Shadowfist Deck: Everyone's Invited by David Eber

Home > Decks > Decks: Everyone's Invited (published in Scrye issue #65)
[posted 1 Dec 2004; updated 18 Feb 2012]

Copyright 2003 by Krause Publishing. This article originally appeared in Scrye Magazine [now defunct and gone from the web] issue #65 (Nov 2003). All rights reserved. Reprint here is by permission of both David and Krause Publishing. Thanks!

Everyone's Invited to Shadowfist's Red Wedding
by David Eber
copyright 2003 by Krause Publications (Scrye Magazine)

One of the interesting features about Red Wedding is that it includes a number of new cards that are specifically made for multi-faction decks. To showcase some of these cards, I've taken the multi-faction concept to an extreme end by building a "Peacock" deck. Peacock decks use multiple factions, and they get their name from the card Peacock Summit, a Feng Shui site that gets bigger with every faction resource in your pool (and which has been conveniently reprinted in Red Wedding). This particular deck will field six factions easily, and can potentially play all eight.

One of the challenges with Peacock decks is finding the right balance between the number of cards that provide resources, the cards that require them, and the size of your deck. Simply put, the more cards you include that require resources, the more resource providers you'll need. This, in turn, makes the deck bigger, which makes it less likely you'll draw the resource providers you'll need. This deck deals with this problem in two ways. First, it only uses a few cards from each faction, and none of those cards require more than one resource. What's more, both the DNA Mages and the Sinister Priests provide a magic resource. That makes it a lot more likely that I'll have magic resources early in the game, which, in turn, allows me to comfortably include a number of cards that require magic resources to play. Secondly, it includes several cards that are going to let me cycle through my cards very quickly, which will make it easier for me to get access to all the resources I'll need.

There are a couple of Red Wedding cards that particularly stand out in this deck. The Morphic Spirit is a Purist character that thrives on decks that use multiple resources, making it a natural for this deck. Even better, it's a foundation, allowing it to serve as both a resource provider and a hitter. That Purist resource helps out cards like the Leaping Tiger Troupe, a mid-range hitter with Superleap that lets you draw a card for every different faction resource in my pool. In the mid-game, this character is going to suddenly put a lot of cards into your hand, which is exactly what a deck like this wants. Another great Guiding Hand card for this deck is the Orange Sage. He lets you return everything but Guiding Hand and chi cards to your hand. Since this deck uses cards from a lot of different factions, you'll have plenty of different cards to choose from. Another great card for this deck is the Exile Village. It's a cheap source of power, but it only works if you have the most faction resources in your pool. With this deck, that's unlikely to be a problem. Finally, Cassandra is a fantastic new utility character that lets you look through, re-arrange, and prune the top five cards of your deck. She makes it that much easier for you to find the resource providers you need, and to get rid of what you don't. She combos particularly well with The Man With No Name, since you can use her to put the card you want on top of your deck, and then use him to draw that card immediately. You can also turn him to provide any faction resource you want until the end of the turn, which makes him invaluable in this deck.

Architects
   5 x DNA Mage (10K)
   3 x Imprisoned (N2)
   2 x Nerve Gas (10K)

Ascended
   4 x Jade Wheel Society (SS)
   1 x Order of the Wheel (SS)
   3 x Shadowy Mentor (10K)
   3 x Operation Killdeer (10K)
   1 x Realpolitik (SS)

Dragons:
   4 x Friends of the Dragon (YD)
   1 x Hacker (FP/10kB)
   2 x Dirk Wisely's Gambit (10K)
   2 x Final Brawl (10K)
   1 x Golden Comeback (10K)
   1 x "Is That All You Got?" (RW)
   1 x Thunder on Thunder (SS)

Guiding Hand:
   5 x Golden Candle Society (10K)
   1 x Righteous Fist (YD)
   3 x Leaping Tiger Troupe (RW)
   1 x Orange Sage (RW)
   1 x Xiaoyang Yun (RW)
   1 x Confucian Stability (10K)
   1 x Orange Senshi Chamber (N2)
   1 x Shield of Pure Soul (10K)
   1 x Wind on the Mountain (SS)

Eaters of the Lotus:
   5 x Sinister Priest (10K)
   2 x Evil Twin (TW)
   2 x Tortured Memories (10K)
   2 x Demonic Plague (RW)

Unaligned:
   2 x Man With No Name (N2)
   1 x Cassandra (RW)
   1 x White Ninja (PR)
   1 x Nine Cuts (PR)
   1 x Reverend Zebediah Paine (RW)
   1 x Lusignan the Fool (N2)
   1 x Lusignan's Automaton (N2)
   4 x Far Seeing Rice Grains (TW)
   3 x Pocket Demon (10K)
   2 x Exile Village (RW)
   1 x Discerning Fire (TW)

Other:
   5 x Morphic Spirit (RW)
   2 x Entropy Tap (DF)
   2 x $10,000 Man (ST)
   2 x Queen of the Ice Pagoda (ST)

Feng Shui Sites:
   5 x Peacock Summit (RW)
   3 x Coral Reef (DF)
   2 x City Park (10K)
   2 x Whirlpool of Blood (TW)
   2 x Festival Circle (10K)
   2 x Waterfall Sanctuary (TW)
   1 x Fox Pass (10K)
   1 x Kinoshita House (10K)
   1 x Monkey House (N2)
   1 x Temple of Celestial Mercy (10K)
   1 x Garden of Bronze (10K)
   1 x Jade Valley (10K)

Total: 111

David Eber, 2003

[ed. note: Scrye ran this article with the deck titled Cinco De Kill-0. That wasn't in David's original text, so I didn't use it here]

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