What's A Nice Sentinel Like You Doing In A Place Like This?

By Joshua Duffin March 12, 1997

5 Redeemed Gunman
3 Hacker
5 Sinister Priest
2 Vassals of the Lotus
5 Bronze Sentinel
1 The Prof
1 Ting Ting
1 Kun Kan
2 Thunder on Thunder
1 Back for Seconds
5 Final Brawl
3 Inexorable Corruption
3 Glimpse of the Abyss
2 Registry of the Damned
1 Feast of Souls
2 Art of War
4 Pocket Demon
4 Fortress of Shadow
1 Ring of Gates
3 City Park
3 Whirlpool of Blood
3 Festival Circle
1 Sacred Heart Hospital

Notes:

It's basically a Bronze Sentinel deck, with Lotus added for Power-generation and some neat tricks. It's rather heavy on Feng Shui and foundations, with 15 of each out of 61 cards, but the F-S heaviness is good in a Sentinel deck, in my experience, and the foundation heaviness (well, it's not excessively heavy on foundations, really) helps make sure to get the necessary resources (and then the bonus resources for Glimpse and Registry).
It's a pretty fun deck to play, and burns through cards right quick, with 17 0-cost cards at last count, and only The Prof, Kun Kan, and Ting Ting costing more than 2. My favorite Sentinel trick so far is the one where you start your turn with an F-S in play, generating a power, you play a Sentinel, toast the F-S, and play a new one for another power. Ideally the new one is a Festival Circle to help protect the Sentinel... though of course that still leaves a window of vulnerability... I'm seriously considering changing the support faction to Hand, in order to have Confucian Stability, and power-generation that doesn't make me work harder to win (eg Heat of Battle), even though the 4-5 sites burned for victory does make Kun Kan pretty huge.
If I were going to make it all-common, I'd replace Sacred Heart with probably a fifth Fortress of Shadow, or else a fourth Festival Circle. Art of War, Feast of Souls, Registry, Glimpse, Thunder on Thunder, Kun Kan, The Prof, Ting Ting, I'd turn into 3x Jane Q Public, maybe Reburial x2, Dirk Wisely's Gambit x2, Ting Ting's Gambit x2, Back for Seconds x3, and the fifth Pocket Demon. I think it'd probably work at least as well with those changes - while Ting Ting and the Prof are great and all, hey're real pricey for this deck, and Ting Ting's just as gas-able as the rest, while the Prof is liable to end up dead before the next turn, making her a three-cost Back for Seconds... The Registrys strike me as real cool, and hypothetically could be brilliant, but they've only really worked for me a couple times. In fact, if I had more Back for Seconds (I only own the one), I'd probably replace some of these with them right now...

Last modified: October 20, 1997.