Finklestein's Lab - Decks & Strategies

Deck Designs

"Weapons of Mass Destruction"
by Andrew Parks

Locales
Oogie's Lair (Starting Locale)
Back Alley
Castle Finklestein
The Tree House
Tree Circle
Town Square

Characters
Oogie Boogie, Meanest Guy Around (X4)
Clown (X2)
Corpse Dad (X2)
Corpse Kid (X2)
Corpse Mom (X2)
Devil (X2)
Big Witch
Hanging Tree
Harlequin Demon
Little Witch
Monster Under the Bed
The Mayor, Lugubrious Leader
Undersea Gal
Winged Demon
Wolfman

Creations
Dead Head
Delightful Hat
Eager Anaconda
Oogie's Dice
Scary Teddy
Takeoff Ramp

Surprises
Fire! (X4)
Sound of Rollin' Dice (X4)
Let's Play! (X2)
Search Lights (X2)
Gate Keeper
Halloweentown Gates
Shadow on the Moon (*)
The Best I Can

(*) = Since Shadow on the Moon is an Ultra-Rare, substitute another copy of Let's Play! if necessary

Fire!This a moderately heavy interaction deck which is explosively fun to play! It is reasonably effective at getting out Scare Points as well as beating down your opponent. There are 7 Rare Cards, plus one Ultra-Rare, Shadow on the Moon, so it is of medium complexity to build. If you want to make your opponent feel the wrath of the Boogie Man, this is the deck for you!

Strategy

The strong advantage to using Oogie's Lair as your Starting Locale revolves around its ability to generate 3 Pumpkin Points during the early Rounds of the game. This makes it a perfect Locale for the Search Lights / Fire! strategy. Search Lights has a Cost of 3, so it can be played the very first turn if it is drawn into your hand, and after Search Lights in on the table, then Fire! can also be played at a Cost of 3.

The main disadvantage to Oogie's Lair, of course, is that your Starting Hand is only 5 cards, and the Lair is not particularly effective at drawing cards on its own. The Lair's other disadvantage is that it only provides 1 Movement, which isn't even enough to send Oogie out for a night on the town. To compensate for this, there need to be other Locales in your deck that are good at drawing cards and providing Movement, and the Back Alley is perfect for this. The Tree House is also a good Locale to draw cards with this deck, since many of its Surprises have a Cost of 1, which means you can draw 3 cards and then use the 1 Pumpkin Point to follow up with an attack such as Sound of Rollin' Dice.

Getting Oogie out as soon as possible is very important for this deck. Therefore, you should play him to his Lair rather than wait for enough Pumpkin Points to play him elsewhere. Once he's in the game, you can use Let's Play! to greatly enhance your Sound of Rollin' Dice, allowing you to target much larger victims for Oogie's culinary delight.

Once Oogie is in play, there are several ways to get him out of his Lair and over to a Locale such as Town Square or Castle Finklestein where his big Scare Number can be put to use. Activating the Back Alley should be done as soon as you can so Oogie can depart the Lair. Because of this, you should try to keep one side of Oogie's Lair free of adjacent Locales until you draw the Town Square or Castle Finklestein. This will allow you to move Oogie out of the Lair and right into a useful Locale. The use of Oogie's Dice is also a great way to get Oogie where you need him.

The Best I Can is a useful way to eliminate an opponent's weenie Character, but do not hesitate to use it to Search for Oogie if you're having trouble finding him, as his presence is extremely useful to your deck.

The Gate Keeper can knock down an opponent's Halloweentown Gates if he keeps using them to evade your Sound of Rollin' Dice. Try to hold onto the Gate Keeper for a few turns until you're sure your opponent isn't packing the Halloweentown Gates as a means of protection.

Since you're likely to eliminate a few of your opponent's Characters with the Sound of Rollin' Dice / Let's Play combo, having the Devil out is a great way to reap some free cards as a benefit. The Clown is also an effective attacker in this deck, since he can wipe out any weenie of your opponent's, and ignore Halloweentown Gates while doing so (since the Clown is a Character, not a Surprise). In fact, if you have already played both the Mayor and the Devil, then using the Clown's text also gets you 2 free cards (the Mayor gets you a card since you discarded your Clown, and the Devil gets you a card since your opponent discarded a Character). Pretty cool, huh?

Once your opponent knows that you're playing with Fire!, he may try to hold off on a couple of his bigger Creations until the endgame. Make sure you hang onto a Fire! for the game's last Round just in case. Making your opponent second guess the play of his bigger Creations is one of the most fun parts of playing this deck. This deck will give your opponent Boogie Man nightmares for a week!


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