West-Side Story

by Michael Nickoloff
August 17, 1997

1 Bite of the Jellyfish
2 Cry of the Forgotten Ancestor
2 Family Estate
2 Lodge Politics
2 Might of the Elephant
2 Mr. Big
3 Operation Killdeer
1 Paper Trail
2 Realpolitik
1 Roar of the Beast
1 Shadowy Mentor
1 Soul of the Dragon
3 Student of the Bear
5 Student of the Shark
4 Suicide Mission
3 We Know Where You Live
5 Cheap Punks
2 Drug Lab
2 Field of Tentacles
3 Inner Sanctum
4 Luis Camacho
1 Monkey House
5 Mooks
2 Night Market
3 Proving Ground
2 The Rackets
2 Whirlpool of Blood
= 66 cards

Stats:

BY TYPE
26 Characters
4 Edges
18 Events
13 Feng Shui Sites
4 Sites
1 State
BY COST
7 0 cost
21 1 cost
13 2 cost
5 3 cost
7 4 cost
13 variable cost
1.70 average cost (excluding variable)
BY FIGHTING
8 1 fighting
14 2 fighting
2 3 fighting
1.75 average fighting (by character)
0.64 average fighting (by card)
BY FOUNDATION
12 Ascended
PERCENTAGES
18% Base resource
20% Feng Shui
6% Site
BY SET
41 Limited
6 Netherworld
19 Flashpoint
BY RARITY
11 Very Common
27 Common
15 Uncommon
13 Rare (20%)
BY FACTION
35 Ascended
31 Neutral

Notes:

This is the deck that won the Theme Deck Tournament at Gencon 97. The deck gets good power generation from cards like Family Estate, Drug Lab, Paper Trail and The Rackets and uses this power to bring out wave after wave of weenie hoods. In the end-game, Luis Camacho and the Might of the Elephant are really pumped and provide the heavy muscle for the win.
One card which you normally see in Hood decks is Eugene Fo. I'm not sure why Mike left him out but I agree - I think Luis Camacho is much better.
The other card worthy of comment is We Know Where You Live (WKWYL). Everyone expects that Discerning Fire will dominate a theme deck tourney but they are wrong - most decks will have a counter to this - this deck uses Cry of the Forgotten Ancestor. WKWYL is not as effective in normal play and so it comes as a surprise when one is played to generate 4 power and a stack of damage. It turns out that many theme characters live in the Netherworld ...
I have christened the deck "West-Side Story" for several reasons: Mike himself is an All-American kind of guy and a very pleasant opponent. He is now doing a great job as the new Webmaster for Bryant Durrell's excellent web site. See there for more details - http://www.innocence.com/shadowfist/.

Last modified: January 16, 1998.
Please send comments to nickolof@scf.usc.edu.
Send server comments to durrell@innocence.com.