Walk Softly

by Joshua Kronengold October 3, 1997

2 Average Joe
2 Baptism of Fire
1 Charmed Life
1 Chinese Doctor
1 Claw of the Dragon
2 Dirk Wisely's Gambit
2 Fighting Spirit
5 Final Brawl
2 Golden Comeback
5 Hacker
1 Iala Mane
1 Kar Fai's Crib
1 Little Jim
1 Marisol
3 "Now You've Made Us Mad"
1 Redeemed Assassin
1 Scrappy Kid
1 Serena Ku
1 Stunt Man
1 The Golden Gunman
1 The Prof
1 Ting Ting
1 Queen of the Ice Pagoda
1 Cave Network
2 Festival Circle
1 Fox Pass
1 Kinoshita House
1 Ring of Gates
1 Sacred Heart Hospital
1 Turtle Beach
2 Whirlpool of Blood
= 48 cards

Analysis

BY TYPE
19 Characters
14 Events
10 Feng Shui Sites
1 Sites
4 States
BY COST
12 0 cost
5 1 cost
9 2 cost
5 3 cost
2 4 cost
3 5 cost
2 6 cost
10 variable cost
1.92 average cost (excluding variable)
BY FIGHTING
3 1 fighting
7 2 fighting
1 3 fighting
1 4 fighting
2 6 fighting
3 8 fighting
2 10 fighting
4.21 average fighting (by character)
1.67 average fighting (by card)
BY FOUNDATION
8 Dragons
1 Monarchs
PERCENTAGES
19% Base resource
21% Feng Shui
2% Site
4% Chi
8% Magic
17% Tech
BY SET
24 Limited
10 Netherworld
14 Flashpoint
BY RARITY
3 Very Common
24 Common
5 Uncommon
16 Rare (33%)
BY FACTION
37 Dragons
1 Monarchs
10 Neutral

Notes

This is the big deck of 1997 - the winner of the US Nationals tournament at Gencon. Interesting then that it is one of the smallest decks to be published here - just 48 cards.
Joshua has used the deck for some time but is continually changing the exact mix. The overall concept remains the same though - seize an early advantage with cheap events like Final Brawl and "Now You've Made Us Mad" and then bring out "big sticks" like Ting Ting to win the game.
The choice of foundation characters - Average Joe, Hacker and Stunt Man - is interesting. I would have thought that they were too few and too expensive to work well but I'm not used to playing a deck like this. Certainly the Hacker did good service for Joshua in one case - I played Covert Op on him during a threatening attack and chose to make him discard the Charmed Life instead. I regretted this choice when he then burnt for power and hacked my Jellyfish - d'oh!
Joshua is a Shadowfist veteran - his name appears in the 1st edition playtest credits. He has held the top slot in the Proving Ground at New York's Neutral Ground for many weeks and regularly crosses swords with the redoubtable Dennis Heffernan. A man to be watched and a worthy champion.

Last modified: March 13, 1998.
Please send comments to nickolof@scf.usc.edu.
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