Author: Tom Sorenson

Record: 7-1
5 Assassinations, 1 Economic on time, 1 Economic on concession
Assassinated 1 time

This is not explicitly an Assassination deck (although it certainly does).

The overall goal of this list is to utilize Yevgeni’s 4 fist and 12 resolve to send enemy non-leader characters to the locker, in order to create an overwhelming advantage for pursing an Economic/Assassination victory. It is supported by ridiculously powerful Ussuran cards.

Decklist

Approach

Leader
Yevgeni (Sorcerer)

Characters
Ekaterina Ilyanava
Torsten Vakt
Elina Georginova (Sorcerer)
Miyato and Ota (Tooth and Claw)
Ved’Ma (Sorcerer)

Schemes
Midnight Shipment
Let’s Haggle
Winter’s Winds (Tooth and Claw)
The Boar’s Guile
Leshiye of the Wood

Faction

Ussuran (29 | 25 core | 4 Tooth and Claw)
2x Indomitable Will
2x Iron and Velvet
2x Matushka’s Command (Sorcery)
2x Matushka’s Efficiency (Sorcery)
2x Mireli Sabre
2x Mireli’s Revision
2x Predatory Pursuit
2x Razrushitel
2x Strong Hands
2x Stubborn
2x Sunder

1x Blood like Winter (Tooth and Claw)
1x Grandfather’s Hammer (Unique)
1x Justice Served Cold (Tooth and Claw)
1x Matushka’s Sight (Sorcery)
1x Strength of Ten (Unique)
1x Ussuran Intrigue (Tooth and Claw)
1x Voice of the Gods (Sorcery, Tooth and Claw)

Neutral (11 | 9 core | 2 Tooth and Claw)
2x Appealing to the People
2x Bleed Out
2x Pull (Sorcery)
2x Throwing Knife

1x Collateral Damage (Tooth and Claw)
1x Matchlock Musket
1x Relentless (Tooth and Claw)

Deck Explanation

Yevgeni is an absurdly powerful leader, when you play to his strengths. Add to that the versatile trio of Ekaterina, Torsten, and Elina with a bunch of high-impact cards, and you’ve got a terrifying deck.

I’ve talked about “overwhelming threat” / “efficient combat” in more detail in my Eisen Full Strategic Breakdown, but I’ll provide a brief recap restate it here because it is the cornerstone of this deck too (who was I kidding, humph brief).

Overwhelming Thrust

1. Wounds don’t matter unless they kill
2. Restricted hostilities limits the number of wounds per round *super important*
3. Sending 2/3 threat above restricted hostilities effectively negates opposing defense
4. Minimizing the rounds of combat (currently) minimizes the wounds you take

So, we’ve got 4 Fist, 12 Resolve Yevgeni. If he challenges a 4 Resolve character, they will immediately die if they refuse (plus he has his once per day en garding Reaction).

Further, if they attempt to duel back, the first combat card Yevgeni plays should always be able to finish them off, as long as it has ideally 4+ base thrust/Ripsote (although 3 + the 1 from Yevgeni is likely sufficient). Therefore, unless they are playing a Lethal card like Heroic End or Rough ‘Em Up, you can’t take more than twice their restricted hostilities, max.

Based on this, if you challenge a 2 Fist character, you’ll at worst trade 4 health to send the challenged character to the locker. I even encourage you to play 0-defense, 5-thrust Matchlock Musket to take their initial 2 max damage and secure the kill. Then you can play a high defense, low-thrust card to potentially soften their final attack.

On the other hand, if you try to minimize the wounds you take by playing high-defense, low-thrust cards throughout (Appealing to the people, Tending the Wounded), especially against Montaigne, your opponent might be able to either chip more damage through over multiple rounds and/or safely parry out/take the hit. (It also severely weakens the killing potential of your 3 or less fist characters.)

So, be the Boar. Be brutal.

Pacifist Meta Acknowledgement

Pacifist, parry-out meta posits: that’s fine, I’ll play/gamble into a card with only parry (Hidden Corridors) which will end the duel (no threat) and keep my character alive with 1 Resolve. Since wounds don’t matter unless they kill, I got my opponent to expend their leader for no effect at minimal to no cost. I can use this tempo advantage to win, before they can issue my character a second challenge to finish them off.

To counter this, we bring multiple ways to deal 1 extra point of damage outside of combat: Razrushitel, Predatory Pursuit, Bleed Out, Relentless, and even Matchlock Musket as an expensive final option. What if, however, they played a 2-parry parry-out (The Pressure is On), their character has 5-Resolve, or you’re initiating a challenge with a 3-Fist Character (Torsten, Carmella)? In all of these situations, their character is left with 2+ Resolve meaning we can’t reliably finish them off.

Pacifist Meta Counter

To counter this, we need to send more threat in the challenge, to neutralize their parry-out’s effectiveness. The best in-faction option is Grandfather’s Hammer on Yevgeni. Since you can activate the +2 thrust technique on the challenge, you can issue a challenge with 6 threat. Even the strongest 2-parry parry-outs will only block the excess thrust, still resulting in the immediate death of the challenged, 4-Resolve character. It can also crush through the plethora of 2 defense cards that do send back threat, making that the only return-threat you will have to deal with this duel. Nasty.

Syrenth Hand is similarly ridiculous from the City deck. The +1 Fist means you are issuing a challenge sending 5 threat (instead of 4, enabling you to 1-shot 5-Resolve characters), AND you can take a wound to negate 2 parry on their combat card. To survive that challenge they need some combination of Riposte, tons of parry, and/or high Resolve. Even a Not Today will result in them taking 3 damage AND going home engaged, sending no threat back.

Eager Blade, Mirelli’s Sabre, and Throwing Knife are lesser versions of the above that still enable us to, at minimum, get our challenged opponent into Bleed Out range.

Pacifist Response

If this seems as overwhelming as it should, how can you counter it? Well, if you can survive the initial duel, healing effects like Triage, Madre, Twist of the Arcana, already-equipped Dark Gift, etc can get you out of Bleed Out Range, in the 1-action window you get between the duel, and getting finished off.

This window can be bypassed by the new Relentless but Quick Reflexes can stop either (as can cancelling effects like A Night of Drinking). I initially didn’t think spending 2+ cards to heal a wound was worth it, but if the meta shifts to challenge + Bleed Out effects, 2 cards to effectively recruit/muster a character already in the City is absolutely worth it (especially since the rest of their wounds don’t matter).

How do you survive getting challenged by a Grandfather’s Hammer or Syrenth Hand Yevgeni though? You don’t. Hope they don’t see them. Otherwise, avoid/engage Yevgeni at all costs, throw bait in front of him, and/or capitalize on the 1-action window to claim/etc between him moving into your location and smashing you.

Fight Back?

What if you get tired of Yevgeni bullying you and want to bring the fight to him? Good choice, as challenging him is one of the best counters.

I keep saying wounds don’t matter, and they don’t because they are a resource (like Health in Magic the Gathering), but if you run out/low of that resource, you either outright lose or at minimum lose access to one of the strongest aspects of your deck. If your opponent is able to inflict 8+ wounds onto Yevgeni, he’s just a 4-Resolve character, and we know how easy those are to kill. Yevgeni can either be attacked directly by bulky, big-fist bruisers or by the agile and/or devious.

If your Langschwert-equipped 5-Resolve character is able to challenge Yevgeni, you likely do 2 or 3 wounds on the challenge, another 2 to 3 wounds with your first combat card (since Yev can only do a max of 4 damage unless boosted even if he drops the 7 thrust Strength of Ten), and another 2 to 3 wounds as you die to Yevgeni’s second combat card (assuming you are also sending overwhelming threat). If one character gets 6 wounds onto Yevgeni, your next one threatens assassination.

But why fight Yevgeni head on. Make him cry with a Veronica’s Guile Influence challenge. Have him stumble over himself with an official Guild Challenge. Or even turn the tables on him by yelling out “You Cheated!” If you can force a fight in any other attribute, you strip away his terrifying 4-Restricted Hostilities. A 6-thrust Matchlock Musket can be shrugged off when it can do a max of 1 wound. In most circumstances, Yevgeni is forced to refuse and take his 3+ wound lumps, cutting into his killing resources and threatening the integrity of his strategy as a whole.

RPT Considerations

Unlike my Kaspar/Otto Eisen deck that reliably draws 2 more cards a turn than this, and is more than happy to play combat cards from hand, Yevgeni’s 5 Panache severely limits that option. Thankfully for Ussura, they have above-average RPT cards, plenty with 4 Ripsote/Thrust (offense/O) and frequently attached to 2 Riposte/Parry (defense/D). However, relying on Gambling for aggressive cards means we want to dramatically limit any sub-par aggressive gambling cards from our deck, unless they are spectacular. 

So, no Opulence, Not Today, or any of the 3 or less offense cards tied to 2 or less defense where we can help it. 1 defense 4 offense is much better for us than 2D/3O (hell, even 0/0/4s are better than -/2/3). If we were ever to gamble into 2 poor offensive options we risk our quarry surviving Yevgeni’s first combat card and either getting away or inflicting another round of wounds.

2x Sunder was specifically included for the RPT, although the effect was repeatedly … used (was going to say helpful but not sure how many times my opponent survived a Sunder duel). Great RPT card I was happy to play again and again, would not cut (unless displaced by future expansion cards).

1x Matchlock Musket was also specifically included for the straight 5 thrust RPT. I had it at 2, but my last cut was dropping the 2nd copy for a 1x Voice of the Gods to experiment with it (first time playing this specific list was round 1 of Gen Con). My thought was that the 4 thrust +1 from Yev/Torsten was probably sufficient, and the card had potential to do cool things. Also, I wasn’t planning on equipping Musket frequently as it is super cost inefficient to do 1-wound. Voice of the Gods was played, can trigger Elina’s or Ved’Ma’s Reaction, and Elina’s action can stand her back up after it, but I’m not sold on it. Musket stays until something better drops.

2x Appealing to the People was included because spending 2 cards to En Garde a character is strong, but I also wanted a couple more high defense cards, for blunting final attacks without sending me home or ending duels if unluckily gambled into. Never played it for its action, but I was pleased with its blunting of wounds.

2x Iron and Velvet was one of the toughest decision points for me. Not only is it bad RPT, but it also doesn’t play nice with the overwhelmingly powerful Hammer or Hand (or underwhelming Sabre). Its effect to issue a duel either without engaging or while engaged is gross though. I could not resist my greed to run it, and it performed great, frequently played by Torsten/Carmella. Would not cut. (Also amazing flavor text.) 2x Throwing Knife was also included as a way to push an extra challenge-thrust that self-destroys allowing Iron and Velvet and/or Hammer equip afterwards (Eager Blade working similarly). Never actually threw a knife, still testing.

1x Strength of Ten: 3 defense, 4 to 7 offense. Potential Assassination action use. Unlikely to cut.

2x Mireli’s Revision, while technically not included for its own RPT, although 4 defense or auto wound are nothing to sniff at, its inclusion does help offset other RPT concerns. I want this card for its Reaction. I want to be able to shoo away a Not Today to kill a character or a Heroic End to save my own, since I can’t afford to run my own Not Todays. This card is precious and should be treated as such. If playing it won’t basically guarantee a kill, hold it. If your opponent is playing an Assassination deck, particularly Vodacce, if they aren’t dropping Rough ‘Em Up or equivalent, it (probably) isn’t the time. I consider it core and don’t want to cut it.

Remaining Faction Card Choices

1x Grandfather’s Hammer: +2 thrust on challenge deletes 4-Resolve characters. Absolutely worth playing as a 2-cost card and a major reason to play Ussura, will never cut. It’s a good thing it’s unique because it is oppressive, but that also means it can’t be Shoddy Craftmanshipped. It has a reaction but it seems incredibly unlikely I’ll trigger it since Yevgeni doesn’t need lethal, and I’m unlikely to equip it to anyone else. Only use case I can see is as the final card towards a leader Assassination or maybe to set up a follow up Iron and Velvet.

2x Mirelli’s Sabre I really didn’t want to include this card. Turns off Iron and Velvet, and its main purpose is to send an extra challenge threat, ignoring the +1 parry, and effectively being a half-as-good Langschwert, meh. But, half as good Langschwert is still good enough to make the cut for now, and it is better than not drawing the Hammer. Acceptable RPT too, but not what I’m looking for.

1x Justice Served Cold, anti-brute tech. I actively want to recruit mercs and/or prevent my opponent from recruiting mercs, so that side is less relevant. I wouldn’t want to draw more than 1 in a match, and I don’t need to draw it, but it can be incredibly powerful, bad RPT as well, since Maneuver isn’t likely to fire.

2x Predatory Pursuit and 2x Razrushitel both help enable me to smash an avoidant character and/or inflict the final wound on them. Can also be used for general movement, in theory. Razrushitel has an option to expend the performer to send the target home, but the cost for the effect seems incredibly unlikely to be worth it, at least in this deck. Maybe Penya would do it, but it seems like lost potential most of the time. Both desirable RPT, core to the deck, won’t get cut.

2x Matushka’s Efficiency, 2x Stubborn, 2x Pull are all additional ways to keep or get characters where they need to be. Stubborn being a reaction is incredibly powerful because if you move onto a location to attack someone, and they spend their action to try to move you away, you react, stay, and then may immediately attack. Pull and Matushka’s Efficiency are both sorceries so they can trigger Elina’s Reaction. Importantly, Matushka’s Efficiency is not a City Action, so you can send an engaged character like Carmela or Ekaterina back into the city from Home. Similarly, Pull can pluck an engaged character from your opponent’s home. Pull can also target your own characters to potentially bypass counters like Blood Like Winter. Core cards, will never get cut.

Pull + Predatory Pursuit is also one of my favorite combos in the game. Pull forces your opponent to move from a location. Predatory Pursuit lets you move your character with them and deal a damage. A magic corpseboard ride, if you will. (And I did: https://www.tomsepicgaming.com/a-magic-corpseboard-ride/). If I ever manage to get Strength of Ten, Pull, Predatory Pursuit, into Iron and Velvet, I could happily retire my Ussuran pursuits.

2x Bleed Out and 1x Relentless finish off characters 1 wound from death. Both desirable RPT. I was a bit hesitant to include multiple Relentless as wounds can be relevant, but I definitely wanted at least 1 to instill the fear of relentless into my opponents, more on that later. Only played each card once, but with how unpopular combat currently is, Relentless is really nice, especially as a way to try to push Torsten to his second wound. Might up Relentless to 2-of, and it can hit Leaders.

1x Collateral Damage as a cute, high-setup-required card included to synergize with Miyato and Ota. Since Miyato and Ota can duplicate a maneuver, this could be used to finish off/Assassinate a character that thinks it is safe at 2 wounds remaining. It can be put back on top of the deck too, as a Flourish, but this would very clearly telegraph my intent, probably forcing my opponent to refuse the duel/parry out…although, it they intervene, they can’t refuse… Bad RPT but it stays for the dream, never played. It could also theoretically pick off a brute, but if they had a brute at a location, it is probably intervening in this duel.

1x Matushka’s Sight is another sorcery to trigger Elina, and it can be used to stack any non-approach deck (errata to prevent discarding Approach Characters/Schemes). This is particularly powerful to stack an opponent’s next 2 gambles, or your own, or the city deck. I originally saw this and wanted to use it to help dig to Hammer, but it was not worth it. Reasonable RPT as well. This could get the axe as Elina’s Reaction wasn’t used once during the tournament although it was triggered multiple times. Ekaterina was generally enough Renown movement/interaction by herself. I like it though, and it was originally at 2x, but probably won’t go back.

1x Blood Like Winter because I don’t necessarily want to draw 2 of it; It is fairly limited in what it can counter, and it has subpar RPT. However, as a Reaction counter to something that might engage or move Yevgeni, similar to Stubborn, it can be really nasty when it goes off and lets me immediately turn sideways to challenge afterwards. More on the one-of’s later.

1x Ussuran Intrigue was never played. The effect is so niche and small even with Ekaterina and Elina to self trigger, that it should probably be cut. I can definitely imagine situations where it could clutch, but it probably isn’t worth the deck slot when there are so many other powerful cards.

2x Matushka’s Command is included as one of the most feared Ussuran cards. It is our 2-parry Parry-Out, and that is the only way I used it in the tournament, but its effect can be a major blowout. The ability to engage all other characters at a location and/or send them home is enormous. If there is a major stack at a location of enemy characters, you could engage 2+ for just 2 cards and a self-engage/send home. I’ve used this in the past to engage down multiple enemies and have Yevgeni flee home when being hunted. It is just explosive and forces the opponent to play around it. Core card, will never get cut.

2x Strong Hands is one of the most powerful cards in the deck. Our strategy is to remove enemy characters to restrict enemy actions as much as possible. Force them to commit early to what they want to do, while keeping our options open. As a claim action that neither requires engaging nor relies on Influence, we can force our opponent to expend a lot of resources to fight over a location and barely claim it, only for us to over-claim it with nothing but expended characters. It is both back-breaking and soul-crushing when saved until the critical moment, mmmmmmmm delicious. Core card, will never get cut. (Great RPT too.)

2x Indomitable Will is the other Economic Victory powerhouse. Being able to stroll Yevgeni or even 6-Resolve Torsten into a location and claim it, without needing any stat-advantage, while preventing reclaiming, is nice. Stubborn and Blood Like Winter also help to keep you on it, letting you lock down a 3+ Renown location. The location does need to be unclaimed, so you can’t wait too long when they start stacking characters onto a location, but if you are able to wait until they overcommited, ahhhhhh, so sweet. Thinking about playing Ussura just gets my devious/sadistic side so happy, and I love that for me. Core card, will never get cut. (Another 3 defense card if we’ve killed enough characters to lock down the economic victory.) This can also make a Day 1 Domination victory much harder for your opponent, if they start committing but leave you an opening.

One Of’s Philosophy

Not including 2 uniques, I am running 8 cards as 1-ofs. I primarily include cards as a 1x instead of a 2x if

1. I actively don’t want to see more than 1 in a given game
2. It isn’t core to the deck’s strategy

For quick reference these are: Blood Like Winter, Justice Served Cold, Matushka’s Sight, Ussuran Intrigue, Voice of the Gods, Collateral Damage, Matchlock Musket, and Relentless.

Some of these I would consider going up to 2x, but most of them are highly situational/niche. Even if I might want to play more than 1 copy in a given game, the odds that that situation would arrive multiple times (or even once) are exceedingly low. That being said, if the situation does arrive, being able to do it once can be game deciding.

Further, one of’s can increase the cognitive load on my opponent without negatively impacting our own. Since there aren’t a lot of ways to draw additional cards during High Drama, you don’t have to think about what cards you might draw. You can figure out your general strategy and contingencies for each day and work through them based on the cards in hand. Your opponent; however, has to consider whether or not they want to play around all of your potential niche answers. If they don’t, they might get blown out be a very specific interaction. If they do, and you don’t have the answer, they might not take a line that could have seriously benefited them.

Relentless is one of my favorite one of’s (although I could see myself going up to 2). I love the fear it instills. Unless you know my decklist, seeing one, implies that I’m likely to run a second, which means you can’t freely refuse/end duels with 1 health remaining. Knowing this, you might continue a duel to try to throw a little bit of extra threat, when I needed you to continue or else I couldn’t finish off your character. Even just gambling into/past Relentless puts that fear/doubt into my opponent, which can also cause them to hyper-fixate on that possibility to potentially overlook the other possibility that loses them the game.

Similarly, I was complimented on how open and deliberate I am about making sure my opponent knows all of my possible actions on the board, and how I let the vast majority of moves be taken back. I swear that isn’t to add to my opponent’s cognitive load … probably. Prooooobably. (In all honesty though, it’s more fun that way.) All of my characters also have incredibly impactful abilities as do my schemes.

Cards Not Included (Briefly)

Most Ussuran Faction cards are great. Borets is just bad. Just kill them with a better RPT card, and they can’t use techniques/maneuvers. Or have a stronger effect in hand.

My Fight, Alone isn’t good enough as a 3O/3D or heal a wound, that is also conditional.

Temnota is reasonable as 0-cost +1 Resolve, that can also enable sorceries from unexpected locations, and/or pitch attachments I don’t want, while having fair RPT. But unless I’m not running Yevgeni, I don’t want to get rid of Syrneth Hand nor Eager Blade, and the rest are meh except probably Captain’s Coat. Nothing wrong with the card, but I want other cards more.

Approach Deck

The core three characters are Ekaterina Ilyanava, Torsten Vakt, and Elina Georginova. Day 1 muster is Ekaterina if there’s a Merc I want, otherwise Torsten. Day 2 muster is the other. Day 3 Muster is Elina. Ved’ma | Miyato and Ota get sent straight to the Locker because I’m already at Crew Cap by then with a merc recruited.

Ekaterina Ilyanava is a 3-Influence character and Ussura’s recruiter. She also has two ridiculous abilities. With Yevgeni and Torsten taking out enemy characters and/or intervening to protect Ekaterina, she is usually pretty safe to sit on a location after and opponent moves to it. If they commit above 3 Influence to claim it, Ekaterina strips a Renown from it, and then poofs another Renown to a different location.

She can also go to a location without committing to it. As long as there is at least 1 Renown there (since moving it is part of the cost), she can get her 3 Renown wherever it is needed to either block or issue a claim. That’s right, neither of her abilities cause her to engage/nor require her to be en garde. She caused my opponent’s so much hassle at Gen Con, and it was glorious. Probably my favorite character in the game to play, and I am looking forward to seeing what she does as a leader.

Torsten Vakt is our 6-Resolve, 2-Influence, 3-Fist, bruiser that can cancel a Sorcery targeting him and who turns into a mini-Yevgeni after taking 2 wounds. Since I repeatedly forget this, if you have enough threat coming in that you would take 2 wounds in a duel, your passive does not trigger until your next combat card. For example, if you have 0 wounds, 4 threat coming in and you play Sunder 2/0/2, you will only push 4 threat back, not 5.

Anyways, his statline is just bonkers. Arguable better stats than the leader Odette (since the 4 Finesse is usually irrelevant outside of Guild Triskilion). While the difference between 5 and 6 resolve is magnitudes less important than the difference between 4 and 5, it is still nice, especially with Indomitable Will. 2 Influence is so nice on a bruiser too, to help protect against claims. In the pacifist meta, if you can get 2 wounds on him, it is definitely worth it to make him a bit more aggressive, especially since he likely won’t get another 4.

Elina Georginova is our swiss army knife. She is another sorcerer to utilize all of our powerful sorceries. Her City action to free move and possibly en garde is terrifying. And her City Reaction to move around Renown was great when I played her in the past. (I did not resolve it once at Gen Con, although I triggered it a couple times.) At only 2 Fist and 1 Influence, she isn’t great at either killing or controlling locations, but she inflicts considerable cognitive load onto the opponent and can do very tricky things. I was also surprised to see her getting into multiple fights for value.

Miyato and Ota were included as an additional 5-Resolve, 3-Fist bruiser, but in actuality because I really wanted to try to copy Collateral Damage Assassinate someone. (Double direct wound with Mireli’s Revision was also tempting.) My plan was to bring them in if I felt like I needed another bruiser and/or if I carried a Collateral Damage over from a previous hand. I believe I mustered them once without sending them directly to the locker.

One final potential use of their second technique, aside from setting up a gamble, is to get a Flourish you want to redraw back on top of your deck. If you don’t gamble into it, you are guaranteeing you redraw it (outside of shenanigans). Flourishes in deck being Mireli’s Revision, Collateral Damage, Sunder (great RPT), and Justice Served Cold. I stand by the decision to include them, but I would cut them if a new 5-Resolve 3-Fist Bruiser came along. The – Influence makes them very dangerous to muster early against Domination decks.

Ved’ma was included because I wanted another back-up sorcerer and another back-up 3 influence character. She was never mustered without going straight to the Locker. She’s great with Matushka’s Command or Voice of the Gods, but I would easily replace her with a character I liked more in the future.

Midnight Shipment and Let’s Haggle are my signature schemes. They are both very high initiative to get me first crack at the mercenaries in the city. So one or the other is usually my opening scheme. Midnight Shipment’s City Action move is also so crazy strong, I really don’t understand why more people don’t play it. It does get much worse if two people play it on the same day though, so maybe stay away y’all. Let’s Haggle also has the Grand Bazaar equip scam; It lets me send Yevgeni out immediately to guard a merc or other city card at a non-Docks location, and if anyone tries to go to the Docks, I can vacuum the attachment I want off of it by sacrificing the -1 cost discount.

The Boar’s Guile and Winter’s Winds are my two +1 Panache schemes if there is nothing in the city I actively want to fight over. I usually put The Boar’s Guile effect onto the non-leader character that either is a bit harder to kill, or more important to kill. Winter Winds is great if I am going to be at crew cap either this or next round making me not want to recruit a merc. Engaging played Brutes and/or the Reputation Meritee muster are quite nice as well.

Leshiye of the Wood is a solid scheme if I want to funnel the activity into only 2 locations (for violence) and/or protect against domination victories. It can also delete a dangerous card for my opponent that I don’t necessarily want, like Guild Triskilion. One thing I had not thought of going into the tournament was how nasty it is against Castille’s Docks-centric scheme, or even Midnight Shipment/Let’s Haggle for that matter.

Deck Strategy

Day 1

Muster Ekaterina with either Midnight Shipment or Let’s Haggle day 1 if there is a merc we want. Otherwise, generally muster Torsten with either of the above if there is an attachment we want otherwise one of the +1 panache schemes, if against Vodacce/Montaigne, probably Winter Winds, otherwise probably Boar’s Guile targeting their non-leader. Leshiye is a possibility against Vodacce/Castille to deny possible Day 1 domination and/or increase likelihood of a fight.

Immediately send Ekaterina to the Merc we want or Yevgeni to the attachment we want. If opponent moves to threaten recruit/equip, immediately recruit/equip, otherwise it can wait.

From there, try to challenge the opponent’s non-leader character if they commit, and you can do so safely without opening yourself up to a day 1 loss to Domination. This is a fairly reactive day for us, as it is when we are weakest. If your opponent passes without committing their character’s engages or many cards in hand, it is probably right to accept the pass even if Yevgeni is en garde at home, as long as we got our Recruit/Equip and denied them to our opponent. This is generally true even if the opponent has a location or two claimed. We can come back from a Renown deficit, but not a Domination.

Cards to be particularly aware of

Against Castile:
– Adaptable if they are going first, strong way to dominate day 1 with Soline
Nothing we can do about the rest, and they aren’t too impactful day 1.
– That being said, also “Padre” Anibel (character) since his en garde effect + a movement card threatens day 1 domination.
– As can Patricia Moustakas (character), although it seems much less likely.

Against Vodacce:
– Pack Tactics, arguably the best card in the game at turn 1 Domination, since it doesn’t require an engage nor a character to start at that location
– Alcee, a potential 3rd character to claim a location. Due to the Don’s +1 influence, she actually has an influence of 2
– Bravos, more of an issue on later turns, but can let a thug come back from the discard pile (Alcee), to turn on Pack Tactics or another claim at that location.
– Veronica’s Guile, if you aren’t sending a bonus threat, this Parry Out can safely send your challenging character home, potentially enabling an otherwise blocked claim. Due to this card, if you have Iron and Velvet and want to use it Day 1, use it first while your character is en garde, so you can still move them back out from Home if necessary.
– Objection, this can cancel an attempt to reclaim a location from a Domination victory, especially if they do it with Pack Tactics or some other means that theoretically lets you reclaim it on board.
– Plans Within Plans (Scheme), if they claim on top of you, this + a movement card can enable day 1 domination.
– Cirilo Naucriparos (Character), not domination related, but this can let them recruit a big merc for only 1 cost. It does turn it to a brute though. In general, if you can catch your opponent with 2+ brutes in play, getting both players to pass will force them to discard all put 1. On second thought, not actually that great a card since it only provides a 1-discount on recruit vs a 3 Influence character specifically for 5 cost mercs, more of a trap for them it seems.
– Vittoria Anselmo (Character), assuming they still have their 1 or 2 starting brutes in hand, you can’t rely on smashing Vittoria if you need her out of the way.

Against Montaigne:
– Reputation Meritee (scheme), there isn’t much you can do about this, they will almost certainly muster a bonus character.

Against Eisen:
– Generally speaking, try not to let them challenge you
– There are convoluted ways for them to turn 1 Domination, but probably not worth them trying
– Denying them the merc in the city and forcing them to use Kaspar’s Action is great for you and also prevents the possible recruit from city, prepare, recruit from Action

Against Ussura:
– The Yevgeni that challenges wins, as long as you are both running aggressive RPT cards, with weapons potentially changing the math

Day 2

Assuming we don’t lose day 1 to Domination, and that we grabbed the only available merc or an offensive attachment, we go into Day 2 with an advantage. With that advantage and the disruptive combo of Ekaterina/Torsten, we can start aggressively bullying/hunting.

For schemes it is fairly similar to day 1; however, important to note, if we got a Merc day 1, get a merc day 2, and none of our characters have died by start of day 3, our day 3 muster will put us over Yevgeni’s 5 Crew Cap. So, rushing to recruit a second merc day 2 is much less valuable, which makes Winter’s Winds more valuable. It also highlights Yevgeni’s role as a bully, especially when winning the initiative.

Bullying

Most decks, particularly right now with minimal combat capability, really, really don’t want Yevgeni fighting. If Yevgeni moves to a location, they are highly disincentivized to go to that location and get smashed. This if further exacerbated by the fact that if we move there first, anyone that moves into that location afterwards will be ceding the very next action to Yevgeni turning sideways on them. They have no opportunity to use/play an action to preemptively engage Yevgeni (Amore). We exploit this, hard.

If there is a merc/attachment/location with the majority of renown on it that we don’t want our opponent to have, Yevgeni goes there, menacingly. Anyone that follows is almost guaranteed to die or peace out (Not Today). We don’t particularly care which character that is either. As long as we are reducing their crew numbers, we are strangling them of potential plays/influence. In the vast majority of my games, Day 2 onwards, I favor this “fight me” mindset, while Ekaterina and Torsten terrorize the other locations. Further, if my opponent engages all of their characters and has minimal cards in hand, Yevgeni can always turn sideways to chal…claim? That 1-Influence is sufficient to claim that 2+ uncontested Renown. Or, if it isn’t safe to disarm the bully by expending/claiming, we can always let the Renown ride into the next day and do it again with a potentially even greater character advantage.

Or, we can use our movement cards at this point, once our opponent is more committed, engaged, and with less options, to pounce onto vulnerable characters. Everyone not-engaged on the other side of the city, let’s Pull the engaged Odette on over to Yevgeni. 2 engaged characters adjacent to Yevgeni with minimal chance of them swooping in to claim our bullied location, Matushka’s Effeciency on over to say Hi! Even just engaging to walk over and drop a Yevgeni Iron and Velvet will likely gain us greater advantage going into day 3.

Hunting

The other way to utilize Yevgeni is as a Hunter. Wait until a juicy character or two moves to a location. Drop the Yevgeni there and give them 1 action to pacify him with an engage and/or move effect (or claim or recruit). If you move into a location with only 1 character, it is probably correct for them to move away, but we do have Predatory Pursuit for that. If they try to move you, we have Stubborn and/or Blood Like Winter, the latter being able to stop risks targeting your character as well. In general though, if they move a vulnerable character to a minimally valuable location, especially early, it is probably a trap to defang Yevgeni (possibly even if they go to a valuable location unprotected).

A vulnerable/questionable move could also be a sacrifice to attempt to win this day. If they claim the location, and we spend our action attacking, we need another character (or Strong Hands) to reclaim it. This could still result in us getting Dominated or falling too far behind in Renown. Further, moving into a character opens up the possibility of them challenging Yevgeni, either as an Eisen Bruiser or as a non-fist fighter. Playing the hunter role, especially early in the day, is risky.

Additional Cards to be Aware of

Day 2 has greater possibilities of big Renown and/or character swings which makes cards more worth playing. In addition to the cards above, here are a few more cards that can cause consternation:

All movement cards: Come Hither, Hidden Corridors, Pull, Sea Legs
All en garding cards: Appealing to the People
Anti-Merc Tech: Paid Off, Marooned (scheme) both of these cards can be played around by using your mercs as bullies though. Get them to key places first, so your opponent has to move into them, so you get first action after they do, before either of these can be triggered. Until Morale Improves is similar.

Against Castille:
– Amour, especially when initiated by Penya
– Drinking Games, watch for them stacking a bunch of characters at a location, although Yevgeni usually can’t be drunk under the table.
– Improvising, this is a tricky one because it can be any of your events. Due to the existence of this card, you should consider adjusting your gambles to not put powerful Risks into your discard where possible (generally not worth too much gameplay warping though). The only cards they can hit against us, since they don’t have sorcerers and can’t use reactions, are Appealing to the People, Indomitable Will, Strong Hands, Justice Served Cold, Bleed Out, Razrushitel (one of our best for them), or Iron and Velvet. Most of these cards aren’t great for Castille thankfully
– Night of Drinking, the best counter card, although importantly, it can’t hit our sorceries which are really powerful.
– Taunt, movement card which can target our characters at Home
– You Cheated, the bane of our Fist-based combat existence, especially with Soline’s -1 Feet. Importantly, this is a Scoundrel only effect, so watch out for Scoundrels. Not much we can do about it though, so we generally have to charge right into it.

Against Vodacce:
– Brutes in general to intervene in our duels
– Rough ‘Em Up can be a particularly scary combat card especially if our opponent is stacking Red Hands, like brutes. Particularly nasty with
– Ambush if Yevgeni starts to get low on health or to target fire down Ekaterina
– Unyielding Loyalty another cancel for targeted effects if can pitch/sac a red hand/thug
– Veronica’s Guile (action), the maneuver is really good and beloved by pacifist decks, but that action has caught me off-guard a few times as one of those ways to fight Yevgeni away from his 4 Fist, watch out
– Pull the Strand, I don’t know if I’ve seen anyone run it, but it seems good for claiming a location you thought was locked down
– The Pressure is On, beware preemptively claimed locations.

Against Montaigne:
Generally know that they can issue a lot of challenges, have impactful attachments, and have above average RPT that has both good Defense and Offense. Musketeers can stack and Jean Urbain Parry, so try to kill before that happens. Bastien can dance the Musketeers, but super squishy. Only two real cards needing remembering
– A Heroic End, great card for turning a low-fist character into an unexpected threat
– Battle of Wits an Influence challenge

Against Eisen:
Lots of movement options and don’t forget their guns can wound. The guns also represent possible
– Last Word, excellent enemy movement card.
– Strategee, which can let 2 characters move together, even from home
– Regroup, movement
– Move Along a challenge that doesn’t require engaging, particularly nasty against our en garde non-fighters like Ekaterina
– Press the Advantage is also strong against Ekaterina/Elina. It’s expensive, but it’s worth it in the right circumstances, and Ekaterina is frequently that
– Well-Equipped another en garding card, specifically for an equipped character
– Trial of Faith can unexpectedly disrupt or push through a claim

Against Ussura:
You’re running all of the cards you should be scared of.

Day 3

Elina recruit. She may seem unassuming, but having the movement, renown movement, and extra sorcerer is so great, easily makes up for the lower Influence and Fist when paired with the rest of the crew. This will usually complete your 5-person crew when you include the merc you likely recruited Day 1 or Day 2, so you are at your strongest on Day 3. From here on out, you rely on either winning or killing characters to prevent your opponent from over-taking you in character advantage.

That being said, there isn’t really any game play changes or extra cards to worry about beyond what I mentioned day 2. The main difference is you need to make sure you are claiming renown by this point, but you should have enough bullies, claimers (primarily Ekaterina and Elina), and manipulation to make this happen. Torsten generally fills either a hunter, bodyguard, bully, or claimer role as needed. (Yevgeni is the better hunter with 4-Fist, but he is our point bully most of the time.)

Day 4+

Not too common to get past day 3 without the game being effectively decided by your aggression. But, if you do, there are a few additional considerations. If you are at crew cap, your core 5 are likely still better than Ved’ma or Miyato and Ota (especially if your merc is Carmella). When reaching day 4+, I frequently found myself doing the required muster and then just sending that character straight to the Locker to preserve my others. Due to the low crew cap, you can also afford to be even more aggressive with trading your characters, since you’ll lose them to crew cap otherwise.

With regard to schemes, thinking about which of them you want to play on Day 5 is about as important as which one you are playing on Day 4. Leshiye is a weird beast in this regard. Generally speaking, Domination isn’t a victory condition I want to actively pursue as Yevgeni with only 5 characters and not a ton of influence.

As you near the time limit, it is important to be aware of how tie breakers work. When time is called,

1. You finish any in progress actions, like a duel
2. Go straight to Plunder
   1. Check for Dominance Victory
   2. Collect Renown from controlled locations and effects like A Boar’s Guile
   3. Check for Economic Victory
   4. Check for Tie Breaks in order until no longer tied
      1. Player with the most renown wins
      2. Player who controls the most locations wins
      3. Player with the most Influence across all of their characters/attachments in play wins
      4. Player whose Leader has the fewest wounds wins
      5. Draw

Due to this, if you know end of time is approaching, don’t slow play if you are in the lead (or behind for that matter), but do prioritize claiming locations earlier than you might have otherwise. Generally, I leave claiming locations until late in each day, after exhausting my opponent’s resources and becoming fairly certain they can’t claim them back. With time fast approaching though, if you have an overwhelming character advantage, with an almost certain win if time was not a factor, that means nothing if you don’t claim the location(s) you need, to have the Renown or Location claimed advantage.

Running tournaments are a time and resource intensive endeavor that affects a significant number of people, and time limits are a necessary part of that. I for one greatly appreciate Pine Box Entertainment for putting them on, and they are so much fun to be a part of, best part of Gen Con/Gamehole Con (which I will be at in 2024 as well). So thank you everyone at Pine Box Entertainment and everyone else that helps put them on and/or provides prize support (so much cool prize support). Also thank you to the community for being a lot of fun to play/talk about 7th Seas : City of Five Sails with.

Conclusion

Ussura is (currently) my favorite faction to play, but Eisen still (currently) has my heart. I hope this helps to show how powerful Ussura can be, and I actively do not think they are underpowered (nor is combat, specifically when overwhelming thrust is leveraged).

I will happily provide my thoughts on any specific questions regarding this or my other decks, why I made certain card choices vs others, what I think of the evolving meta etc., either in the comments below, in the official Pine Box Discord https://ptb.discord.com/invite/b6UduBwK?utm_source=Discord%20Widget&utm_medium=Connect (especially if I’m @ed since I frequently get behind: tomsepicgaming), or through direct discord messages when available. Great game and I look forward to continuing to explore other factions in future tournaments and writing about them (or at least the build of them I’m most drawn to).

Also, I still plan on recording information about the individual games from the tournament (especially the streamed games) which I will add link(s) to, but this is both long and delayed enough as is.

Pine Box Entertainment hosted a tournament at Gamehole Con in Madison recently 10/21/23, and I was happily able to attend and represent Eisen! Got to the tournament right at the start time and found out the only other Eisen player switched to them right before the tournament started, because no one else was playing them. The breakdown was incredibly balanced amongst the factions after that though:

Eisen – 2
Vodacce – 2
Castille – 3
Ussura – 3
Montaigne – 3

It was 4 rounds of swiss followed by a cut to top 4. I ran my Eisen list explained in my breakdown trying out Precision over Iron Reply. (Precision also underwhelmed me.) I stuck with Rena over Uwe. (Worked out as I never mustered Daniella, and only Rena once.) Below is a recap of the games as best as I can remember them. (I’ll have to start taking pictures of board states at the end of each day.)

Game 1 vs Montaigne

Day 1: Both get a Renwon. Relatively unmemorable.

Day 2: Focused around a contest to claim the 5 Renown on the Forums thanks to Guillen + Odette. Overall my engage-efficient combat was working out very poorly for me. I greeded some early gambles with bad results, I greeded an early trigger on Let the Sword Decide to cancel a Riposte, and I ultimately ended up trading a character (maybe Terrell) to A Heroic End gamble that I was very sad I could no longer cancel. [This may have happened on day 1 with a merc, I don’t quite remember.]

After that we piled almost every character we had, both sides with Mercs, into the Forums to contest the Renown. I was down by an influence with just 4 cards in hand and only 1 prepared character with Influence to my opponent’s 2. In desperation, I pay full price to equip a Polished Flintlock to a character, going down to 1 card in hand, and shoot the En Garde Takama (who had survived some earlier violence but was currently at full health). This was my opponent’s second game of 7th Sea ever, and the Montaigne player was immediately suspicious of my final card in hand, openly wondering why I wanted to Engage Takama and what my last card in hand had to do with it. After considering it for a bit, my opponent ultimately decided to Engage Takama instead of taking the wound which would have brought her to 2 Resolve left. After the pass, I use my final card Last Word to push Takama off the location, since she is now engaged and no longer able to return. I claim the location, get the 5 Renown and gain control of the game I certainly would have lost otherwise.

Day 3: I choose The Song of Eisen because I know if I clear the City I’m guaranteed the win (assuming Kaspar doesn’t die and I don’t get Dominated). However, my opponent chose Epee Sanglante, which put the possibility of Montaigne stealing a Renown on the table to disrupt my plans. The two mercs on the table were Carmella and Maryam though, so I had to maintain 4 cards in hand to recruit both to trigger Song.

We go to the Forums, I recruit Carmella and my opponent challenges Kaspar sending 3 threat. Carmella intervenes with a parry 3 thrust 1. Opponent is only able to return 2 threat (since Riposte couldn’t reflect more than what exists). I gamble into a 2 parry 3 thrust. Opponent Ripostes 3 wounds back at me with the help of Henri, and I pay for Well-Equipped from hand to block the 3 and send back 4 which looks like it is going to punch through and secure me the win. However, Mastercrafted Rapier saves the day, pushes 4 threat back, and I fail to gamble into Kaspar’s Panzerhand. Renown stolen, The Song of Eisen plan thwarted.

Time is getting close to being called, so opponent concedes a bit before the end of day 3 since Montaigne could not win at that point. It was 5 Renown to 2 with a possible 2 Renown likely claimable from the Forums by me. Incredibly good game and I look forward to having to play perfectly next time to win, when my Last Word play won’t be a surprise (…will likely bring a different faction next time to have new surprises…huge fan of the potential of Pull + Predatory Pursuit in Ussura).

Game 2 vs Eisen

Not a matchup I was particularly familiar with. It is incredibly thrust-heavy, leading to trading characters instead of picking off characters and surviving, unlike what I’m used to facing. Specifically, we had one or two duels where we both traded characters with an overwhelming thrust card (Fight Through the Pain or Matchlock Musket). I started the duel, played my card representing unpreventable death, then I stared down return unpreventable death. Taught me what that feels like.

Over the first 2 days, I end up incidentally picking up Object of Wonder and Crystal Eye on Kaspar in part thanks to Let’s Haggle, bringing him up to 4 Influence while opponent gets Smuggled Item but trades it for Kaspar’s Panzerhand. Normally I don’t value these City Cards too highly, but they were there, basically free, and I had cards to pitch, so I grabbed them. It is a very good thing I did too.

Day 3 has 1 renown on each the Grand Bazaar and Forums, 2 on the Docks. I initially focus on the Docks and claim it while opponent takes the other 2, both of us with over 6 cards in hand. I Regroup engaged 4-Influence Kaspar over to the Forums, so I can claim that away from opponent. In response, my opponent Strateges over two En Garde characters to the docks. I claim the Forums with Phillip Hase who still has Reaction available, opponent claims the Docks. I play Dark Gift on Kaspar to then move him over. Opponent has both En Garde characters remaining at the location while I have En Garde, full-health Otto and a 1 influence lead (due to my opponent trading away the Smuggled Item, meaning I didn’t need to equip an attachment to Phillip Hase to move him over as well). Opponent challenges Kaspar in the hopes of Assassination, but I refuse and claim location with Otto. (If opponent tried to kill Otto instead, Otto‘s 4 Resolve would have still allowed me to refuse and Claim. Then the second character would have had to finish off Otto instead of claiming.)

Once again, time is close to being called, so opponent concedes to my 5 to 4 Renown lead at the end of day 3, as that is the first tiebreaker. Another very close game against another very strong, new-to-7th Seas player. Eisen scary.

Game 3 vs Vodacce

Vodacce was the only faction I played against multiple times, and the games somewhat bleed together in my mind, so the recaps might be a bit jumbled.

Pacifist Vodacce was also the deck I was most worried about because I know it is strong, and I haven’t had much chance to play against it. So, when I sat against the two Vodacce players, I assumed they were on pacifist Vodacce (they weren’t), and I initiated some intended-to-be lighthearted teasing about Vodacce, but it was also somewhat fear-tinged by the threat of day 1 Domination thanks to Pack Tactics. **Edit: Heard back from both Vodacce players, and apparently I was just being overly critical of myself as neither of them felt I was being a dick. Left the rest of this paragraph in anyway./Edit** I want to apologize to both Vodacce players, as I feel like my comments came out more shaming them for playing a faction with really interesting cards/mechanisms before even seeing what they chose to play, and then it had the effect of making them feel bad for not playing it the “meta” way. I think everyone should play whatever faction in whatever way they want to without having to justify or be “teased” about their choice. My pathological-desire to play off-meta isn’t any more or less valid than anyone else’s reasons to play whatever they want, especially since this is just for fun with no money on line; there is no reason to be dicks to each other whether intentionally or unintentionally. Hopefully, this is just my overwhelming worry about making people uncomfortable coming through, but it is how I feel, and I am sorry, will do better going forward.

This game started out with violence. Day 1, no mercs in the city, but Syrneth Hand on the Docks. For the first time I can remember, I forsake Otto and Muster Terrell day one. My greed demanded a 4-Com Terrell I could cackle over incessantly (internally … mostly) as he cut down everything while protecting himself with his recurring attachment combat cards. So I paired him with Midnight Shipment and flipped into a mustered Servo. I was surprised but still daydreaming about the unstoppable force of Terrell. Day starts, I grab the Hand on Terrell and eventually he ends up in front of Servo. I challenge Servo, I send unpreventable death with my first combat card, and then confused, I see Servo serving back unpreventable death to Terrell? Shocked, I see my investment into Terrell, Hand , and skipping Otto‘s day one card draw vanish.

I don’t quite remember what happened after that, but I vaguely recall slapping a Langschwert on Kaspar and letting out a bellowing roar that shook the building and rallied the nearby boffer knights to my side as Kaspar charged the Don. When the haze cleared, Constanzo was consigned to the locker, Kaspar was heavily bloodied, and all was right in the world. Day 1 or 2 Assassination victory where Kaspar‘s big booty saves the day (9-Resolve).

Midnight Shipment being able to send a character to any City location without spending a card or engage is incredibly powerful. After the strength it displayed at Gen Con, I always made sure to point it out at the start of each day to make sure my opponent at least knew of its existence (whether or not they remembered to take it into account throughout the day being another thing). Some point after getting the Hand on Terrell, I realized that in order to make use of my Terrell muster, Midnight Shipment, and Syrneth Hand purchase, I would have to expose myself to a potential Day 1 Domination loss if my opponent had Pack Tactics in hand. The Don was at the Grand Bazaar, Alcee was at the Forums, and Kaspar was at the Docks with Terrell (Servo was at Home?). If I sent Terrell to the Grand Bazaar, my opponent could

1. Claim the Grand Bazaar with the Don
2. Refuse or parry-out my 4 Restricted Hostilities (5 threat) challenge to the Don either hoping I didn’t have a way to En Garde/Issue a fresh challenge and/or utilize Servo to intervene if I did
3. Claim the Forums with Alcee
4. Use Pack Tactics to move the engaged Alcee over to the Docks and claim it with her base 1 Influence, +1 Influence from the Don‘s Passive, and +1 influence from Alcee moving with Pack Tactics. 3 Influence vs Kaspar’s 2.

I was too stubborn to lose all of my Day 1 value so I went for it, forcing my opponent to have Pack Tactics in hand.  No Pack Tactics was played, but I still traded all of my Day 1 value for Servo, to be fair a lynchpin in my opponent’s plan as well.

Of my 6 cards I started the day with, none of them would have prevented a Day 1 Domination loss at this point if I sent Terrell off of Kaspar‘s Location or allowed me to retake any city location if this happened. I do not remember if Kaspar was engaged at this point (I may have recruited a Midnight Shipment flipped Adelheide to enable the movement City Action?), but here are all of the ways I could have theoretically handled this at this point:

• Preemptively equip an Uppman’s Jacket (or +1 Influence City Card if there were any of either) assuming opponent doesn’t have 0-cost Angelo to make the Influence challenge at 4 (or a Shoddy Craftsmanship)
• Use Well-Equipped on Terrell to initiate additional challenges on the Don, assuming no Intervening, Not Today, Veronica’s Guile, other parry outs, or effective cancels like Unyielding Loyalty. (Move Along wouldn’t work as the Don just goes Home.)

If Kaspar is En Garde or capable of En Garding with a card:

• Use Stratege/Regroup/Dark Gift to move over to the Forums and then claim it, if Vodacce can’t get Alcee or the Don over to contest. (2 movement cards could have let Kaspar move to the Grand Bazaar to attempt to Assassinate the Don, but that would rely on having already got 4 damage in with Terrell and then getting another 3 with Kaspar, which would have been preventable with parry-outs etc)
• Press the Advantage or Move Along on Alcee to kill or move home without engaging Kaspar, enabling the claim at 2 Influence afterwards
• Use Kaspar‘s City Action and hope to get a Merc with 1 or more Influence

I could have also played Day 1 safer with 2 Influence Otto (although 3 Influence Don Constanzo can still claim over him without fear of a Com challenge). I could also run Come Hither (maybe this takes the Iron Reply/Precision slot?) as another potential out to Day 1 Domination. In general, Day 1 Vodacce Domination is very hard to prevent if they draw Pack Tactics, and to play around it, I would have to make decisions that potentially hurt me in the long game, assuming I draw any of my cards that can rebuff it. (For the Family, Unyielding Loyalty, Bravos, The Pressure is On, Objection, and Plans within Plans grabbing a second Thug and providing an En Garding Reaction can also make the Day 1 Domination easier to achieve/harder to prevent.) All of that being said, if the Vodacce player does go for Day 1 Domination, and you are able to prevent it, they could expend quite a few, very powerful resources that they will have less access to as the game progresses. This is definitely a deck I need more interaction with and against.

Game 4 vs Castille

This was the first game where I was able to bring to bear the engage-efficient, overwhelming-combat of Eisen. Castille is a strong faction because they can mess with the board state in unexpected ways in addition to having strong countering, engaging, and flexible abilities. However, Eisen has more straightforward, brute force powerful cards, namely 5 Resolve fighters with Langschwert, Move Along, Fight Through the Pain, and of course Otto which can (and did) make it very challenging for Castille (especially with Castille having the worst RPT in the game).

Day 1 opened with Kalla at the Forums and Captain’s Coat at the Grand Bazaar. I go to recruit Kalla, and then I bait Makepeace over to the Grand Bazaar with Otto. I have no intention of paying 3 (or 4) to equip the coat, but as long as I am the First Player, to dodge an Adaptable Domination win (in addition to playing carefully), I am not too scared of Castille spending 3 for the Coat. Opponent had an Opulence so only spent 2, but I’m still happy, especially as an Improvising was spent to do so. (I was wrecked by Improvising at Gen Con 2023, so I fear it.) Makepeace also equipped a Matchlock Musket to start chipping away at a character at the forum. These two things give me a card advantage going into Day 2.

Throughout the rest of the game, Kalla helps me to negate the cost increase on Makepeace. For instance, I equip her with the 0-cost Langschwert to keep it free and then pass it over to the fighter. Kalla continues to impress me when I recruit her, and she is the only reason I attach Breastplates.

Another card that impressed me this game was the card that made me fall in love with Eisen originally, Unsavory Salve. I’ve generally found it to be a pretty weak card, but it stays in the deck to be fetched by Otto with okay RPT. One thing that I had not considered, however, is its interaction with Phillip Hase. Being able to equip Unsavory Salve onto a Langschwert-equipped Hase, to trigger his movement reaction, without having to override his weapon or use 2 cards on a Breastplate/Uppman’s Jacket etc, is pretty great and unexpected. I was then even able to use its technique with my Appealing to the People to save Hase, while pushing through the last lethal wound, and preventing a final strike back, fantastic. While I still do not expect to equip Salve often, I will definitely be watching to use it as a 1-card movement for Hase going forward.

Aside from that, Otto managed to keep my handsize up enough to block Sanjay even with Castille recruiting Gustavo. (Only 1 Otto whiff the whole tournament was a nice change too.) Move Along was devastatingly effective, and I was very lucky that my opponent’s Night of Drinkings did not make any appearances (since the Move Alongs were critical for keeping the game under control).

Ultimately, my opponent’s Soline was Assassinated as they tried to intervene to save Madre, after I had cleared out most other Castillian characters/mercs.

Game 5 vs Vodacce

Game 2 against Vodacce piloted by another strong player, and I have never feared more for Kaspar‘s life than I have in this game. With my mind hyper-focused on surviving the turn 1 Domination Victory, the Don just casually walked up and used the effect on Veronica’s Guile I completely forgot existed: I was challenged to a duel but with Influence, and it was incredibly painful. In response, I actually had to be the one to parry-out (very luckily finding one of my two copies of Regroup, the only ones in my 40 card deck), and I was so scared of Kaspar dying, that I noticed the maneuver on Regroup and used that, for the first time ever, to flee to an adjacent location.

My opponent used cards like Veronica’s Guile, Servo, Sibella, Rough ‘Em Up, Buratino, and Bravos (probably Ambush in there too) to threaten an early victory , but a day 1 Assassination victory instead of Domination. If it weren’t for being able to Regroup away, I likely would have been knocked out of top 4 instantly.

Day 2 culminated at the Forums. Kaspar and Terrell were there expended against a prepared Don and a Sibella with a wound on her. I play Move Along with Terrell with his +1 thrust against one of them, and the Don accepts the duel. Some amount of damage spills through from the challenge. The Don sends back enough to finish Terrell, but my return Matchlock Musket is able to output exactly enough damage to claim the Don‘s life, due to him not gambling into a 3-defense card. If my desperation Move Along failed, Veronica’s Guile #2 almost certainly claims Kaspar‘s life.

Game 6 vs Vodacce

My luck against Vodacce continued into the finals with 3 Days of triple mercenary flops. I don’t remember exactly which ones they were, but my opponent got Sigurd and I picked up two mercs on both day 1 and day 2.

I remember trying to set up a scenario where I could Press the Advantage Sigurd Home to expose characters to the Eisen assault, but my opponent never gave me the opportunity. That being said, Eisen Eisened and generated a massive character advantage by one-sided killing my opponent’s characters with Eisen characters and trading off Mercs 1 for 1 to not exceed my crew cap.

All that being said, my opponent kept the Renown count close through the entire game, and I never felt entirely comfortable that Vodacce wouldn’t secure the victory anyway by exploiting a potential blunder. Eventually though, on day 4, Eisen grinded my opponent down to only a wounded Don in play, with no cards hand, against my 4 Eisen characters, and a 4+ card hand. I believe I had a guaranteed Economic win on the table, but I was so hyper-fixated on assassinating the Don, if my opponent hadn’t conceded, I could have potentially thrown the game to some very unfavorable gambling luck.

Non-Specific Game Notes

Well-Equipped was a stand-out card used exclusively as a combat card throughout the tournament, both from gambling and from hand. 3 Defense 4 Offense did work.

Phillip Hase consistently felt great.

Terrell ended up trading on multiple occasions and underperformed. I greeded him out early too many times before drawing into Kaspar’s Panzerhand.

Only whiffed with Otto once in my 18 attachment deck, many 1 attachment on 3rd flip though, thank you Corpse Speak (in my deck that didn’t Muster a single Sorcerer)!

Dark Gift continues to be a solid glue-card.

Last Word City Action so good. Didn’t end up having to, but really wanted to push an Engaged character into my En Garde bruisers with it.

Daniella never came out, but she is not in danger of being replaced.

Still figuring out what I want in the Precision/Iron Reply slot. Additional high thrust cards would be nice for increasing the likelihood of day 2 overwhelming threat kills, but 4 thrust is definitely not the same as 5. Lethal on a 4 thrust card is basically only relevant if Otto or a 0/1 Com Merc of mine gets challenged. Would be fun in that situation, but not terribly likely. Probably Come Hither (especially since I already run double Opulence) for even more density of defense against possible Day 1 Vodacce Domination Win, frequently will be discard fodder though.

All of the schemes continue to be great. The 2 highest initiative cards in the game, both with one-sided advantages for myself, and 3 toolbox cards with one-sided effects for me as well.

I am not currently planning on attending Pax Unplugged after all, but I will likely be playing a different faction next tournament. Most likely Ussura or Castille.

It was a pleasure getting to interact with everyone at the tournament. I look forward to eventual rematches against everyone I played against, and I am eager to show off the sick acrylic tokens I got for making top 2. (I have an excellent excuse to play another combat heavy faction thanks to them.) Finally, excited to see how my boy Otto shows up in the lore.

Now that I have played significantly more games of 7th Sea : City of Five Sails, I can say for sure that I love the game. Briefly, I love the distribution model (expandable, not-CCG letting me experiment with everything easily), love how every card is playable turn 1, and love how the city deck randomizes each game in an interesting, not feels bad way (with the rare exception). In addition, I have a much better understanding of how the game plays now (or at the very least, how I play it, which is almost never the same as the accepted meta). So, here is exactly how I play the Eisen deck I plan on running in the online Salon from 9/20 – 11/1 (https://pineboxentertainment.com/2023/09/12/new-in-town-a-five-sails-online-league/).

Feel free to reach out through discord if you would like to set up either a teaching game or an official game (or an unofficial game). I would love to have you play, I am happy to answer as many questions as you have, and I can give you as much or as little strategy advice as we play that you want. Discord: tomsepicgaming (the Eisen District Captain)

Eisen is the most straight-forward/honest faction. They want to recruit Mercenaries, reduce their opponent’s numbers through efficient combat/finish them off with ranged weapons, and utilize strategic movement (at least this deck does). Eisen has no ability to move around Renown on locations during High Drama, they can’t claim a location without initiating an Influence challenge, and none of their characters (including Kaspar) have a base Influence above 2. (Edeline Trinken can get above 2.)

Approach

• Daniella Dietrich
• Otto Streit
• Philip Hase
• Rena Klingenhalter / Uwe Zimmerman (Uwe is actually probably better with the guaranteed 3 combat since the 3 Finesse is a bit overkill for Eisen. Uwe can also work with Daniella and/or Philip Hase‘s technique. Bonus +1 thrust on combat cards vs Sorcerers is a bonus. However, if against an opponent that actually challenges, being able to intervene and challenge in the same turn with Rena could be nice, but that opponent is more likely able to kill Rena in the first challenge. Either way, this slot is pretty much are 5th Muster either way. So, I’ll probably run Rena because she’s got great lore.)
• Terrell Brandt
• Midnight Shipment
• Let’s Haggle
• Armed and Marshaled
• Let the Sword Decide
• The Song of Eisen

Faction

Attachments (18)

• 1x Dark Gift (unique)
• 1x Kaspar’s Panzerhand (unique)
• 2x Langschwert
• 2x Polished Flintlock
• 2x Unsavory Salve
• 2x Breastplate
• 2x Corpse Speak
• 2x Matchlock Musket
• 2x Throwing Knife
• 2x Uppman’s Jacket

Non-Attachments (22)

• 2x Fight Through the Pain
• 2x Iron Reply / Precision (might be better, for the 1 parry / 4 thrust, usually don’t spend 1 to give it Lethal, but you could especially with a Langschwert thrust…)
• 2x Last Word
• 2x Move Along
• 2x Press the Advantage
• 2x Regroup
• 2x Stratege
• 2x Well-Equipped
• 2x Appealing to the People
• 2x Bleed Out
• 2x Opulence

General Strategy

Generally speaking, your primary win condition is creating an extreme character advantage by prioritizing recruiting the best/all the Mercenaries and killing your opponent’s characters. From there, you can win with whatever method your opponent presents: Assassination, Renown (Economic), Domination, or the loss of the will to continue fighting (Concession/Surrender?).

City Deck Rankings For Eisen

Eisen wants Mercenaries, both in lore and in game (good stuff). In general, dueling Mercenaries are your preferred choice to help with creating that character advantage, but most mercenaries are valuable to you, sometimes just to prevent your opponent from getting them.

#1: Maryam Benu Pleroma

5 Resolve, 4 Combat, at least 1 finesse (3!), in addition to a Risk canceling Forced effect (which will cancel your own risk if you target her with it first), and a Technique that can be played first round (no thank you Veronica’s Guile). 6 Cost is less damaging to Kaspar as well with his 4 Influence on Parley.

#2: Angeline Demone

Leader level stats (aside from Resolve) with a 3 Combat. Her ability to move without engaging is also great, as is her Technique. There are not a lot of characters that she doesn’t have at least equivalent Combat and Influence to, but watch out for attachments that can push those characters out of range. While she is incredible in her own right as a card, she also has the best artwork in the game which absolutely influences her ranking. I would love a signed, full-size print of this artwork to frame…I’ll also be at Gamehole Con and likely Pax Unplugged…just saying.

#Sigurd: Sigurd Ulfsen

Against Ussura, Sigurd is the 3rd best city card for you. Not better than Maryam because Maryam can help you hunt the boar, and not better than Angeline because we don’t tolerate that kind of slander. Sigurd walks into Yevgeni‘s location, says “Sup” and stands there as your other fighters pile in behind to initiate the duels without being initiated on. Strong against Montaigne and other Eisen players as well, but almost meaningless against pacifist Vodacce/Castille (unless they get him which is annoying for you). Also, the fact that duels can’t be initiated against other characters means you’re guarded against unintervenable challenges as well.

#3-7 (these are similar in ranking):

Adelheide Schmidt is great because she is a reasonable fighter at 2 Com, 2 Finesse, 4 Resolve, but she can also turn your abundance of attachments into unpreventable damage (many of the attachments included purely to be grabbed by Otto anyway).

Carmella Vanessa Salvaggi is great because of her ability to challenge/intervene twice a day with 3 Combat (and 2 Finesse). She even has an influence if she needs to claim a location.

Kalla Forsberg is great because Eisen has so many attachments they want to attach, even from the City Deck. Reasonable offensive stats too, since Eisen frequently wants the first combat card played from hand and the 2nd as a gamble that hopefully reduces damage taken from the opponent’s final strike.

Ravenna Destine is great because card draw. She can also claim a location.

#Reasonable Mercs (similar in ranking):

Leja Juska is the best of these but not quite as good as the 4 above. Reasonable offensive stats, but not great. No other power, but the 1 influence is relevant.

Eko Sorridi 3 resolve is so low and easy to kill. If it weren’t for that, he would be great with his combat stats and City Reaction. Don’t forget it can hit a character fleeing with Not Today.

Vladislav Novikoff isn’t as good as Sigurd, but a reasonable card against Ussura/Montaigne/Eisen. Very weak against Vodacce/Castille, but annoying for us to play against.

#Valuable City Attachments

Syrneth Hand, Eager Blade, Burnished Cuirass, Sorte Deck

Fairly unimpressive Day 1 unless you can get them on a fighting Merc you recruited. Not bad on Kaspar to enable him to do some fighting, but he would much rather be recruiting Mercs. Day 2 onwards these are great on your fighting characters to either make them hit harder or stay alive longer. +1 combat is a big deal because it makes your 3 Com characters send 4 threat/Restricted Hostilities on challenge which is usually enough to outright kill a character, preventing them from just refusing. These attachments also enable effects that rely on having an attachment.

#Lower Tier Mercs (for Eisen)

Non-fighting, mostly 3-Resolve, mostly 0-Combat mercs. They can definitely help prevent us from losing to opponents taking control of locations though as they all have 2 Influence.

Claude De La Roche: is a solid Merc that can certainly help not lose against Renown/Domination decks. But, at 6 cost, we would much rather have an opponent pay 6 for him and then kill him.

Giacinto: 3 health is easy for us to kill and, while his effect isn’t weak, we are much more interested in fighting than engaging/moving a character for the turn, generally speaking. Wins games though.

Gustavo (Luis de Martinez de Ladera): 3 Resolve, so easy for us to kill. At 18 attachments in our deck, it isn’t as unlikely as I would like that we whiff and don’t get a card draw from his effect.

Kaj Kousei: Syrneth Hand is the only artifact we actively care about in the city deck.

Takama Siad: Has been better for me than I anticipated when I begrudgingly recruited her, but she can’t protect herself, has to be in the same location of the duel, and the dueler has to still be alive.

#Everything Else

Most of these are fairly unimpactful to our gameplan.

Captain’s Coat scares me with its ability to help enable an early Domination victory against us before we overwhelm the city.

Duckfoot Pistol is another way to finish off a non-Leader, but we have a bunch.

Crystal Eye, Object of Wonder, Smuggled Item‘s +1 influence is nice, especially for recruiting 5 cost characters but mostly a luxury for us.

Penya Shows the Way, Point of Opportunity, Risky Undertaking, Siren’s Song, and So It Begins all have noticeable effects which can be huge but aren’t usually.

Guild Triskelion is scary for some opposing characters to get, and to be fair, it is pretty great on Daniella and even reasonable on Otto.

Efficient Eisen Combat

Background (Knowledge Gained)

When I first started playing 7th Sea : City of Five Sails, I was enthralled by 3 defense (Riposte+Parry) cards as a way to keep my characters alive in duels, in addition to pure-parry or “parry-out” combat cards which are fairly rare for the factions I was looking at first. My thought was that as long as my character survives, I can eventually win the duel. That approach did not work for me, at all.

The biggest demonstration of that for me was when my high defense Ussura deck went against the strong overall RPT cards of Montaigne. Yevgeni challenged Odette and left the duel having taken 3 wounds and inflicting none (to be fair, I think I forgot to add the +1 Thrust to Yevgeni combat cards). I was very confused. It seemed like combat wasn’t very effective, Finesse was everything, and luck played a large role. So I built my Gen Con Eisen list with Unsavory Salve and other ways to get out of combat while still mitigating damage.

It wasn’t until playing with the eventual Ussuran District Captain and my life-changing friend/Epic Card Game pro Tom Dixon, that we came up with a different approach. My Ussura deck at the time was focused on churning through my deck with Vedma + Matsushka’s Sight, Devotion, A New Strategy, etc. to find Grandfather’s Hammer. The idea was that initiating a challenge with +2 thrust for 6 outbound thrust was really strong because even if a 4-Resolve character played a 2-defense card like a parry-out, that 4-Resolve character still instantly dies. In addition, with Yevgeni‘s base 4 Combat, they also can’t just refuse the duel, because death. That being said, I thought after that initial challenge, the longer the duel goes, the worse it is for Yevgeni as he will wrack up wounds since Ussura doesn’t have a ton of 3-defense cards. Tom Dixon wanted to duel though and didn’t want to just focus on big initial challenges. (I also had Boon‘s to try to make my challenges more scary. I have since come to view Boon as rather mediocre, as most people seem to).

Eventually, after we slept on it, we both came to the conclusion of: bring more combat cards that send more threat! If it is strong to send 6 threat on a challenge because it overwhelms defenses: 2 being common, 3 not-uncommon, 4 rare (Not Today being effectively 4 since it causes you to take a wound), or ultra-rare 5+ with stacked effects, why not try focusing on using Matchlock Musket, or other 4 offense (Riposte + Thrust) cards [in combination with Yevgeni‘s bonus +1 thrust] to consistently send 5+ threat to practically guarantee inflicting wounds early?! Even if these cards have little to no defense, it is much better to take the Restricted Hostilities 2 or 3 wounds on your 12 health character and then follow up by inflicting 3 or 4 wounds on their 4 health character. By making this change, we still want to minimize the amount of wounds we take, but we do that not by defending, but by killing our opponent as quickly as possible.

Strategy

Eisen follows this same idea as well, overwhelming Threat. Langschwert is one of the best cards in our deck. It lets us send 4 threat on the initial challenge which still enables us to push maximum Restricted Hostilities damage of 3 against a 1-parry parry-out. We can then follow up with a gun or Bleed Out to kill the opposing 4-Resolve character with only needing to initiate that single challenge (engage).

Further, if our opponent doesn’t parry-out or refuse, Langschwert gives us another bonus Thrust for our first combat card, which will ideally be a Fight Through the Pain or Matchwork Musket from hand, resulting in 6 threat, which our opponent is likely only able to block 3 of. Sure we took 2 or 3 damage to do it, but our opponent is probably dead, and our 5 Resolve character can probably defend enough of their Final Strike to not die. Also, sure we played a card from hand instead of a free one from Gambling, but that card effectively read 0-cost inflict 3 wounds (incredible).

Simple as that.

Fight Through the Pain is another of Eisen’s best cards for this reason, especially since (as long as your character isn’t dead), it shaves off 1 damage from your opponent’s Restricted Hostilities damage (no matter how much Threat they sent). You can effectively ignore the Action on Fight Through the Pain unless you are desperate.

Day 1

Goal

Day 1 our goal is to not lose to Domination (or Assassination for all you Yevgeni‘s out there), recruit a (good) Merc, and start growing an advantage to go into Day 2.

Muster

Otto is always our Muster day 1 to start (hopefully) drawing extra cards.

Scheme

Midnight Shipment or Let’s Haggle are basically always our scheme. If there is an incredible Merc we definitely want, Midnight Shipment to guarantee we go first (since I don’t think I have ever seen anyone else run this scheme). If there is nothing we want, still Midnight Shipment to try to get a Merc from the extra city card. Let’s Haggle can be used if there is a strong attachment on the Grand Bazaar we want for cheap or to scam.

To scam with Let’s Haggle, send Kaspar to the non-Grand Bazaar location with a Merc you want to Recruit. After your opponent moves into the Bazaar to take the Attachment, activate the City Action on Let’s Haggle. Kaspar gets to equip the Attachment from his location, since only the discount requires you to be at the Bazaar.

Action Order

1st action (assuming you won the initiative) is always to send Kaspar to location of the Merc you want to recruit.

2nd action could be the Let’s Haggle scam.
Or, if your opponent didn’t move into your location and you are not doing the Let’s Haggle scam, it could be equipping an Uppman’s Jacket in preparation for recruiting a 5+ cost Merc. Otherwise, it is probably just Recruit.

If your opponent is planning on doing some fighting, especially with Yevgeni, you probably wait until they move out of home before bringing Otto out as far away as possible to draw you a card. This can include passing if both characters are still at Home. If lucky, maybe Otto claims you a location for a Renown or 2, likely not though.

If your opponent is not fighting or is Vodacce/Castille with the potential of turn 1 Domination Victory, Otto‘s 2 influence can make that harder for them to achieve. Against Vodacce, you probably want to get Otto to an unclaimed location to contest the claim as reclaiming a location might fail due to Objection. Against Castille, it maybe is better to wait until they burn through their shenanigans? Thankfully, since we will almost always be going first in the first couple days, we have to worry less about Adaptable stealing a location where we have an Influence-advantage with only engaged characters.

Most of your cards in hand are not worth playing Day 1, unless you need to prevent yourself from losing to Domination Victory. If you get Syrneth Hand on Kaspar and no other Mercs, you could equip him with a Langschert and start challenging characters, even using Well-Equipped to go again. Day 1 Assassination Victories are possible against unsuspecting opponents. Otherwise, playing 1 equipment to get under 6 handsize is all you really want to do. Playing the guns to start pushing that damage is tempting, especially if sitting on a Last Word, but usually better to save it if under handsize. If you’ve got an Opulence to get it out, maybe, but your cards in hand are very valuable. Going into day 2 with a 12 card hand is quite nice for executing tactics, especially since there is likely more Renown in play.

Kaspar’s Panzerhand should never be played as it is too important of a combat card for later Days, and it is very expensive.

Also, do not forget the City Action on Midnight Shipment because clearing the location of City cards is pretty easy for Eisen, the non-engaging movement action is incredible, and your opponent might forget about it enabling big plays.

Day 2

Goal

Start whittling down your opponent’s characters, don’t lose to Domination/Assassination, and ideally don’t let your opponent get to 5+ Renown.

Muster

Now we have diverging paths dependent on what we have leftover in our hand from day 1, who (if anyone) we recruited, and which faction our opponent is playing.

The highest power-level-ceiling character in our deck is Terrell Brandt, and ideally we want to get him out as soon as possible. However, his power comes from being able to play ridiculously strong RPT attachments every single combat (since they return to hand if he doesn’t die regardless of if played from hand or gambled into). If you drew into Kaspar’s Panzerhand, you should muster Terrell. If you also drew into a Matchlock Musket, you should absolutely muster Terrell. With both of these cards you can issue a challenge with his +1 Thrust technique to send 4 Threat, follow up with Matchlock Musket to take the opponent’s Restricted Hostilities (1 to 3) and send 5 threat, and finish off with Kaspar’s Panzerhand to block 4 of the likely final strike. Rinse and repeat. If you haven’t drawn Kaspar’s Panzerhand yet, hold off on mustering him. If it entered your discard pile somehow, you could muster him with Armed and Marshaled to get it back for him, unless there is a high priority Merc to recruit (requiring a higher initiative scheme).

On the off-chance that you got to Recruit Maryam and/or you will have 2 fighting Mercs, Daniella Dietrich is a strong Muster choice. Being able to throw a Langschwert on Maryam and let her attack twice (or intervene + attack) is huge. Having 2 fighters gives you more flexibility since it takes multiple actions to get into position for her to use her City Action. You could use Stratege to move both Daniella and a fighting Merc into place with one action (since Stratege doesn’t target the performing characters), but I have not done it yet. If you don’t have reliable access to fighting Mercs, don’t recruit Daniella. Her technique is fantastic for protecting her as well, almost effectively turning any card into a defense-out.

If you are going up against Vodacce or Castille, Phillip Hase‘s 2 influence and movement City Reaction are both excellent for blocking/punishing tricksy Domination/Renown gathering shenanigans (with his 3 Combat too of course).

Otherwise, if you have a Langschwert in hand Rena Klingenhalter is a solid choice. If against Montaigne and their plethora of challenges she might be even better, as long as you have at least a Throwing Knife to get her powered up. Be Aware: if her weapon gets Sundered or Robbed in a duel (or if you throw your knife), she will immediately go back down to 2 Com/2 Restricted Hostilities for the threat currently sent at your opponent (likely not the end of the world though as it is terribly common to be able to push more than 2 damage, although we definitely try to).

Scheme

If there is a high-value Merc in the city, use whichever of Let’s Haggle/Midnight Shipment you have left to maximize your chance of getting it.

On the off chance there is a strong Merc in the city discard pile (possibly because your opponent used Shifting Tides to justifiably fear-discard Maryam), you can use The Song of Eisen to put that Merc on top of the City Deck. Then, you can use Kaspar‘s City Action to recruit the Merc off the top of the deck.

If Kaspar’s Panzerhand is in your discard pile, you can use Armed and Marshaled to get it back to enable you to Muster Terrell.

Otherwise, now that we will have at minimum a strong Mustered fighting character, Let the Sword Decide is an excellent card likely to draw a card and can cancel a nasty Manuever/Technique YOU JUST HAVE TO REMEMBER TO USE IT TOM!!! (Cancelling Broken Time is so cruel…so deliciously cruel.)

Action Order

Once again, assuming you go first and there is a Merc you want, immediately send Kaspar there. (I frequently forget to even draw my new cards before doing so.)

Otherwise, if there is high-value fighting attachment, send one of your fighters there.

Don’t forget about the Let’s Haggle scam as an option as well, nor the actual discount if Syrneth Hand or something drops on the Grand Bazaar.

If there are no City Cards you care about, you might have selected a lower initiative scheme, therefore not be going first, so you react to your opponent.

Day 2 is when we start primarily hunting characters. The juiciest targets are ones that die instantly to a single challenge. 3 Resolve characters are prime targets and 4 Resolve characters are reasonable as well (since we are packing ways to push that last point of damage outside of combat). We can push some wounds to our opponent’s leader if that is the best challenge we get, but ultimately our goal is to eliminate entire characters first and foremost. We can always Assassinate an unguarded leader on a future day, and we aren’t able to necessarily initiate enough bonus challenges to kill off a leader outright early.

Sequencing of actions at this point becomes incredibly important and is incredibly tactical. I think this skill is largely gained by playing the game, but here are a few good examples:

• Opponent played Marooned while you have a strong fighting Merc in play. If you send your fighting Merc to a location that has an opposing character, they get to act next and engage down (or finish off) your Merc, not good. However, if you send your Merc to an unopposed location that you expect your opponent will want to go to, if they move there, you get the first action and can challenge that character before getting engaged. They could counter this by sending a character they don’t care as much about getting challenged. If they do, you get the choice of either challenging or letting them spend cards to trigger Marooned. If they don’t go to that location, that is likely good for you too, as you can probably collect its Renown.
• Opponent is Yevgeni and you have Sigurd. Wait until Yevgeni moves out. Move Sigurd on top of him. Then move your challengers in afterwards, protected.
• When hunting characters, wait until your prey moves out, then move on top of them. However, if they move to a location that doesn’t make a ton of sense for them to be at, they might be planning on using an effect to move to where they actually want to go, after you commit your free move to get on top of them. Phillip and Angeline can punish that nonsense.
• Terrell equipped with a Langschwert is going up against an Ussuran/Castillian controlled character, activate your Langschwert technique before your Terrell technique in case your weapon gets removed.
• Wait to bring out your vulnerable characters until the scarier opposing characters are Engaged.
• Wait to initiate claims until your opponent isn’t likely to reclaim it from you
• Immediately initiate claims if you think your character is likely to die soon if you think your opponent isn’t likely to reclaim it from you
• Equip weapons at home so there is only a 1-action gap between moving an issuing a challenge
• Equip a weapon, at a location, that your opponent wasn’t counting on, after their character engaged

If your opponent is playing very cautiously and avoiding your challenges that could whittle their characters down, you can always win with Renown. If you send a strong fighter with at least 1 influence to an outer location with 2+ renown, and then they don’t send anyone to contest while engaging all of their characters elsewhere, just claim your location. You don’t have to force a challenge. Basically, if they are too worried about losing to actually advance their win condition, you can shift into it yourself.

Don’t forget about Otto either. He isn’t a fighter, so he is a great follow up character to reclaim a location, possibly after you killed the high influence character that was originally there for instance. There is generally little rush to get that card draw because it is frequently just discard fodder for your other effects like Well-Equipped, Move Along, etc. Maybe you could have drawn into a Langschwert, but the reserve-claimer/reclaimer is solid.

Day 3+

At this point, you are mostly just iterating on your Day 2 options. You likely won’t have your high initiative schemes to snipe Mercs anymore, but you have 3 high-effect schemes to convert into kills/strength.

Usually, the longer the game goes, the more favored Eisen seems to become, as long as Otto is actually staying alive and drawing cards, and as long as Eisen isn’t spending cards unnecessarily for minimally impactful effects. In earlier Days, you can definitely let your opponent pick up some uncontested Renown if it means you kill or heavily injure a character. At this point though, you have to be careful that they can’t convert the board into a win before they are crushed beneath you.

Miscellaneous Eisen Points

Kaspar‘s greatest strengths as a leader are his 4 Influence on Parley and his big butt (9 Resolve). His 9 Resolve lets him Refuse early challenges if he wants, effectively wasting a 3 or less Combat character’s engage. You don’t want to refuse a Yevgeni challenge, but aside from that, Kaspar doesn’t need to get his hands dirty. He absolutely can though, leveraging his 9 health to take out a character, but you need to be careful of Lethal and unintervenable challenges after that point. Getting within a few wounds of death could also prevent Kaspar from leaving home, which is a big loss for you; however, if your opponent poured tons of resources into that, we can likely finish up the game with our other accumulated resources.

Kaspar‘s City action is unreliable. I generally avoid using it unless in combination with The Song of Eisen. The main reason is I scarred myself in my loss in Gen Con top 8 where I activated his ability to greed out an additional Merc instead of claiming my location, knowing it could potentially lose me the game. I got the no-Influence, worthless-against-pacifist-Castille Vladislav and lost the game (of course there were a lot of factors to the games conclusion, but that one left a mark). That being said, I just played a game where my opponent hit Angeline into Maryam, so it certainly can be ridiculously powerful. Primarily though, I would much rather take the Merc my opponent has the option of recruiting than rolling the dice on a random Merc.

Last Word is incredible. A 0-cost (after the initial investment of playing a ranged weapon which can include Throwing Knives) move your opponent’s character is incredible for messing with their Influence math on claims, getting potential interveners out of the way, moving an engaged character into a location with your fighters, etc. It theoretically could be used in a duel to finish off a character preventing them from sending a final round of threat, but my fighters usually aren’t equipped with Ranged Weapons (possibly Throwing Knives though).

Unsavory Salve, Breastplate, Corpse Speak, and Uppman’s Jacket are included almost exclusively for Otto to fetch with his City Action, so you can discard them to pay for your better cards. It is hard to imagine a scenario where you actively want to play Unsavory Salve, especially since getting your weapon destroyed also destroys the Salve. Breastplate is overkill for your 5 Resolve characters in addition to being too expensive; its 3 parry is reasonable as your protection from your opponent’s Final Strike. Corpse Speak can be used by Daniella, and you do have some strong targets for it, but it is a lot of setup. Uppman’s Jacket could be played turn 1 to pay for itself over 2 Recruits, or it could be used to break a claiming stalemate, but I usually just discard it when recruiting as opposed to spending an extra card to Equip it.

Press the Advantage is great if you have plenty of cards in hand for its City Action at a critical moment; its Maneuver feels too expensive though. Well-Equipped City action is incredible, as is the Maneuver if you gamble into it while equipped with a Weapon. Dark Gift does work, primarily with its movement ability, but it can keep your fighters away from the dangerous 1 Resolve remaining state (Bleed Out, Razrushitel, etc.).

For some highlights from games at Gen Con with a similar list, check out my initial Gen Con tournament report/deck tech.

Conclusion

I want to play more 7th Sea, and I am happy to keep repping the honest Eisen! Now that you know my decklist and strategy, come at me. Let’s see if you can surpass my tactics.

If I get the motivation, I’m hoping to get a similar article out for Ussura, probably my favorite faction currently (because they are much less honest and I utilize a more balanced playstyle instead of ultra heavy combat). I do not have a strong enough understanding of Castille yet, and I don’t like Montaigne as much so I will likely do a much less detailed post on my decks I have ready for each. I will not defile my hands with the villainous treachery of Vodacce. (I actually just don’t want to disrupt the communities “The Family doesn’t fight [itself]” since I actively want to play as many games as possible while not taking away from others’ enjoyment.)

My most anticipated event at Gen Con 2023 was the 7th Sea : City of Five Sails World Championship. I heard about the game while looking through the Gen Con event list for tournaments, and I had managed to get about 10 games in before Gen Con and another 3 Friday night. Posted a bit about the game here.

I went into the tournament wanting to play a Castille/Soline deck because it seemed like the weakest faction so I felt challenged to make it work. Played some games against my good friend Tom Dixon the night before the event, and it just felt frustratingly underpowered. So, I switched to Eisen/Kaspar because I was super excited about exploiting Unsavory Salve, and Eisen seemed reasonably powerful overall. Was a bit worried that everyone was going to be playing Eisen, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it was tied for the least represented faction (with Vodacce/The Don) for my hipster self. I was also very surprised with how underwhelming Unsavory Salve turned out to be.

Gen Con 2023 Top Eisen Decklist

This is the list I ran for the tournament. (There are 6 changes I made after the event):

Kaspar Dietrich (Gen Con 2023) [Chip Damage]

Approach

• Daniella Dietrich
• Otto Streit
• Rena Klingenhalter
• Rosine Friese
• Terrell Brandt
• Midnight Shipment
• Let’s Haggle
• Armed and Marshaled
• Let the Sword Decide
• The Song of Eisen

Faction

Attachments (15)

• 1x Dark Gift (unique)
• 1x Kaspar’s Panzerhand (unique)
• 2x Langschwert
• 2x Polished Flintlock
• 2x Unsavory Salve
• 2x Breastplate
• 2x Matchlock Musket
• 2x Throwing Knife
• 1x Uppman’s Jacket

Non-Attachments (25)

• 2x Fight Through the Pain
• 2x Iron Reply
• 2x Last Word
• 2x Move Along
• 2x Press the Advantage
• 2x Regroup
• 1x Stratege
• 2x Well-Equipped
• 2x Appealing to the People
• 2x Bleed Out
• 2x Not Today
• 1x Opulence
• 1x Shoddy Craftsmanship
• 2x Tending the Wounded

Initial Deck Idea

Generally speaking, I intended this to be a midrange deck that could win with any of the three victory conditions. The major idea I wanted to experiment with was shrugging off challenges while pushing through small amounts of damage at a time, not necessarily focusing on initiating challenges myself. I wanted only-parry cards (ex. Regroup) to end duels (if you send no threat back, the duel ends), and I wanted to use the guns (ex. Polished Flintlock) to whittle down characters.

Unsavory Salve’s ability to erase a threat and turn it into a wound had me salivating over the idea of achieving both of those goals at the same time. Specifically, it could turn Appealing to the People, Breastplate, and Kaspar’s Panzerhand into 3 or 4 parry cards, that inflicted an unblockable wound and ended the duel, effectively erasing the value of my opponent’s Engage Action (challenge). Even getting an unlucky Opulence Gamble could at least end the duel and deal a wound. Important remainder though, you can only trigger one Technique per combat round, so you can’t use 2 Unsavory Salves to cancel 2 Thrust (ex. Tending the Wounded). In addition, if your weapon is destroyed or stolen, you lose the Salve.

Lastly, we packed 15 attachments into the deck to have an attachment density greater than 1/3 to make Otto likely to draw a card off his ability. Throwing Knives were primarily included to hit that threshold and to help enable Last Word.

World Championship Games

A brief account of each of the games (as well as I can remember). Putting these in show/hide blocks to artificially deflate the length of the post.

Game 1: Eisen vs Vodacce

Game 2: Eisen vs Castille (On Stream)

Game 3: Eisen vs Vodacce

Game 4: Eisen vs Vodacce

Game 5: Eisen vs Ussura

Game 6 (Top 16): Opponent Didn’t Show

Unfortunate as I would rather play than get a free win, but it happens. Got some sweet promos.

Interesting to note the top 5 was all Vodacce (with only 9 Vodacce players) except for me as Eisen in 3rd. I was also the only Eisen in top 16 (only 9 Eisen players as well). Overall a very balanced distribution of factions which surprised me.

Disqualification “Win” 5*-1

Game 7 (Top 8): Eisen vs Castille

Post-Tournament Deck Thoughts/Card Analysis

Major takeaways from the event were

1. Always going first with Midnight Shipment and Let’s Haggle in addition to occasionally the others was incredibly powerful for getting to all of the Mercs/attachments from the City Deck I wanted
2. The City Action on each of those and Armed and Marshalled were all incredible/unexpected by my opponents
3. Turn 1 Domination is real and scary especially as I’m a value deck
4. Whiffed 8 times trying for an attachment with Otto, want more attachments
5. Rena did work, although Langshwert was the true hero
6. Fight Through the Pain is one of the best cards in the game, supports overwhelming-force combat ideaology (briefly send as much threat as possible, ideally 2 or 3 above your restricted hostilities)

Conclusion

I really enjoyed the game, and the distribution model lets me mess around with whatever deck I feel like without having to chase down cards etc. Really enjoying the game, the festival/judges were great, story is a definite plus with a cool writer, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the overwhelming force doctrine maps onto the other factions.

or My New Epic-Replacing Obsession (hopefully)

Overview

7th Sea : City of Five Sails is a 2-player, expandable (non-collectible) dueling card game with Pirates, Musketeers, and Sorcerers (with multiplayer formats).
Your goal is either

• Assassination: Kill your opponent’s Leader
• Domination: Control all 3 core locations in the city at the end of the day
• Renown: Control locations in the city over 5 days to collect 7 (or the most) Renown

To accomplish this, each Day you choose 1 of your 5 pre-selected Characters to add to the fray and 1 of your 5 pre-selected Schemes to shape it. These are supported by your randomized 40-card Faction deck. However, before you make your choices, a neutral card is added to each location that players can race to Recruit, Equip, or exploit that Day from a randomized 30-card City deck. (This City deck is defined by Pine Box Entertainment, and they plan to rotate it, in part based on the actions taken in Organized Play events/tournaments).

Cards in your Faction deck can be

• Played for their primary effect (equipping characters or performing one-time effects)
• Played for their combat values in a duel (regardless of their primary effect)
• Discarded to pay the cost of other powerful Faction and/or City cards
  (Race for the Galaxy style [one of my favorite game mechanisms])

Players alternate taking a single action until all players pass consecutively.

Initiating back and forth Duels and Claiming a Location are the primary two actions the game is built around (in addition to playing cards, character movement, and Passing).

Current Thoughts

As of this point, I have played about 10 games, half of which with decks I’ve built. I am still in the exploration phase as I feel out everything this game has to offer, but so far, I have been enjoying it and actively want to continue experimenting.

During the third game, the flow of play clicked and now actions can go pretty snappy back and forth, especially since you’ll want to be thinking multiple moves into the future. I actively enjoy the combination of City cards coming out, and then deciding which Scheme card to respond with, to determine where Renown gets put, what bonus effect to gain, your likelihood of going first each day, and whether you’ll draw more of less cards than normal. That feels great, especially since you can only use each of your 5 schemes once for the up to 5 days.

Card management also feels good. As mentioned above, I love the discard cards from hand to pay for other cards mechanism. It also synergizes well with deckbuilding enabling you to include situational cards, cards you actively want to play, and cards you actively want for dueling (especially if flipped in gambling). The tension between Gambling in duels and playing from hand is also a satisfying choice; Gambling has certainly screwed me, but not in a way that turns me off from the game, since “Gambling” is a very apt name for the mechanism.

My one disappointment so far is that deck building feels very limited at this point, with seemingly only one way to take each faction, for now. As additional expansions come out with new cards and characters for each faction, I expect/hope this will improve. For now, it mostly feels like optimization as opposed to exploration.

Faction Overview

Each of the 5 factions feel different and interesting to play. Currently, my vague feeling for each is

• Castille: Try to deprive your opponent of as many actions and choices as possible, weak dueling, Renown primary win condition
• Eisen: Bruteforce overwhelm your opponents by ending duels (refusing or returning no threat) and pushing unpreventable damage, Any win condition
• Montaigne: Best duelists, force your opponents into duels and extend them, Any win condition
• Ussura: Combo deck, find the hammer and/or buff Yevgeni to issue one-shot challenges, kill opponent in a duel as soon as possible, Domination/Assassination win conditions
• Vodacce: Take as many actions as possible, everyone outside The Family is expendable towards your Renown win condition (or surprise Assassination)

I plan to do individual write ups on the deck I built for each of these factions.

Theme/Art/Lore

If I can buy this playmat at GenCon, I will, love it. Would buy a framed print of it too.

I’ve recently discovered that good Theming/Art/Lore can really draw me into a game (much more than I expected), and I have been drawn in to 7th Sea : City of Five Sails.

I learned about the game while looking for tournaments in the Gen Con 2023 event catalogue, and as a non-collectible, 2-player card game, I was obviously immediately intrigued. There is a World Championship Festival Saturday starting at 10am, and it will have a story-based game augmentation in 3 of the rounds (28 open spots remaining as of today).

So I looked into it further and saw they had Chanteys with lore on their website and in their rulebook. All of the stories have been interesting and have actively made me want to explore the world. Apparently, the setting is based off a 7th Sea Role Playing Game and there was a previous collectible version of the game in the late 90s.

Going in to the World Championship, for gameplay reasons I think I am leaning towards playing Eisen, but for thematic reasons, I will likely pick a different faction so I can usurp them. That being said, I see that Ussura won the 6-week salon (and Eisen won the initial 2022 Gen Con tournament), so my personality is pushing me away from those. Ahhh, so many fun considerations to agonize over for what I want to play! Ultimately, I need (and want) to get more games in to feel out the factions more, and I need (and want) to pour through all of the lore to come to a compromise of the two.

Closing

For anyone looking to play, there is an official Tabletop Simulator mod and Pinebox Entertainment discord. I am looking to get as many games in as possible, so if interested you can reach out through discord, username: tomsepicgaming

**Edit: I have really been enjoying this game. Here is a link to my tournament report from Gen Con 2023, my more in depth Eisen Deck Tech, and my tournament report from Gamehole con 2023.

In addition, my Ussuran Deck tech from Gen Con 2024, and the start of my match reports from that tournament in addition to first streaming announcement 8/25/24.