Deck List - Australian Championship Deck 2011

Outlaw Express
by Kevin Lowe

Foundations (10):

5 Mad Scientist (RW)
2 Street Gang (BCL)
1 Kamikaze Cosmonauts (CS)
2 Rebel Without a Cause (CS)

Characters (8):

4 Outlaw Bikers (BCL)
3 Jack of All Trades (DF)
1 Tunnel King (EoE)

Power Generation (9):

5 Scrounging (TW)
2 Genocide Lounge (TW)
1 Potlatch (S&S)
1 Jury-RIgged Dynamo (DF)

States (20):

5 Battle-Matic (DF)
5 BoBo Splitter (RW)
4 Shurikens (S&S)
1 Single-Action Devolver (S&S)
5 Thingshot (EoE)

Events (4):

4 Who's the Monkey Now? (TW)

Feng Shui Sites (11):

2 Bountiful Fields (S&S)
1 Coral Reef (DF)
1 Endless Corridor (EoE)
1 Festival Circle (N1)
1 Hall of Portals (N2)
1 Martyr's Tomb (EoE)
1 Ring of Gates (N1)
1 Temple of the Angry Spirits (TW)
2 Whirlpool of Blood (N1)

This deck runs deliberately and dangerously low on foundations and FSS, and mostly gets away with it because all of its characters are dirt cheap and nearly a quarter of the deck is made up of Shurikens, BoBo Splitters and Thingshots that you can almost always play immediately, so you cycle cards vey rapidly.

Bountiful Fields and Coral Reef are strong in this deck because its power is proportional to the number of cards it sees, and being able to churn through seven or eight cards per turn instead of six means your Battlematics are a vital few points of fighting better than they otherwise would be by the mid-game. Hall of Portals gives pseudo-Mobility to Mad Scientists, Kamikaze Cosmonauts and Jacks of All Tradeseses, and Mobility is very strong in this deck because head-on fights almost always favour you.

It never came into play but Genocide Lounge plus Endless Corridor seems like it should be very strong. Martyr's Tomb is there as a defence against decking, since you can recur Outlaw Bikers who in turn recur Battlematics, but the potential is there to reload Jack of All Trades if you need more state cycling.

I only realised today, after the tournament, that I've been underplaying the Outlaw Bikers, since I didn't consciously realise that you can play a new state on them every Main Shot. I was just using them to replay Battle-Matics on the turn I played them. So for example I could have pulled Shurikens out of the smoked pile, used them, and then sacrificed them with a Thingshot for three free damage. Or if I needed mass ping I could have replayed and then sacrificed BoBo Splitters. Or if I needed to monkeyfy an annoying character I could have pulled the Single-Action Devolver out of the smoked pile to do the job.

There is no protection against character theft because basically you just don't care: people who steal your 10 Fighting Outlaw Bikers with Toughness: 1 get a 2 Fighting Outlaw biker with Toughness: 1, since Battle-Matic keys off the controller's smoked pile.

I should probably put the Buffalo Soldier I pulled out back in this deck too, since Events caused me more trouble than anything else.