Shadowfist Deck: Throne of Hoods by Tim Linden

Home > Decks > Decks: Throne of Hoods (Smackdown in Jacktown 2008 multiplayer winner)
[posted 16 Nov 2008]

Posted with permission. Thanks!

Tim Linden won the Smackdown in Jacktown 2008 multiplayer tournament with this deck.

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Throne of Hoods
by Tim Linden (80 cards)

5 Vassals of the Lotus
5 Shamanistic Punks
5 Thugs
5 Gangsters
1 Student of the Shark
1 Hammer Harrison

5 Poison Thorns
5 Vassals of Chin

4 Tommy Hsu
2 Chang
2 The Nefarious Master Chin
1 The Big Boss
1 Claws
2 Mr. Big

5 Chin’s Criminal Network
4 Dragon Throne
4 Stand Together
2 Two Hundred Guys with Hatchets and Ladders
1 The Rackets
1 Verminous Rain
1 Golden Spike
1 Secret Pact
1 White Leopard Club

5 Rainforest Ruins
5 Sunless Sea Ruins
1 Golden Mile
1 Pinnacles
1 Fox Pass
1 Gambling House
1 Lagrange Four 
1 Devil’s Mountain

A basic straight ahead Hood/Dragon throne deck. You are basically relying on getting all the toys out – Dragon Throne, Stand Together, and vitally Tommy Hsu for all his multi-faceted awesomeness. The Sunless Sea and Rainforest Ruins are nice big sites that increase hand size and cheap/big early game to help you get going. The CCN’s were worth almost 2 power on average, and were more than once worth three power. The rest of the deck is toys/utility if it comes up, which hopefully you can find easy enough with the throughput the deck can make when it is going. I never found my Verminous Rain (should add another) or Fox Pass/Devil’s Mountain or Lagrange Four, but played everything else for use. Mr. Big is a bit too much of a toy, given his drawback. Relying on having Tommy to throw Mr. Big at someone if it looks bad is not really that good an idea! Inauspicious Return would be useful in the deck, but the deck is already almost 80 cards, and the Big Boss and THGwHaL get my hoods back too. A couple of Evil Twins would be good, too.

The deck did reasonably well in Round 1 (vs. John Merrill’s Lotus, Charles’ Monarchs, and Michael L’s Monarch/Dragon deck), despite never finding Tommy. However, an early Brawl slowed me down, and then after a bit of Big Monarchs (Ice queen with a Ice Sword, Thunderbird, etc.) rampaging around the table for awhile, (making my 200 guys work nicely!) John finally assembled the rummy hand he was waiting for (and tried to imply he didn’t have). Despite cancelling his Bribery with the White Leopard Club, he still tortured Thunderbirds’ memory, had it rip off Chang’s head, and sent his other newly dropped hordes to attack and win. Ironically, had I chose to play someone other than Chang, we might have been able to barely stop him – but Chang’s stolen abilities sealed our doom.

Round 2 was a three player versus Braz’ Architect/Lotus and Shane Malec’s Battlematic deck. This was basically a romp to victory for me, as I quickly rolled out Tommy and the White Leopard Club to foil any chance of Braz recovering from a slow start. Tommy denied Shane his expected BFP by tossing a hood at the 1 body site, and despite having some reasonable (+5) battlematics and a Single action Devolver, I was able to quickly drop a bunch more dudes and win. A frustrating game for Braz, who was for the most part all game either waiting for the one more takeout or one more power to play them, so he could waste Tommy and get back in the game.

Round 3 was versus Jim Pai’s Purist, James P’s Architects, and John’s Lotus. This was a good major brawl. I was hurt early misplaying a poison thorns just before trying to steal power from Jim Pai with my Rackets. So he promptly discerning fired all my stuff. Meanie. This gave John an initially strong position on the board with his corpse army, and me whacked, Jim short on power and James struggling to get resources/feng shui. But corpses were not enough, and Jim and I started the waxy character build up. After some more action and site taking, esp. when James’s deck started rolling we got to a fairly stalemated position, with all of us well defended and well armied. Finally James P neutron bombed, hoping to win with his Arch Jessica Ng in her Megatank. After a tense round of win attempts, the defenses were exhausted after James’ second try, and my new army of hoods/w Tommy, backed up by the White Leopard club gave me the win.

The Finals, versus Alan Hege’s hand, Jim Pai’s Purists, and Kel McKay’s Reascended, was a good game. I had a poor start, with a hand full of big uniques (3 tommy and Claws, who sat in my hand all game, many a time 1 power short from him being played.), and had my early horde quickly cut down as Kel Realpolitiked my first Stand together and then 200 guys to blow my army away, leaving me with just Mr. Big… All just because I was attacking him. Meanie. However, with Alan drawing rather poorly (he only played about 7-9 cards for the first half of the game), and Kel getting extremely Politically Corrupt, we spent a lot of time merely whacking Reascended dudes and occasionally Kel’s sites for the most of the game. Jim stole Mr. Big (nicely, he could have taken Master Chin, but that would have been a bit too dangerous at the time) to ram him into Athena, and his multiple assassins, The Blind, Dr. Celeste, among weenier ones, kept frustrating Kel’s army buildup. Unfortunately, golden coming back Reascended and his power generation from Political Corruption kept Kel a major threat all game. Late game, with Alan finally getting going (but still with no swords in his sword deck, which were one cheaper as he stole my Dragon throne), we all rapidly became either at victory or at drop and go. I managed one try against Alan, which was foiled by Wing of the Crane and Fox Pass. Jim had a chance against Kel, but drew Op Kildeers and was foiled. Kel had multiple tries, foiled by the Fox Pass, a timely entropy sphere and Delay the Inevitable, then also a Devil’s Mountain after Kel’s Whirlpool stopped the Fox Pass, A Hot Zone to foil the Whirlpool, and my Tommy hurling Drug Labs and hoods everywhere to provide the last stoppage. Finally, all the tricks were used up stopping Kel’s last push by Reascended and Hackers on the one body Fox Pass. But, I had thrown all my hoods away to keep it so. Now I needed to draw both a site, and then a 1 cost hood to hopefully get the undefended Fox Pass. I got both, and everyone was out of tricks. So Shamanistic Punk for the Win!

All in all, a good, fun tournament. I am glad I played this Hood deck – I have almost played a close version many a tournament, but kept choosing the other deck I built instead. Having it do well and win is doubly nice! Thanks to all that came out, and especially John and Greg for holding the tourney and putting us up. We look forward to Smackdown 6!

[writeup by Tim Linden]

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