# Interesting Times

### (Pacificon 1996 Winner)

By Bryant Durrell
September 8, 1996

## Feng Shui Sites

2 City Square
4 Inner Sanctum
3 Proving Ground
2 Monkey House
2 Ring of Gates
2 Rust Garden
Other Sites
2 Trade Center
2 Kar Fei's Crib

## Foundation Characters

5 Friends of the Dragon
2 Redeemed Gunman
5 Hacker
2 Stunt Man

## Other Characters

2 Scrappy Kid
2 Jane Q. Public
2 Marisol
1 Joey Paz
2 Mad Dog McCroun
2 Golden Gunman
1 Jack Donovan
2 Little Jim

## Events

4 Carnival of Carnage
4 Golden Comeback
4 Final Brawl
4 Fighting Spirit
4 Kiii-Yah!
2 Thunder on Thunder

## Notes:

The deck design is pretty straightforward, but here it is for what it's worth. Play notes come further on.

OK. First, the Feng Shui sites. City Squares are victory denial; I bet that there wouldn't be too many Smart Missiles so soon after Flashpoint and I was right, although I never did get a City Square out. The Inner Sanctums are just big, and I have non-Feng Shui sites to hide behind them. The Proving Grounds, again, were a bet that Smart Missiles wouldn't show up -- obviously Whirlpools could have been a serious pain, but I knew the Proving Grounds would be great if the gamble paid off and they were. Monkey House for extra power (and note that there are slightly more than 1/5 Feng Shui sites), Ring of Gates to hose Wind on the Mountain and Imprison, and the Rust Gardens to force people to make hard choices. The Rust Gardens were useful; the others didn't come up much, although I think I stopped one Imprison at a good moment. I always put Trade Centers in any deck with Proving Grounds. I'd have put more in if I hadn't had the Cribs; I felt that those would both make it slightly easier to get the resources for some of my big thugs and protect me against the offchance of Inauspicious Reburials. In the end, I had to use one once to get out Mad Dog, and of course they provided power, so I feel they paid off.

The foundation characters are basic. I don't like Redeemed Gunmen as much as Friends, because I like being able to intercept. The Stunt Men were a bit of a risk -- I could have used Everyday Heros -- but I used them to take a site early in one game and I don't regret having them in. The Hackers never came into play for free and I must admit to getting distracted; at least once I would have taken a site a turn earlier if I'd played the Hacker instead of saving it. Whoops. The thugs! The Scrappy Kid was great, although I'm thinking about tuning him out, since he's quite dangerous to me when Rigorous Discipline is around. On the other hand, I can always kill him off quick against a Hand deck. Jane is fun -- she got through quite often when my opponents were afraid of giving me power. Note that 2 Power is
a Golden Comeback.

Of the bigger thugs, Little Jim was my star. He came out in almost all of my games, and he wreaked havoc. You can't Nerve Gas him. He's got 10 Fighting. People stop playing Events when he's wounded. Such a deal. Jack Donovan showed up once, and was as useful as he generally is, but the secondary star was Mad Dog. It might have been the Golden Gunman if he'd shown up, but as it was Mad Dog came out early and did his full damage to anything he could reach. He's honestly one of my favorite Dragon heavy hitters. Marisol was there for immunity to Final Brawls, but I never got her out; Joey was there to see how he worked, but he never came out either. I might swap in Jason X for the Guts and for the sake of hosing Architects and see how that works.

And finally, the Events are just all the cool Dragon Events with a bit of Edge hosing just in case and Fighting Spirit to bring them back. Short of sites, and of course the Spirits themselves, there wasn't a card in my deck I couldn't get back into play once it was smoked. The Kiii-yah!s were quite important for power generation -- in a multi-player game, I can usually find a candidate for these -- and with Fighting Spirit I can occasionally drain someone of 6 Power in a turn easily. Much fun. Golden Comebacks are obvious, Final Brawl is obvious, and Carnival of Carnage just expands the effect of Final Brawl in a way that hurts other players but not me.

My play strategy was simple; build up patiently, hoard power, wait for someone else to get to three sites, and start taking advantage of them. Final Brawls serve as free denial in the early and mid game, so I didn't worry too hard about getting out characters early. The ideal starting draw is an Inner Sanctum and a Trade Center, since I don't mind risking some initial exposure for the subsequent power advantage. Afterwards, I'm looking to get out Scrappy Kids and Jane Q. Public to spend some time revealing sites and choosing targets. It's also nice if I can get a big thug out in order to put him in my smoked pile, since that's more cheap insurance. I obviously have to watch the course of the game, but I have no problems doing damage to CHAR and I kind of like it if someone else is looking threatening. The Proving Grounds don't get revealed until I want to take sites, so as to look like less of a threat. I may take a site early on if I need to or if I can easily, and I'll burn that for power to make it easier to get the aforementioned thug out and into my smoked pile. And finally, the end game is hopefully me pounding away with big Dragons. I generally want to burn a site for power as a lead in to this phase; otherwise I'm burning sites for victory or seizing them if they're useful and I have a place to put them.

The only thing I think I'm really doing differently than a lot of Dragon decks I've seen is that I'm a little more patient. I don't want to get the Golden Gunman out early because it just makes me a target. Carnival of Carnage is an excellent denial card and I'm not afraid to use it early because I can get it back, so I can afford to wait around until the time is right.

At the Pacificon tournament, I won my first game and the finals like this. (One deck in the finals was centered around Bull Markets. There is no way on earth you should be giving my deck lots of power.) The first game was exceedingly tight because we almost ran out of time, and I would have liked to wait another turn before getting rolling, but so it goes. The third game was much more brutal, since I got the Trade Center/Inner Sanctum combination out instantly and my opponents were smart enough to know what they should do about it. Luckily, one of them got a nasty CHAR/$10,000 Man run going which convinced the other one (playing Monarchs, but never got out one of the Big Four) that he was more of a threat. The second game was short, brutal, and the winner just wen over all three of us with a weenie deck -- lots of cheap characters and lots of weapons. I don't think he had a character with more than 1 Fighting. We ignored him, which was a Mistake.
Anyhow, that's probably more than you wanted to know about my deck and my games. <grin> I'll post the Ascended/Architect deck I took into the two-player tournament later, maybe; it's a fair bit more interesting.

Oh. The title is of course from the curse: "May you live in interesting times." I can't think of how that many Events could be anything but interesting.

Last modified: September 18, 1997.
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