Thursday, December 16, 2010

Strategy: Outlaw Suicide through Duels

Sometimes as an Outlaw, it is best to try to cash out and try to get the card bonus to your team mates. One great way to do this is to Duel another outlaw who has a BANG!. Initiate the duel against them, let them fire the BANG! back and then don't play any other cards. Take the hit, die, and give the card bonus to your team mate. I found this to be extremely helpful in a game when Bone Orchard made two Outlaws come back to life with 1 health each. Since there were no other roles dead, every other player knew we were outlaws and that there would be a card bonus for killing us again. So I dueled my fellow outlaw and let him kill me so that one of us might survive.

NOTE: Now that I have read the official BANG FAQ, I am not sure if this strategy is legal anymore. Read Question 23:

Q23. If an Outlaw plays a Duel and loses, does the player who won the Duel draw the 3 cards reward?
A. No. The reward goes to the player who played the card which was responsible of the elimination of the Outlaw. But since that card was played by the Outlaw himself, no one can gain the reward.

While this clears things up, it is still confusing. The card responsible for eliminating the Outlaw is not the duel, but the BANG! card that another player used to respond to the duel. After all, the other player did not have to play the BANG! If so, how was the Duel responsible for the death? It provided the opportunity, but that does not mean it was responsible for my death. I dispute this reading, and think it can be played either way (house rule at least). It does open up a new interesting strategy. You can duel anyone when you are at your last rope, not respond, and no one gets the card bonus. Thus, a duel suicide is still useful; you just can't help your buddy under the official rules. Though it may not be a rule, just a FAQ, as I think you can read it either way. Under their reading, Dynamite explosions should give you card bonuses too, as the player laid the card that was responsible for the elimination.

1 comment:

  1. But, Bang cards in a Duel are considered discarded, not played.

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