Awesome write-up and Summary!

Can't say it enough how fun it was to play, and represent….largest Regional event….not to SHUBBy (couldn't resist the pun).

CHeers.

kamacausey said:

kamacausey,

My apologies for not replying sooner, things have been super busy on my end.

First off, I would describe my deck as greater than the sum of its parts, which is both a strength and a weakness. On the plus side, it's cheap, blindingly fast, and can dominate the story struggles no matter what kind of opponent I'm facing.

On the downside, because my deck is focused on skill manipulation - as opposed to my characters' icons or other abilities - it requires a certain rhythm to work, as well as hitting the "skill tipping point" where my opponent can't do much to stop me. Breaking its momentum generally leads to a complete collapse - at least the way I was playing it at regionals. In hindsight, I might try a different approach depending on my opponent.

To answer your questions:

1) WHAT CARDS DIDN'T WORK?

The only card that didn't work, and I always resourced, was O'Bannion's Ledger.

It's not because this isn't a good card, or that it doesn't combine well with my deck, it does. I resourced it because I felt my deck was built around speed, and I needed to build up my character base first before bringing out more expensive attachments. By the time I was ready to play O'Bannion's Ledger my deck had already won or lost (5 out of 6 games were over in less than 10 minutes).

This is the same reason I rarely played Dutch Courage, which is a card I thought would be a must-have staple to combat Khopesh. I never really needed it as my toughest opponents were playing with sacrifice/destruction effects instead of wounding.

I might also take out Intimidate. At the struggles I was either winning everything or losing everything, so exhausting 1 of my opponent's characters didn't help as much as I expected. It's still nice, but I may try something different.

While essential to my deck's success, Parallel Universe turned out to be a double-edge sword. During the tournament I thought my best opening play was Tattoo Artist, Parallel Universe and then Fixer (for 1), especially if I was going second. This allowed me to gain the momentum right from the start, and could fluster my opponent. If I could bring out more characters, or eliminate any major threats with Bound and Gagged or Tear Gas, then I would win quickly.

However, if my opponent could destroy my early characters to the point that I no longer had skill advantage, I was in trouble as this would grant my opponent an automatic win at the story where Parallel Universe was attached. Or, if my opponent could disrupt my deck's rhythm (e.g. by knocking out key character or attachment in play), then my deck would fall apart as my characters were chosen mainly to work in tandem with each other so I could dominate on skill. By themselves, they aren't that powerful and are susceptible to terror, combat, etc…

In retrospect, I would hold back on Parallel Universe and use a different attachment to bring out the Fixer. Then I would wait until I could be sure of my skill advantage, or have Mr. David Pan in play. I still feel Parallel Universe is an essential card (and it pairs nicely with Fixer and Marcus Jamburg), but it's not a no-brainer. Going forward I need to be more careful in how I play it.

2) WHAT CARDS WORKED BETTER THAN EXPECTED?

Cards that worked better than expected were Fixer, Tattoo Artist, and Marcus Jamburg. The first 2 in particular were my workhorses. The rest - Mr. David Pan, Clover Club Torch Singer, Tear Gas, Bound and Gagged, Ice Shaft - performed as expected.

A special mention must be made of Hack Journalist. This card was my secret weapon, to be used in case my deck won 2 story cards and then fizzled out, which I find happens a lot to my rush decks. Whenever building a quick deck I always like to have a second attack angle to capture my third story card. This was doubly important at our regionals because I knew I would be facing a lot of Cthulhu, and once that faction gets rolling it can be hard to stop.

The problem with Hack Journalist is that you really have to plan ahead to use him properly. There's a very small window when he can enter play and steal your opponent's success tokens (optimally 4), and then you can pick up the 5th for a win if needed. And that's an easy window to miss.

Because my deck can run well on just a 2-1-1 domain set-up, I wasn't always resourcing and sometimes missed my opportunity to utilize Hack Journalist. I think part of the problem is that I was playing the role of Tournament Organizer, social host, judge and player all at the same time, and it was taking a toll. I spent the days (weeks, really) leading up to the event wrapping up last minute details instead of focusing on my deck. I don't think extra prep would've made any difference in 2 of my losses, but it might have helped in a third.

3) CARDS I'M GOING TO TRY NEXT?

Cards I'm going to try out are 2 you suggested - Crowbar and Diseased Sewer Rats. I'm going to take out O'Bannion's Ledger and either Feint or Intimidate (probably Intimidate). I'm going to play this deck at our "Mythos n' Microbrews" game day next Saturday (along with some other decks), and see if I can play it a bit slower, and a bit smarter. I'm keen to test it in a multi-player game.

Great notes there, Yipe.

Yeah, I can see the problem with Hack Journalist being considerably more expensive than the rest of the deck. If he continues to not fire properly then I'd look at replacing him with something else or see if there's an Event or something you can use to build up a domain more quickly when needed.

Parallel Universe is a risk, if you're not SURE you have more skill you're potentially giving your opponent a gift.

I'm not surprised Tattoo Artist did well, I've always found her to be a clutch card for Syndicate too, although I usually go with more exhausting and tying up effects rather than 100% skill reduction. The Clover Club cards are a bit too small an effect to make the cut for me. Fixer too is a great deal as long as you have any sort of supports, and Syndicate usually does. Bound & Gagged is a good one.

dboeren said:

My deck currently includes 11 attachments, so getting Fixer out for 1 was no problem. I may up that to 12 attachments if I take 3 Crow Bars (in place of O'Bannion's Ledger and something else).

Regarding exhausting vs skill reduction, I already have a Silver Twilight/Syndicate deck that focuses on bouncing and exhausting so I wanted to try something different with my mono-Syndicate deck. It did have Panic, but I took it out due to the number of neutral cards I'm running.

I agree with you about Clover Club Bouncer. His only saving grace was acting as cheap sacrifice fodder to protect my more valuable characters. He may get axed in favor of Diseased Sewer Rats.

The Torch Singer was quite good when paired with either Tear Gas or Ice Shaft (especially Ice Shaft when I can bring it back into play with Marcus Jamburg), so I'm keeping her.

My original ST/SY deck was really good Yipe… but I found that destruction tends to work better when paired with bouncing, at least for my play-style. I ended up going with a ST/AG deck, FWIW. Still, ST/SY was a hell of a lot of fun!