Shadowfist Deck: For The Greater Good by Bruce Neiger

Home > Decks > Decks: For The Greater Good (Comrades In Arms)
[posted 22 Feb 2010; updated 23 Feb 2010]

Posted with permission. Thanks Bruce!

Here is a fun CIA deck I piloted in a recent PG. Did not win, but was certainly in contention to do so. Full credit to Willow P. After trying a mono-Lotus Donner Lake deck, and getting slaughtered when I faced 2.5 Dragon decks chock full of Brawls, I decided CIA was less likely to be Dragon-ridden (I was right), and asked for her decklist. Willow sent me a deck of approximately 80 cards... Some people can get those to work... I never seem to be able to, so I cut it down to this leaner and meaner version.

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For The Greater Good
by Bruce Neiger from a Willow Palecek design (65 cards)

Foundations 11 (Darkness 6)
5 Darkness Priestess
1 Skin and Darkness Bats
5 Wailing Apparitions
 
Hitters  11 (Darkness 8)
4 Floating Teeth
1 Queen of the Darkness Pagoda
2 Xitalli
1 Chamberlain
2 Thing with 1,000 Tongues (Lotus version)
1 Evil Twin
 
Misc Characters 5 (Darkness 5)
1 Avenging Darkness
4 Priestess of Itzy-Bitzy
 
Other Darkness 4
2 Ritual of Death
1 Crystal Skull
1 Blanket of Darkness
 
The Rest 12
1 Lateral Reincarnation
1 Devil's Rope
 
2 Tortured Memories
1 Bribery
2 Discerning Fire
2 Pocket Demon
 
1 Book of Wrath
1 Secret Pact
1 Avenging Thunder
  
Sites 12 (1 NFS)
1 Drug Lab
 
2 Donner Lake
1 Whirlpool
1 Devil's Mountain
1 Fox Pass
1 Hall of Portals
2 Disco
1 Gambling House
2 Moebius Gardens 

The linchpin of the deck is the 4 Preistesses of itzy Bitzy. There are a lot of sacrifice outlets (Donner Lake, Ritual, Lateral, Thing w/1k Tongues, D. Rope, C. Skull)-- many of these reusable, and turning her to reload the right card is amazing. At one point, having been beaten down, I was able to reload two Pocket Demons at the perfect time to generate 12 power over two turns (instead of 4). Many times, with a Lake out, you reload a weenie (Priestess and Wailiing Apparition were frequent targets).

Floating Teeth shine because they grow by 2 with each Donner Lake sacrifice. Knowing the timing rules with the Lake is important to play the deck well. You must choose which character to sacrifice at the beginning of your turn... However, in reponse to the trigger, you can play characters at the site which arrive in time to benefit from the growth effect. You can play other things, too, of course.

Devil's Rope is nice becuase it protects your Lake, as well as being a reusable sacrifice outlet. Crystal Skull is not very good, but I needed another outlet and another Darkness card to make 23.

Inauspicous Return didn't make the deck simply because you cannot sacrifice its targets. However, the ability to return Itzy's might work, but having multiples in play isn't really a benefit, except if one gets killed by combat or point takeout.

Other cards that might work well: Additional copies of Ritual and Devil's rope stand out. I would love to find room for a Brain Fire or two. As to characters, fairly obvious choices are Sewer Demons, Jueding Shelun, Rev Zeb, and Destroyer... but what to take out?

On Feb 23, 2010, Bruce added:

Empire of Evil gave us some really good Darkness cards.
-Chamberlain would be quickly removed for a Darkness Golem.
-Possibly one or both Xitatli would go for a Keeper of Hearts and then a Shadow Seductress.
-and I would toss in one Consuming Darkness.

[writeup by Bruce Neiger]

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