Back to list of decks

Both Hafners Blazing, or Hey- that's not a gun!


This is a Dragon/Monarch weapon deck, featuring Claws of Darkness.
By Tony Hafner

Total cards: 50
Primary role: Dueling
Cards by set and rarity (R/U/C)
Main Set: 5/3/2
Netherworld: 0/5/20
Flashpoint: 0/2/13
Foundations:
2 Friends of the Dragon3 Hacker
5 Darkness Priestess
Hitters/Utility Characters:
3 Ex-Commando2 Johnny Tso
Misc:
3 Both Guns Blazing2 Dirk Wisely's Gambit
1 Brain Fire5 Claws of Darkness
2 Spirit Pole2 Discerning Fire
3 Fusion Rifle5 Pocket Demon
2 Pump-Action Shotgun
Feng Shui:
2 Festival Circle4 Fortress of Shadow
1 Ring of Gates3 Turtle Beach

This is probably my best dueling deck to date (I clobber José with it more than he does me). As usual, it expects to run with only 1 or 2 sites. Pocket Demons and Dirk Wisely's Gambits provide the main source of power when the chips are down. When the chips are up, the Claws of Darkness provide the glut of power that this thing generates.

Although I have 5 of the obvious Dragon gun-boys in here (2 Johnny Tsos and 3 Ex-Commandos), I do the bulk of my damage with beefed-up foundation characters. It's not unusual to do most of the pounding with a 12-fighting Darkness Priestess. This makes it important to keep my characters alive for as long as possible. To this end, the Feng Shui in the deck provide quite a load of character protection. One thing to keep in mind- it's usually better to lose a Turtle Beach than a character with a pile of states on it. This is especially true when that Turtle Beach is the target of the attack. As a bonus, I often even get some power out of it when the character being saved has a Claw or two (or 5).

Fusion Rifles give a +1 fighting boost to a character with Both Guns Blazing, and I try to leave the Rifle unturned so that I can use it when I really need it. I've been in the awkward position of having to have a Hacker blast himself with 2 Rifles just to keep himself out of the enemy's hands. Another suicidal one was the time when a White Ninja was coming in at my only site, Turtle Beach. I thought I was totally hosed because it was already damaged and 2 Rifles wouldn't be enough to take her down. So the Darkness Priestess turns around, opens up with a double fusion firehose, and watches the Beach burn.

The Spirit Poles provide long-term stamina, often allowing me to live mostly off of my smoked pile. They also make the deck viable in multiplayer games- in a 4-player game, I can recycle 4 states per Spirit Pole per round of turns.

Although the deck is very tight (50 cards), it still has a little room for tuning. Three of the cards are rarely played, and could easily be changed. The Brain Fire has no specific purpose, but I find that when my opponent is concentrating on all of my sites being used to protect my characters that one Brain Fire can be very effective. The 2 Discerning Fires aren't used very often, but when I do need them nothing else does the trick quite so well.

The original deck name is "Hey- That's Not a Gun!". This came from the fact that it was a gun deck with not one gun in it. It had 5 Claws, and 3 Alabaster Javelins. Once I figured out that the guns were generally better than the Javelins, the tuning brought it to its current state. I'd kind of like to get more Fusion Rifles in there, but I can't quite bring myself to pull the emergency events. Besides, there isn't a whole lot of tech in the deck and I think I'd start to have a problem if I put more in. That's also the main reason there isn't one Disintegrator Ray in there.

Back to list of decks
©1997-2000, Tony Hafner