TICKERTAPE 2001
by Andrew Davidson

Below is the deck which I used to win Flashpoint Finchley 58 in May 2001. I first built this deck about 4 years ago and so it has evolved over time. But the key cards which give it its name remain Bull Market and Paper Trail. These require three Ascended resources and so can take a while to get going but, once you can start playing them, the deck will generate lots of power and it should then be able to control the game.

The deck is currently overweight with extra cards from the new Z-Man sets and possibly needs to diet. But like the chubby HK star, Sammo Hung, it can put on a ferocious turn of speed and befuddle opponents with a flurry of blows. The final of this event only took 10 turns but, at the end, I had played 51 cards and had 36 cards in the toasted pile. So, I'd seen 87 cards out of the deck and that's not allowing for several of them being recycled and played more than once.

You have to be careful to check the proportions of a big deck like this. The key stats for this mix are:

18% Feng Shui 29% Foundation 31% Card flow

The deck is at its best in games with 5 or more players. It is unlikely to run out of cards and is capable of creating a lock that will beat any amount of denial. It can still perform well in 3-player games though and qualified for the final by winning one in double-quick time.

My favourite tactic is to play early Bull Markets and so escalate the power level of the game. Other decks will find it difficult to cope with this new environment - either they won't be able to spend the extra power or they will be unable to cope with the extra denial that the power can fuel. This keeps the game bubbling with only an occasional stir while you accumulate resources and power. When all the pieces are in place, you "go nuclear", destroy all denial with cards like Neutron Bomb, Curtain of Fullness and Killing Rain and then occupy the shattered ruins with a weenie or two.

There are lots of potential pitfalls though and I'm still getting the hang of the deck after 4 years of playing it. And it won't get any easier now that I'm revealing my recipe.

Andrew

------------------------------------------------

ASCENDED (67 cards)
-------- 1 Adrienne Hart
1 Bite of the Jellyfish
5 Bull Market
1 Cabinet Minister
1 Cheung Kar-lok
1 Coil of the Snake
1 Competitive Intelligence
1 Covert Operation
1 Draco (new)
2 Faked Death
5 Family Estate
1 Fang of the Snake
5 Liquidators
1 Lodge Politics
1 Military Commandant
1 Monkey King
1 Operation Killdeer
5 Order of the Wheel
5 Paper Trail
1 Political Lock
1 Pulling Strings
1 Realpolitik
1 Roar of the Beast
1 Sabotage
1 Sam Mallory
1 Shadowy Mentor
1 Shinobu Yashida
2 Sting of the Scorpion
1 Strike Force
5 Student of the Bear
1 Suicide Mission
2 Swiss Banker
1 The Eastern King (new)
5 The Pledged
1 Vladimir Kovalov
1 Year of the Snake

ARCHITECTS OF THE FLESH (35 cards)
-----------------------
2 Arcanotechnician
5 Arcanowave Researcher
1 Cellular Reinvigoration
5 CDCA Scientist
5 DNA Mage
1 Dunwa Saleem
1 Expendable Unit
2 Jeroen Becker
1 Nerve Gas
2 Neutron Bomb
2 State of Emergency
5 Sucker Rounds
3 Test Subjects

GUIDING HAND (24 cards)
------------
1 Confucian Stability
5 Golden Candle Society
1 Into the Light
1 Laughter of the Wind
1 Orange Senshi Chamber
5 Shaolin Sanctuary
1 Shield of Pure Soul
1 The Iron Monkey
1 Tranquil Persuader
5 Wind on the Mountain
2 Xiaoyang Yun

FENG SHUI (38 cards)
---------
5 Auspicious Termites
1 Fortress of Shadow
1 Heaven's Peak
1 Jade Valley
3 Locksley Station
1 Monkey House
5 Perpetual Motion Machine
2 Obsidian Mountain
1 Phlogiston Mine
2 Rainforest River
3 Smiling Heaven Lake
2 Sunless Sea Ruins
1 Turtle Beach
5 Turtle Island
5 Whirlpool of Blood

MAGIC (30 cards)
-----
3 Alchemist's Lair (magic)
5 Curtain of Fullness
1 Discerning Fire
5 Farseeing Rice Grains
1 I Ching
2 Killing Rain
1 Lusignan the Fool
1 Lusignan's Automaton
5 Scroll of Incantation
5 Queen of the Ice Pagoda (old)
1 Year of the Rat

HI-TECH (3 cards)
-------
1 Hacker
1 MegaTank
1 Supercomputer

OTHER (11 cards)
-----
1 Art of War
3 Man With No Name
1 The Rackets
1 Wayside Inn
5 White Ninja (new)

Total = 208 cards

------------------------------------