Po Chi Lam

By Tomasi Akimeta, Jr. June 12, 1997

3 Proving Grounds (the Po Chi Lam school/ clinic)
3 City Park (where his students train)
2 Festival Circle (where his student meditate)
1 Whirlpool of Blood
1 Ring of Gates (Wong Fei Hong's Students)
2 Ice Healer
3 Ice Tiger (hopefully these these'll change after Throne Wars)
2 Fire Warriors
2 Golden Candle Society
4 Shaolin Monk
3 Righteous Fist ("Sifu! Your mind has been clouded!") (Fei Hong's Star Students)
4 Fire Martyr
4 Red Monk (Fei Hong's Training Regiment)
4 Iron and Silk ("See, here? Don't block with your arm... instead, pull your opponent, so he loses balance...")
4 Flying Windmill Kick (the "No Shadow Kick"!)
3 Heat of the Battle ("Students! Regroup!")
2 Wing of the Crane ("You will not take control of my mind... 'Kii-YAAAH!'"...)
2 Netherworld Return ("Weh! It's Wong Fei Hong! I thought we killed him!")
2 Wind on the Mountain
1 Spirit Pole ("Remember your training, Fei Hong...")
1 Shield of Pure Soul ("Run! Get Sifu Wong! He'll know what to do!")
1 King of the Fire Pagoda (Fei Hong's father, Wong Kei Ying)
1 Wong Fei Hong (the Main Man himself)
--Card Total: 54

Notes:

This deck was inspired from watching Jet Li's "Once Upon A Time In China" and "The Last Hero In China". I wanted to build a Hand deck to where I didn't want to depend on stopper cards to win. To me, with this theme, I wanted a purely combat oriented deck, with almost nothing to do with "The Principles of the Hand", so to speak. Using other cards than the "normal" stuff to punch through to your opponent's sites, hence no Confucian Stability.
It's basically a fun deck to play, and not a real tournament winner, but if it's played right, and you're smart, you can do pretty well with it. One thing that this lacks is a good ammount of Power generation. Heat of the Battle helps this, but can sometimes be heavy in hand early on. I didn't put in any Drunken Stances because it seemed to weigh heavy in my hand at times. I'd would like to input some Hands Without Shadow, Death Touch, or Fortune of the Turtle, but I'm afraid I'd lose the overall theme of the deck. It doesn pretty well, if you don't sit and turtle all day long. I'd like to find room for Laughter of the Wind, but then I'm afraid I'd lose power generation. It's a pretty basic design, since there's no real strategy to this, with the exception of Wing of the Crane. I love this card, especially against the Ascended. Not only can this thing be offensive (get rid of a rather Huge Enemy Hitter when you make a bid for the win), you can play this on your own character if an Ascended player Shadowy Mentors someone you want to keep (mainly Fei Hong and the Fire King). Plus, if your big guys have taken heavy damage, they'll come back in two turns, and be reinvigorated.

Last modified: October 24, 1997.