People who’ve played against me online have undoubtedly run into this deck at some point. The deck is amazingly robust; it can keep up with fast duelers and hold its own in multi as well. Ladies and Gentlemen, without further ado, I give you Turbo Ho:
5 Little Grasshopper
4 Golden Candle Society
4 Railroad Workers
1 Derek Han
2 Lui Yu Min
2 Kwan Lung-Wei
2 Redeemed Pirate
1 Hung Hei Kwon
3 Sword Saint
2 Shield of Pure Soul
2 Heat of Battle
2 Wind on the Mountain
3 The Red Harvest
3 Violet Meditation
2 Invincible Chi
4 Confucian Stability
2 Blade Palm
3 The Willow Bends...
4 Shaolin Hoedown
2 Mysterious Return
5 Proving Ground
2 City Park
1 Monkey House
2 Whirlpool of Blood
1 Petroglyphs
1 Temple of the Angry Spirits
1 Waterfall Sanctuary
In this article, I will go over the decisions I made building the deck, how to play it and common mistakes that you can make playing this deck.
Ever since 2FT, I figured it should be possible to build a Hand deck whose speed can match that of a Turbo CHAR or a Turbo Corpse deck. The main problem in building a fast Hand deck was that, unlike the Architects, the Hand didn’t have a large character that can be played off of a single resource, meaning that you’d had to drop two or more of them and be short on power for the turn 2 hitter. The key enabling card was The Red Harvest: this wonderful card, thoroughly discussed elsewhere, lets you load up on resources with rabid speed, and thus the idea of the Turbo Shi Ho Quai deck, or Turbo Ho for short, was born.
But the real push came in SSG with Shaolin Hoedown and The Willow Bends. These cards give the deck staying power and make it truly dangerous. Shaolin Hoedown lets you play characters with impunity, knowing that you’ll get the power back should some ill fortune befall them, and Willow Bends provides both resource ramp and punch-through.
At the core of the deck lies a rapid power ramp. To play a hitter in turn 2 will cost at least 5 power (Redeemed Pirate + foundation, or 2 foundations and Sword Saint). Ideally, we want multiple ways of pulling off this kind of power generation that stack with each other, so that it becomes possible to play even bigger guys in turn 2. The most straightforward way of getting 5 power by turn 2 is Violet Meditation and Proving Ground. But the Hand doesn’t stop here: a timely Railroad Workers provides another power in a pinch, Red Harvest can supply 1-2 power in turn 1, Heat of Battle provides a power or two if you opened with a Proving Ground, or if the opponent attacks on his second turn after playing a site. Willow Bends can provide a resource, which in the opening setup is worth a power as well, and may be worth playing on your opponent’s site after you damaged it with your own character, just to get the resource. If your first site wasn’t a Proving Ground, but a Monkey House, you have a fair chance of gaining two power off of that by the time you’re in your second turn. With all this synergistic power gen, the deck manages to frequently drop 6 fighting on the table by turn 2, and sometimes even big ugly things like Lui Yu Min.
The next thing to think about is the appropriate choice of hitters. The deck’s namesake, Shi Ho Kuai, is alas rather unsuitable. For 6 power (3 for foundations, 3 for Shi Ho), you at best get a 4 fighting character that can be blanked, and that only if you are lucky enough to actually draw enough resources. As the deck usually has an easier time generating power than resources, low resource hitters are what you’re looking for. Another good trait in a hitter is self-defense (Hung Hei Kwon and Kwan Lung-Wei) that stops your early investment from dying to an untimely Nerve Gas, or worse, getting Killdeer’d. Self-healing (Redeemed Pirate) or pumping (again Hung) are also great to get to that first site on turn 2 if you don’t draw any Willow Bends. Finally, my personal favorite is Lui Yu Min. He only costs a total of 7 power (two resources and 5 play cost), and for that you get a CHAR with 8 fighting and conditional Superleap! What’s there not to like? Kwan Lung-Wei deserves some special mentioning: even though his event defense usually is a plus, two of the deck’s main tricks don’t work on him: Willow Bends and Shaolin Hoedown. He likes the empty table, and combos well with Mysterious Return (since he actually stays in play once the Mysterious part wears off), but other hitters are usually a better choice for an early play.
Now that you’ve got your big stick on the board, how do you keep him? This is where Shaolin Hoedown’s strongest side shows: investment protection. When you play an early hitter, there is not enough fighting on the table to beat him down. But any event can take him handily, and poof!, your early surge is down the drain and you’ll spend several turns to recover. So you’d better wait for another turn until you can pay for the hitter and the Confucian. But with Hoedown, you can protect your investment for free. What, you’re Gassing my Lui? Oh, you mean you’re Gassing YOUR Lui! Wait, I’ll take that 5 power while you put him into my smoked pile. Since Lui probably was played at a discount, courtesy of Proving Ground, you now actually have more power than before. A single card changes the entire dynamic of the game: you can now overextend without any risk, meaning you will take a turn 2 site more often as you can toss caution in the wind. As a side benefit, the Hoedown will provide you with some power after Lui just Mysteriously Returned from the dead to stomp a big attacker into the ground, adding insult to injury. Thus, Turbo Ho stays an adequate name for the deck, only now the Ho comes from Hoedown. The second protector of your sticks is The Willow Bends. What Hoedown is for events, Willow Bends is for combat damage, letting your hitter roll right over whatever may be in the way and coming out unscathed to take the site.
If for some reason you should be unsuccessful and fall behind, that usually isn’t a problem, either. The deck loves being attacked: Shield of Pure Soul, City Park, Mysterious Return, Heat of Battle all can sweeten the deal and let you end up with gobs of power to mount your comeback the next turn. The worst thing your opponents can do to you is ignore you after they have ground you into the dust, but the grinding into the dust will require attacking in the first place, and if they don’t attack you, play sites until they do or you produce enough power to catch up.
So, what are the deck’s most serious problems? Mostly, they come from overconfidence. If you can drop the hitter by turn 2, make sure he is supported by at least one of the cards mentioned above. Be sure you’re not left stranded without power, eg with only a Proving Ground in play, no power in your pool, and no events that generate power in your hand. If the opponent has a Whirlpool, you’ll be sifting through your deck for several turns before you can get back in the game. Another big issue is giving sites to other players. Make sure you are fairly certain that you’ll take the site you’re attacking, or attack to the left if you can’t see where you’re going. Finally, do not be afraid to toss cards that you can’t use. This may appear more difficult in this deck, since you’ll often be sitting on really great, really cheap events that would be awesome if you could only draw a hitter. Chuck them! They are worthless until you actually draw that hitter! Most of the abovementioned “flaws” are actually more bad play than issues with the deck. When you take a site, may sure you have enough power to play a backup hitter next turn before you seize or burn for victory. There is a disproportionate amount of hitters in the deck, and there really is no reason not to play them all, especially since all your opponents will gang up on you once you take the lead. You have to be able to outproduce the entire table if push comes to shove, and while the deck lets you ramp up quickly in power, it cannot sustain this rate without burning for power.
But it’s still 66 cards in a speed deck, you say. I find the deck works well as it is, bit I’m still tinkering with it, trying to tune it even more. If I were to reduce its size some more, the first thing to go would probably be the Red Harvests. You need at least three to make them work at a decent frequency, so it’s an all or nothing deal with them. I like to use them mid- to late game to clear my hand if I drew a lot of foundation characters or sites, but I guess they are not absolutely necessary. If I were to add anything, it’d probably be a Fist of Shadow or some Secrets of the Shaolin. The Invincible Chi were mostly tossed in for the Gatling metagame. Rare is the game were you don’t see at least one Fox Pass, City Square, Kinoshita House or the like. Given the amount of events in the deck, it would probably be easy to splash in Seven Masters, but I think that may dilute the focus of the deck too much.
While the deck is designed to deliver fast and brutal beatdowns, I find it much more enjoyable to play than most decks of that type. Speed Ho really is a deck for all occasions for me: I play it in duels, 3-player and 4-player, and it does well in every format. I hope you give the deck a spin and see how it does for you. At the very least, you’ll know what’s about to hit you next time you see me playing green cards on Gatling!