Hi, i planning on making a law dogs deck but i want to keep legal but still having a good draw structure.
Normally, i make my decks like everyone (i think), 3 values and maybe 2-4 cards out of value. That give me goods full or poker but most time cheating.
Have you got any tips to have good hand staying legal? (Beyond having a 3+ stud dude)
The best results I’ve had trying to keep the balance between legal and good ranks is to aim for a straight flush and back it up with a value for full house/four of a kind. I’ve built a law dogs deck revolving around the legendary holster and it played clubs from A to 8 and all available twos of every kind with satisfying results.
You have to bear in mind that straight flushes need good shooters or to dominate the shootout via good actions, like the holster/shotgun or faster on the draw/sun in your eyes, but you can pull some full houses without much effort, aside from checking your discard pile.
I haven’t played a lot as Law Dogs, but it’s always felt to me like having cheatin’ punishment really supports a middle of the road draw structure (flush to straight flush). Cheatin’ against them is a total drag.
Say we’re in a big shootout, he’s got cards in his hand and Tommy Harden in his posse. I’ve got the option between taking a cheatin’ 4 of a kind, or discarding one of the cards and taking a legal 3 of a kind (alas, no Full House). This is forcing me between two bad choices. If I take the 4 of a kind, he gets either +1 or +2 hand rank, and can play a lot of nasty cheatin’ resolution cards. If I take the 3 of a kind, he could just have a waaay better hand than me.
From what I’ve seen, basically what @Pachinko said.
The alternative would be to have a deck with very loose structure and Shootout actions/Resolutions that discard/ace and reduce casualties to mitigate your lower chances of a good hand. If your meta is full of 3x16 decks and sees a lot of cheating, pack a bunch of Cheatin’ Resolutions. Quickdraw Handgun and Bottom Dealin’ are awesome in that type of deck.
I see… but whats happen with the other suits when you go for a flush… do you deny get for example hearts when triying this or copies of the cards?
I go ‘soft structure’ of mostly 3x (‘must see cards e.g. SIYE, FotD go 4x and some 1x or 2x).
My typical structure is 13 x 3 on 3 values or a strong/major suit of 13-14x and one or two ‘soft or minor suits’ of 11-12x. Good shooting but less prone to cheatin’ and can usually win lowball vs. stacked decks. I also pack a lot of bullet reductions. I find my meta doesn’t punish cheatin’ often enough which plays into the 16 x3 game plan. So Coachwhip, This’ll Hurt in the Mornin’, and What you KNow and the odd bottom dealin’ are staples for me. I also love me some QuickDraw Handgun (+1 bullet even if they never cheat and a devastating punishment effect). What Doomdog said. 
The Cracow Sheriff Event looks to have a good structure
http://dtdb.co/en/decklist/1212/cracow-sheriff-event-2015-winner
The idea to play 2 values and focus on club flush sounds nice.
Since he only has 1 single 4 of clubs i can’t see how a straight flush would turn up without a lot of luck…
Though i’m not very experienced in deckbuilding, i’m very interested in this topic. Yesterday i tried a law dogs deck with 3-4x A-5 of clubs and got one straight flush in the end with 8+0 bullets, really helped in that shootout (though the game really went on for a while before that).
I dont think that he pretend to draw a straight… the idea is to get only a flush, or a full or a poker with those 2 x16 values.
If the other player cheats, he can play bottom dealing or any other cheating resolution to drop the value under the flush.