By David Eber
What follows are the recent steps that went into constructing a deck, my thoughts on the deck as it stands, and problems I've having with it. All my decks are for 2 player games, so if you only play multi-player you may not want to continue.
For the most part, I find that my decks begin around a concept, which is usually either a combo (Vivisector and Tortured Memories), a theme (Hoods), or a guiding principle (stealth, speed, power stealing, etc...). Once I have this nucleus formed, I begin adding cards in that will fit and support the concept until I have roughly 60 cards. sometimes, however, the deck is based around a single card, or rather, combos that are all based around a single card. These decks are an excercise in seeing how effectively and efficiently I can design a deck around this card. Usually the deck ends up hinging on a couple of major combos along with a number of secondary combos, along with the generic good stuff and the basic cards.
This time around, the deck was based around the card Code Red. I had tried a deck based on this card before with poor results, but with Flashpoint on the market I wanted to give it another try. This was largely inspired by the card Total War, and the obvious use it had with Code Red. Thus, the deck largely went from being a single card based deck to a combo based deck.
Once I had this starting point, I began to think of what would work well in this deck. Attacking on an opponent's turn is usually a surprise move, so I wanted to take full advantage of that. BuroMil Grunts seemed to fit the bill quite nicely. I also wanted to use Tactical Teams and Redeemed Assassins, which can be played on an opponent's turn. Obviously, this would mean using the Dragons. This led to another card: Heroic Conversion, which would work quite well with Total War. Golden Comeback, too, was another card that would let me play cards on my opponent's turn, right after a Code Red. This pretty much formed the core of the deck.
From there I began to fill it out with the basic stuff and the generic good stuff, like foundation characters and Feng Shui sites. Following the threads here, I was inspired to use City Park and Grove of Willows for the bulk of my Feng Shui sites. I'd play the Grove of Willows up front, and then when an opponent attacked it I'd use Total War to get everyone to join in and hopefully get a nice power boost. Since I expected to lose it, I could drop out a City Park to replace it, or, if I was really lucky, two or more City Parks. I also included the Fox Pass, to redirect attacks to the Parks, and Garden of Bronze, to reap an even bigger benefit if my opponent burned the Grove for power. What appealed to me about this was that I had never used Grove of Willows before, and I figured that I never would.
2 Final Brawls also went in on general principles, as well as 2 expendable units, since I figured that if I was going to make my opponent attack my stuff I had better have some way of dealing with the fallout if the Grove combo didn't work out. I threw in 1 each Nerve Gas and Imprison, which is unusually low for me, but then again I wanted to see if I could win without them. Neutron Bomb and Thunder on Thunder went in as well. I also included Iala Mane and Oscar Balbuena because I thought they both had abilities that would complement the deck. Needless to say, this was getting expensive. I put in 1 Kar Fai's Crib (later raised to 2) to offset the resource costs, and I put in 4 Vivisectors for power, which would also work well with the Golden Comebacks (one was later replaced with an Arcanotechnician). A Chinese Doctor and The Prof went in as well. I was going to use Satelite Intelligence, but instead I opted for Back For Seconds, figuring that if I was going to make attacks that couldn't be stopped then I wanted to get the most out of them. These didn't work out though, and were later replaced by 2 Resistance is Futile cards, both to offset the cost of the characters (there are 4 characters that have a cost of at least 3 resources and 5 power cost), and because I wanted to try it out.
Well, so far this deck has both failed and worked well. In the latter case, I found it to be surprisingly resilient. Playing against a fast Lotus-toasting deck it came back to win twice after being beat down severly early on. However, so far I've been disappointed. The combos in the deck almost never seem to come into play. I've joked that the best way to make the deck better is to take out the Code Reds and all the other cards that go with it and just put in more Nerve Gasses. Unfortunately, this seems to be true. So far, the games I win I usually win by playing the deck straight. Either I get a significant lead and hold it, or I get beaten down and then have to claw my way back. In neither case has Code Red or Total War been significant. I've gotten two power at the most out of Grove of Willows, and I've never played more than one City Park at a time (though I expected that much). The "play on an opponents turn" characters end up getting played on my turn. Even Heroic Conversion has only been a slowdown card; it hasn't stolen a character yet. Only the Vivisector/Golden Comeback combo has worked out, and that combo is good independently of this deck.
Now, immediately I realize that the characters are really way too expensive for this kind of deck. I threw in the Resistance is Futile cards as a last resort, but more likely than not I'm going to dump the big cards and replace them with smaller, more efficient characters (thus losing the surprise ability). Even then, though, I don't have much hope for this deck, though I'm going to play it more before I chuck it. Is there any way to make an effective deck based around Code Red? Any suggestions on how to make this deck viable?
Last modified: June 18, 1997.
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