Can You Say Winning Attack?

by Sam Waller January 26, 1998

3 Chinese Doctor
4 Friends of the Dragon
3 Golden Comeback
2 House on the Hill
2 The Golden Gunman
1 Ting Ting
2 Abominable Lab
4 Arcanotechnician
4 CHAR
5 DNA Mage
5 Imprisoned
5 Nerve Gas
3 Plasma Trooper
3 Vivisector
1 City Square
2 Fortress of Shadow
1 Fox Pass
1 Kinoshita House
5 Whirlpool of Blood
4 Pocket Demon
= 60 cards

Analysis

COST
4 0 cost
22 1 cost
14 2 cost
3 3 cost
5 4 cost
2 5 cost
10 variable cost
1.78 average cost (excluding variable)
FACTION
15 Dragons
31 Flesh Architects
10 Neutral/FS
4 Neutral/Magic
FIGHTING
19 1 fighting
3 3 fighting
5 6 fighting
2 8 fighting
2.55 average fighting (by character)
1.23 average fighting (by card)
FOUNDATION
6 Dragons
10 Flesh Architects
FUNCTION
13 Extra Power
3 Independent
7 Recycler
7 Thug
13 Victory Denial
5 Will not Die
PERCENTAGES
27% Base resource
17% Feng Shui
7% Site
2% Chi
18% Magic
32% Tech
RARITY
4 Very Common
39 Common
11 Uncommon
6 Rare (10%)
SET
39 Limited
18 Netherworld
3 Flashpoint
SEX
8 Females
10 Males
TYPE
29 Characters
17 Events
10 Feng Shui Sites
4 Sites

Notes

This is the deck which won Flashpoint Finchley XVII. Sam is a keen Magic player and was, until recently, the top-rated type II player in the UK. This shows in his Shadowfist deck design - his decks are tight, brutal and 60 cards exactly. He eschews the more amusing lightweight cards and has unerringly homed-in on the most effective cards in the set. Note, however, that he has yet to buy any Flashpoint cards and so this deck only contains a few traded Plasma Troopers from that expansion.
His first regular deck was pure Ascended - Family Estates, Pledged, Might of the Elephant, Mole Network, Killdeer. This was so effective that it would attract too much heat in a multi-player game and lately he has switched to this more resilient Architect/Dragon mix. This is perhaps becoming over-predictable too - you can always count on him holding a stopper like Nerve Gas and this leads to gimping brinkmanship. Still, it was certainly effective enough to win this tournament.
The deck size was cut fine for the 5-player final - just one card left in his deck at the end. The one card he would like more of is Ting Ting - he pleaded for a Ting Ting in place of his prize - the White Ninja. I fear he is doomed to disappointment but any keen traders with Ting Tings to spare can reach him at samwaller@hotmail.com.
Sam is one of the younger generation of Finchley gamers and is in his final year of secondary education (high school for US readers). His subjects are Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Psychology. The former obviously helps him to "just do the math" a la Heffernan. I asked if the Psychology had been any help in winning games too but his rueful response was in the negative. Obviously the syllabus does not cover useful topics like Jedi mind tricks, winning small talk and revealing tells ...
The title is Sam's own - I'd have called it something like Magical Hack. It comes from the frequent way that he wins - making repeated winning attacks with recycled Independents until one of them gets through.

Last modified: March 11, 1998.
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