by James Przytulski
At the Origins Final Brawl I played a Dragon/Seven Masters deck I called the Story of the Three Acrobats. I finished third at the Final Brawl with an attendance of around 15-20. This deck is a combat trick deck. This deck attempts to go for an unstoppable or at least difficult to defend against win.
I built this deck on the hypothesis that the best four player decks are the ones that can break through the stalemates that plague multi-player games. The original deck contained one hundred cards with four Wu Bins of Turtle Island, five Scrolls of Incantation, and five Fighting Spirits for search and recursion. The deck would then play a large amount of combat trick events that are notorious to the Dragon faction. Events such as Back for Seconds, Flying Kick, Got My Mojo Working, and Old Hermit’s Gambit are very potent yet very narrow unless you are in the right position. That is why I only play one of each of the trick events. Scroll of Incantation allows me to search out an event, such as Got My Mojo Working, and play it in response to a card such as a Nerve Gas in the same scene. This is because Scroll of Incantation says the event can be played “immediately”. Over time the deck was whittled down to 64 cards. The current incarnation is 64 cards. In the next section I will go over the combat tricks.
The title is a reference to Red Bat, The Seven, and Wu Bin of Turtle Island . Each of these characters has an assortment of combat tricks to take Feng Shui Sites. This is why I called the three characters acrobats. Someone can’t be an acrobat without having tricks right? I haven’t seen Robin’s Final Brawl Gatling Engine winning deck list, but I’ve heard ours are very similar in construction.
Combat Tricks:
Combat tricks win games. Very rarely can one overpower an entire table with three other strong players. This leads me to the conclusion that one must play “combat tricks” to achieve a victory. This deck has what I feel are Dragon’s best combat tricks. They are:
3x Open a Can of Whoopass
1x Back for Seconds
1x Got My Mojo Working
1x Old Hermit’s Gambit
1x “Is that all you got”
1x Kii-Yaah
1x Golden Comeback
Three Open a Can of Whoopass are the main mid-game offense in this deck. Often, I like to begin a game by going for an early burn with a Wu Bin of Turtle Island with two or three tricks against removal. Back For Seconds, “Is that all you Got”, Got My Mojo Working, and Golden Comeback’s effects are obvious. What about Old Hermit’s Gambit? Old Hermit’s Gambit is my answer to cards such as Fox Pass, City Square, Devil’s Mountain, etcetera. Old Hermit’s Gambit won me the Origins game that allowed me to enter into the finals. Josh Kronengold exclaimed “That card is horrible” after I won with it. Of course he was referring to its narrow effect. I have a contrasting viewpoint to the card. I feel the win leading to the finals backs up my opinion as well. What about Kii-Yaah? This card is not a combat trick. Still, Kii-Yaah fits this deck perfectly by being an alternative power generator that can only be used rarely. When Kii-Yaah is used successfully, it is devastating.
The rest of the deck:
Events
3x Fighting Spirit (Event Recusion)
3x Ashes of the Fallen (Event Recusion that can be recurred)
3x Final Brawl (Removal)
3x Dirk Wisely’s Gambit (Power Generation and a Dra Resource)
5x Kunlun Clan Assault (A combat trick plus a foundation)
3x Scroll of Incantation (Wu Bin’s Book when he forgets his spells)
Characters
2x Red Bat (The best hitter in Shadowfist)
2x The Seven (Very difficult to stop hitter)
4x Wu Bin (The tutor that holds the deck together)
3x Hacker (A foundation and anti Bite of the Jellyfish)
5x Friends of the Dragon
5x Student of the Dragon
Feng Shui Sites/Sites
3x Temple of Celestial Mercy (Card Advantage)
3x Petroglyphs (Cancel opposing Removal such as flying sleeves, Fox Pass, City Square, ect)
5x Festival Circle (An answer to targeted removal)
2x Stone Dolmens (An Answer to Shadowy Mentor or Material Transcendence. I may cut a copy now that Mentor is errated)
2x The Bazaar (What I don’t need now I may need later. A crucial card in this deck.)
Unstoppable Win Attempt:
Now that you have the general idea of how this deck functions I will explain how these cards are put into action. First of all this deck is more reactive than proactive. You play your deck based on what the opponent is playing. The deck itself changes based on what factions an opponent is playing. You’re playing against Architect? Play a Festival Circle as soon as you go for an attack. You’re playing against Lotus with five Flying Sleeves and or defensive Feng Shui? Get a Petroglyphs out. You’re playing against a deck that packs a lot of turning cards? Get out Old Hermit’s Gambit. I could go through maybe fifty more examples of how to change your card play based on what the opponent’s are doing. Generally if one has a knowledge of the card pool for each faction, deck construction, and opponent tendencies they should have no problem understanding how to play this deck effectively.
Conclusion:
I would like to stress this is a four player deck. I had to learn this the hard way with some difficult Gatling Engine three player defeats. This deck is fast, but prefers stalemate multi-player games. Three-players games generally have a more unstable board position than four-players games. This deck thrives on stable board positions.