Like for Ike?

Strategy
1

This dude is seminal.

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The hardest thing about making a Sloane deck work is assembling a healthy starting posse - especially if you are working against archetype, trying to get creative with Sloane’s resources, or simply trying to work more in-faction. Hitting the five benchmarks of viable starting posses (Viable Starting Posses: The 10-Point Metric) was, before this dude drops in October, realistically impossible: Your choices went something like:

  1. Run light on Real Influence (ex. use Jake Smiley)
  2. Run light on Real Stud (ex. use Jacqueline Isham)
  3. Run light on Starting Money / Income
  4. Build around Allie Hensman for All-In Townsquare Rush
  5. Expend Tremendous Energy Working Around these Constraints

What Ike Clanton will do is essentially unlock a single constraint of the user’s choice - be it Money, Influence, or Dude Selection - and in doing so enable all sorts of previously just-too-wonky-to-play deck types - be it janky combinations, possibly clever or tangential experiments, or thematic actual “Sloane Gang” story concepts - to be able to have fun playing against a wider variety of the field.

I for one am looking forward to looking back over discarded ideas which may yet be given another life because I can run this dude to not start the game on my back foot.

What will you do with Ike?

7 Likes
2

Ike, Barton, Maria, Antheia and a bullet catcher is looking like a decent starting point for a sluckster deck.

3 Likes
3

Absolutely, @jordan_caldwell. I really wanna start Jimmy “the saint” out of Protection Racket! And now his lack of influence is much less of an issue :wink:

3 Likes
4

Here is what is possible now:

Choose a dude who is not normally considered “starter material” - they have a special ability, skill, and/or trait you want to build around, but are essentially “over-costed” either because they lack Influence, are a Draw, have Upkeep, or just a few ghost rock Too Expensive to set up a good early game.

You can now build an in-faction deck around this dude by starting Ike. Here are three examples:

Q) Your dude lacks Influence and is a Draw but has No Upkeep?
A) Ike, Barton, one from (Maria, Fred, Lawrence, Makaio, Elliot, or Anthea), plus one from (Allie, Silas…)
For a deck that can shoot very well Early

Q) Your dude lacks Influence but is a Stud with Upkeep?
A) Ike, plus two from (Maria, Fred, Lawrence, Makaio, Elliot, or Anthea), plus one from (Allie, Silas…)
For a deck that can shoot Early and/or can develop into Mid/Late

Q) Your dude has Influence but is a Draw with Upkeep?
A) Ike, plus three from (Maria, Fred, Lawrence, Makaio, Elliot, or Anthea).
For a deck that needs time to develop into the Mid/Late

…

And this is all in-faction. Substitute in a Drifter (ex. Clementine, Jake, Johnny, Gina, Travis, Willa, Agent Provocateur, Rico, Jacqueline) or two for even more flexibility and support!

3 Likes
5

Excellent post and summary.

I also think he’s good for spell decks, as I had some old Sloane Gang decks where the starting posse didn’t work so well anymore due to the threat of Full Moon Brotherhood turning off Jake Smiley’s trait. Worst still, these were generally spell decks so it was hard to work in a back-up posse with enough influence (and Jake then went in to the deck to dilute the draw structure and fail pulls).

I like the classification of different decks that are enabled by this dude. Look forward to seeing how he opens up starting posses: playing around with these is great fun and will open up new deck types.