"The Cold Deck" was a story written by Al Ewing which ran in "2000 AD" at the same time as two other series set in Dredd's world, "The Simping Detective" and "Low Life". These stories initially appeared to have no other connection with each other, but after each of them had been running independently for a couple of issues their plotlines unexpectedly intertwined with each other, and it became apparent that Ewing had collaborated with the writers of the other two series, Simon Spurrier and Rob Williams, to create a single large crossover story. The three series merged into a single story for their concluding part, called "Trifecta", which took up every page of "2000 AD" #1812.