Otherwise known as: why I will never play my deck again!
Zeetoois playing his brutal 108 Worldly Shooter
- vs -
Prodigy and his god-awful Gun & Run Morgan Stables Quasi-slide
Last night Zeetoois and I decided to play one match to determine who would go on to the OCTGN league finals. What ensued was over 4 hours of pure madness, frustration, and hilarity. Have you ever played a single one on one game of doomtown that lasted more than 4 hours? I don’t recommend it, but huge props to Zeetoois for putting up with my BS for so long. I will never play this deck again - at least not heavily modified. Also, I blame Swider for inspiring the creation of this deck.
“Tournament report” / Deck write-up:
My deck for reference: WARNING, DO NOT EVER PLAY THIS DECK UNLESS YOU HATE YOUR OPPONENT
Will probably publish it to dtdb some day when I have more time, but for now it’s a Gomorra Gazette exclusive.
http://dtdb.co/en/deck/view/23875
(technically since The Curtain Rises wasn’t active on OCTGN yet, I had to substitute out the High Stakes Haven for a Maza Gang Hideout)
To be fair to myself, I did play this at least 5 or 6 times in the OCTGN league leading up to this semi-finals game, and none of the games lasted more than the typical hour or so and this won every time. Even so, it is likely frustrating to play against even when the game isn’t long.
Early game strategy is similar my original Flyin Zombies (same starting posse) Morgans Flyin Zombies · DoomtownDB , where you use Specks and Arnold Stewart to pump out cheap out of town deeds (or discounted in-town ranches) and currency presses to massively kickstart your economy. Ornithopter can go on Irving for another 1 GR a turn, unless you suspect A Slight Modification or unprepared AND you don’t win lowball (very rare circumstance).
Mid to late game is massively different, though, so instead of gearing up for a flying, force-fielded zombie - you build up more deeds and do hit-and-run assassinations with asyncoil gun and/or Takin Ya With Me. Mid game can either play like an annoying shoot-and-run deck, or a stay-at-home slide deck. Later game it is always guaranteed to be both.
The huge advantage of the Morgan Stables is it’s react. If you have a mustang, you can call out any booted dude anywhere in the game, uninterrupted. Slide has trouble with Allie if they have an unbooted dude in town square protecting her. With the Stables home, you can move to town square and immediately call her out. Chances are high you’ve won lowball (and if not, just wait one more round) so you can instantly gun her down without the opponent having a chance to do anything other than maybe A Slight Modification. If you have a mustang, these are suicide missions designed for either Travis, Henry, The Wretched, or Steven Wiles. If you have an Ornithoper and a Run 'Em Down! then you can hit any adjacent dude, and run away before the fight resolves. If it is a suicide run, you can take out 2 dudes with only one of yours with the help of Takin Ya With me in addition to the Asycoil. Make sure you load up your suicide-vest with plenty of Currency Presses for the card-draw icing on the cake. Very dirty tactics…
This ‘gun and run’ is especially brutal when you have The Wretched with an Asycoil Gun. Add Stone Idol for more hilarity. I played one game vs Shekky Ducky where, with the help of Charlie’s Place, I was able to gun down a value of Jack or lower (4+2+3+2). I could have killed his Lula Exp (11 value) but I screwed up the play and didn’t remember Maza Gang wasn’t adjacent to town square so Rum 'Em Down! had to go after another dude at his home. Still, Asycoil gunning a value 11!!! That’s clearly not common, but just the Wretched with the gun and no other help is still a very respectable value 6.
The slide aspect of the deck is straight forward and normal-boring slide. Movement shenanigans with horses, and the threat of Takin Ya With Me keeps things extra annoying.
Problems with this deck: First and foremost, if you don’t get good draws early the game will go on FOREVER. I played this at an OP tournament recently (I was naive to this problem at the time, it had been doing fine on OCTGN) and half my games went to time. This deck will usually win when time is called, but nobody wants to win that way, let alone LOSE that way. It’s bad, so don’t play it in any tournament setting!
Problem 2: Asycoil Gun only discards dudes. If you have limited time, it’s probably fine, but last night it sucked. I would have much preferred a shotgun - the extra +1 bullet rating and free cost (from Specks) just isn’t worth it. There is also the small chance of pulling a club, but between the very small chance and the Test Range, it’s not usually a problem. Still… if you want to play the most obnoxious deck ever, then switch those out for shotguns.
My game vs Zeetoois last night is the epitome of how awful this deck can get. Pretty much the whole game, had we called time, this decks combined control+influence was way ahead, but I think we both agreed nobody wants to win or lose that way so we trudged on for 4 and a half hours or so. He got Allie on turn 1, which is normally game over for most slide decks. (I consider this a half-slide deck, since it purposefully and somewhat-regularly gets into shootouts to KILL things, not just run away) Anyway, I was able to quickly get a Mustang and Asycoil gun on Travis, and that spelled certain doom for Allie. Thus, the game went on… and on… and on. It went back and forth between me doing a gun-and-run on the highest influence dude I could (which usually ended up in suicide), and Zeetoois trying to take over as many deeds as possible and occasionally running an Ambush on my highest influence dude. After he took out a 5 influence dude, I just replaced it with a 4 influence Lula, who made my ghost rock skyrocket even higher. Rinse, repeat, along with several muggings that always went unopposed (Whately Estate just brought those items right back into the mix).
There were at least a couple times where things got pretty close one way or the other, but I always had another high influence guy in my hand, or a Ballot Counter with nearly infinite money (I had over 60 GR toward the end, even after having kept Steven Wiles on the payroll for half the game). I only ever used the Ballot Counter once (one noon action for 1 influence), but it was there as a guaranteed stay-alive. Every time I thought I had the game, Zeetois would use Hired Guns to either get back some dude that was previously discarded with Asycoil Gun, or some other useful dude.
We ended very anti-climatically with my f@$#ing internet going out. I had told him a couple hours previously that I was going to concede if things “went to time” - which mostly just meant whenever one of us had to go. I don’t like winning by tie breakers, and I’m not in the league to win. So while we didn’t make any decisions last night, I think this is my formal resignation letter. President Zeetois, please accept this resignation. I submit it with nothing but gratitude and respect for our game last night - please forgive my deck choice!
Also, Zeetoois, as I quickly type this up in my sleep-deprived state on lunch break I may have forgotten something. Feel free to add your corrections or thoughts, Zeetoois.
TLDR: Zeetois goes on to the OCTGN finals, and if Swider doesn’t beat Gozik then hopefully Zeetoois will! Sorry Gozik, we love you, but your reign must end!
