them as resolutions didnt work well, while the shootout abilities that at the same time reduced casualties were quite strong.
If you can get rid of their high value dudes, even just a couple, they quickly lose steam because most don’t have very many high value dudes outside of their starting posse.