When developing Cabora's Coast, one of the goals intended with this set was to make some of the most iconic factions more playable and competitive than they were during the game's print run. Well, Reis definitely has to be the most iconic villain in the game (and Crimson Rogers def could use a boost to their competitiveness). This new fan set includes a number of cards: Reis' Marketeer, Vodacce Backers, and Stephen Fervier, who are all intended to help the Crimson Rogers have some more options to help them compete better with the other decks out there.
So here's the deck! (Shout out to Daniel Sacco, who's previous Reis builds helped hone in on some really good disruptive cards and strats, like adding in Fine Boots, which served as part of the inspiration for this build.)
In general, Crimson Rogers tend to be under stat for their cost. The most noticeable of these is they do not have decent cheap crew with a lot of influence to start, swashbuckling tends to be lacking in faction, and not many crew have the gunner keyword. Some of the new cards address a number of these issues.
Vodacce backers is the strongest boost that the Crimson Rogers get. Once you start looking at the crew costing 5 or more, you find some really good options that are on par with the stats power level of other factions. Renzo is a great choice for small ships, starting Riant Gaucher would solve a lot of the questions you have about affording higher end crew without losing tempo, but here we've chosen the experienced version of Javier. Reis' Marketeer is deceptively good beyond first glance. Den of Thieves unfortunately evened out a lot of the power levels out across the game, toning down some of the strongest decks that won GenCon in 2002, Kheired Din and Jorund, and it helps stop some turn 1 win decks like speed boarding. However, this solution comes with one of the drawbacks of hitting Crimson Rogers decks, so getting their own 1 cost marketeer was a solution to alleviate this issue. The huge upside though is that having a 1 cost crew in faction turns on your Captain's ability much more quickly, letting you get started on an aggressive game plan more reliably.
Stephen Fervier helps enable an aggro strategies. He is flexible enough to go on a big 4 sailing ship if you need him to by paying the additional cost for a stat boost, and has some keywords that pair nicely with cannon bonuses, but in this deck he comes out cheaply, sails the boat and threatens some good plink!
This is a straight up aggro cannon deck. Javier's ability to untack means you can keep sending out crew and crew each turn, or use his 3 adventuring to play a copy of Fine Boots (Fine Boots btw, received a REALLY good MRP in the later set, Iron Shadows) to disrupt your opponent. The New World, released 20 years ago in Parting Shot, is a great addition to enable the aggro strategy of this deck. This card allows you to inflict additional pain if your opponent runs, and all the sailing from your crew help you to chase them down from the get go. Vodacce Backers reduces Javier's starting cost from 6 to 4, and then later in the game, once you have sunk some crew, it will give him the First Mate trait, for Sharing a Cot.
Some staple cards from the first 7th Sea set, No Quarter!: Betrayal, Cat O' Nine Tails and Black Heart all have their roles here helping with card draw or sending hits back to your opponent at a key moment for the win. Almost all of your crew cost 3 or 4, enable your Captain's ability, and have sailing so they can chase down your opponent and plink them to oblivion.
If Crimson Rogers was your favorite faction, hopefully this will be a fun aggressive deck to play during your next 7th Sea Gaming session (or maybe you're thinking of coming to the next big event at GenCon!) and hopefully the new cards in Cabora's Coast inspire some other deck ideas. If you want to share some decks, or you are looking for help brewing, feel free to pop into our Discord channel and say 'Hi!'