TEA FOR TWO
by Yuit Sum Vong

This is the deck with which Yuit won Flashpoint Finchley 59 in June
2001. I didn't publish it at the time because Yuit wanted to keep it
under wraps before the big tournaments at the summer conventions. She
won the Final Brawl at Origins with it but it did not perform well at
the US Gencon. By the time Gencon UK came, Yuit had soured on the
deck - it had an awesome reputation in London and would attract too
much heat from the other players. She switched to a remix of Harmony,
adding some Shaolin Showdown cards, but I still think this would have
been a smarter choice - you should use a fast deck when playing with
time limits of 60-90 minutes and the Z-Man match points system.

The deck was inspired by Jonathan Pickles' Fusion Kid deck which we
have long admired - a deck built around the Scrappy Kid + Fusion Rifle
+ Orbital Laser Strike combo. The trigger was Ryan Keane's praise for
Bandit Hideout which we then looked at more closely. When you remix
these ideas, you can get great synergy from the core combo of Scrappy
Kid + Dirk Wisely's Gambit + Bandit Hideout. This generates great
gobs of power which can then be spent on the many fine Independent
hitters that the deck contains. Ting Ting is foremost amongst these
but bear in mind that the Scrappy Kid is Independent too - a crowd of
kids can be annoying when they start playing with Fusion Rifles.

If you lose Bandit Hideouts, as you will, the Redeemed Gunman are good
at retaking them. Gonzo Journalists are used to make up the numbers
of foundation characters - useful for getting extra cards in hand to
spend all that power on.

Apropos current discussions about the cookie-cutter nature of
mono-Dragon decks, note that the deck does not contain any Final Brawl
as you don't want to fight in front of the children. Instead, heavy
use is made of Satellite Intelligence - one of Yuit's favorites. And
also we have the little-used card, Assassins in Love. This has always
been good for taking control of the White Ninja but is even better now
that there is a Bounty to attract Assassin decks.

And the deck contains Silver Fist which some describe as a coaster.
We have more copies of Ting Ting in our collection but three is enough
for a deck of this size. Silver Fist makes a good alternative if Ting
Ting is already in play and is no mean hitter in her own right,
especially with a Flying Kick. I tried to persuade Yuit to play with
the Dragon Adept too but she balked at that level of contrarian
metagaming - it's what she would call an "Andy card".

The deck's title is a play on words, as usual. Yuit's decks generally
have a musical title like this. And a "tea leaf" is Cockney rhyming
slang for a thief - the bandits in their hideout. And some players
call Ting Ting, "T2", which is appropriate in this case. And the last
verse of the song is fitting:

"We will raise a family,
A boy for you, a girl for me.
Oh, can't you see how happy we would be?"

Andrew


CHARACTERS:
2 Gonzo Journalist
5 Hacker
1 Hiro Asataka
3 Jane Q. Public
1 Jason X
5 Redeemed Gunman
5 Scrappy Kid
1 Silver Fist
1 Suong Xa
1 The Golden Gunman
1 The Prof
3 Ting Ting
1 White Ninja

EVENTS:
1 Assassins in Love
3 Back for Seconds
5 Dirk Wisely's Gambit
2 Flying Kick
3 Golden Comeback
1 Ting Ting's Gambit
4 Satellite Intelligence

STATES:
2 Fusion Rifle

SITES:
1 House on the Hill
1 City Park
1 City Square
1 Festival Circle
1 Fox Pass
1 Kinoshita House
2 Proving Ground
1 Ring of Gates
1 Sacred Heart Hospital
1 Stone Garden
2 Turtle Beach
1 Waterfall Sanctuary
5 Bandit Hideout
1 Rebel Camp

Total Cards: 71

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Tea For Two And Two For Tea
by Vincent Youmans (m) - Irving Ceasar (w).

Picture you upon my knee,
Just tea for two and two for tea,
Just me for you and you for me alone.

Nobody near us to see us or hear us,
No friends or relations on weekend vacations.
We won't have it known, dear,
That we own a telephone, dear;

Day will break and you'll awake
And start to bake a sugar cake,
For me to take for all the boys to see.

We will raise a family,
A boy for you, a girl for me.
Oh, can't you see how happy we would be?