Bang bang (you shut me down) - Eindhoven Regionals 1st place

Okkdoko 1119

This is the deck with which I won the Eindhoven Regionals (24 people). 5 rounds of swiss and cut to top 4, deck went 4-1-1 (tie) over the whole day. Cards were legal up to Breaker Bay.

I expected a lot of Anarch, especially whizzard since spags single-handedly made him cool again. Therefore I didn't feel like playing my normal HB FA deck but instead opted to go for a faster version with NEH. Many of the tweaks were done with anarch in mind which paid off, given there were 7 whizzards and a bunch of noise.

Quick explanation of some card choices:

  • Power shutdown: already noted by multiple people as very strong in the new meta with NRE, I still opted to play 2 as tech versus clot. You can shut down the SMC which shaper players normally leave on the table to threaten clot, and use blacklist to prevent them recurring it. Frequently this is enough to score one more astro, or slow them down enough to rush behind some cheap ETR. Against non-shaper, shutting down a crucial breaker like corroder can be enough to buy you the few turns you need to win the game.

  • Crick: saw this in Zach Cavis' NEH list, and it works really well together with the power shutdowns. Also does some work against noise, prevents security testing on archives and generally surprises people. 3 influence is a lot, alternatively you can cut it and GLC for an extra biotic and probably a tollbooth.

  • Lotus field: MVP by far, 2 is definitely the right call. This is just so hard to break for anarch early game, finding atman4 takes time and is still expensive. Offcourse weak vs shaper, however this was the right call for the meta.

  • Only 1 architect: this was last minute tech from a friend, reasoning is that people who don't know your decklist still have the install mimic out of fear of faceplanting into it, while people who do know your decklist still have to respect the 1-of. Frees up crucial influence for the PS.

  • Grim and GLC were the most dubious cards; just wanted one more annoying piece of ICE and econ. There must be something better to do with these slots.

Small report of the day, Krystian from Teamworkcast recorded most of these so looking forward to watching them.

  • Round 1 vs Mark playing Valencia. I can rush out an astro behind enigma very early; next turn I bait the blackmail by install sansan behind it. The opponent didn't have enough credits to trash, so I score out rather easily. One thing I noticed is that he trashed all my PADs without doubt, probably thinking I was on butchershop and opting to keep me poor.

  • Round 2 vs Krystian from Teamworkcast playing whizzard. Details are a bit vague, however I mostly win by rushing behind lotus field before he gets atman4 online.

  • Round 3 vs Jeroen playing Leela. Our previous game with RP take ages, so had to rush with 10 mins left. I score an early astro, get siphoned in response and draw a 2nd astro which I can't score yet. On his last turn he drops sneakdoor and snags it from my hand for the tie.

  • Round 4 vs Ronzacapa playing Noise. Once again I can score an early astro, however his first mills trash a few beales. I get a Jackson just in time, however his nexts few mills are again beales and a Jackson. I do get a solid remote going with Lotus and Sansan which he can't touch, but I don't find the agenda's in time before he locks R&D and mills a couple NAPDs before I get my last Jackson.

  • Round 5 vs Steve playing Noise. I keep a hand with lotus field and astro, and game is over in quick fashion as I just keep drawing more agenda's which I can score as he has no answer to lotus.

After swiss I am in first seed, cut is to top 4. Only game in elims I played with NEH was against Argamas with whizzard (told you anarch was popular!). Sadly I dont find my early lotus field this time, so I gamble and push astro behind enigma. Next turn I bait the run by installing sansan behind it and sure enough he has the Yog. I find a 2nd astro and some barriers, however I have to give up some accesses on R&D. He scores 6 points in 4 accesses, and I have 2 breaking news in hand with wide open HQ. His board is clone chip, corroder and yog so I decide to make a play before he finishes it on centrals. I bait a run by rezzing PAD, which he diligently trashes with whizzard. Next turn: power shutdown 1 for clone chip, power shutdown 2 for corroder (trashes a beale), install crick on archives. He draws up and finds his 2nd corroder, installs and runs archives last click. I happily install the beale and score it out, so we are both on 6 points but I am broke. He decides to money up on his turn and doesnt run my hand, next turn I take a cred, install BN, advance + astro for the win.

Overall extremely happy with how the deck performed, however I have my doubts about it's success against Kate with clot. If you expect anarchs especially with NRE, I believe this to be a very strong meta call.

9 comments
14 Jun 2015 Argamas

Hey man, great game and well played. Overall you were the best in Eindhoven. Congrats & nice meeting you!

I did know what kind of NEH you had and was more catious then needed. Nevertheless, that's all in the game.

15 Jun 2015 Redvex

Gz Michiel ;)

I ran into this with ff0x just yesterday.^^ It took ages to check the inf points.

15 Jun 2015 ff0X

When I saw the deck in action in Eindhoven, I knew I wanted to play it the next day in Liege. Thank you for sharing the list, I had a blast playing it and it went through the tournament undefeated, facing Kate, Maxx, Whizzard (2), Noise, Andromeda.

Especially the game against Redvex' Andromeda was quite intense, since I was sitting on 4 points with an astro counter for about 30-40 minutes of the game.

16 Jun 2015 LynxMegaCorp

Just did a quick read through and saw you wanted options over GLC and Grim. How about Private Contracts / Marked Accounts and Rototurret? Roto serves a similar purpose to Grim, but without the BP. PC / MA are hard to trash and play nice with NEH / Crick.

17 Jun 2015 Redvex

Hmm if I had to spend 4 on a parasite-bait, i'd go with Errand Boy maybe?

20 Jun 2015 Astrochelys

I link the Grim in this deck. Trash the fracter of an unsuspecting runner, and suddenly these Wraparounds may become unbreakable for a few turns.

23 Jun 2015 Okkdoko

Been trying with -1 crick -1 GLC -1 grim +1 archived memories +1 ichi +1 wraparound. Grim is difficult to get to connect, especially with all the anarchs playing david and the 1 BP is really bad. Ichi being at str4 is quite nice and even if it doesn't hit it remains taxing when put on a central.

I still like the deck a lot, but it is just horrible against a competent Kate w/ clot player. Shutdown isn't enough and lotus field is a joke for cycy to break. The matchup is anyhow atrocious, but adding SfSS might give you more options to bluff the clot out. Unless somebody has secret tech against Kate offcourse, in which case I'm all ears :)

24 Jun 2015 it987

I tried swapping lotus fields for rototurret. If runner faceplants a rototurret, and you follow up with a power shutdown they are borked. Plus it comes with the added benefit of gear checking for a killer. I also swapped Grim for Little Engine. Little Engine synchronizes so well with a FA strategy. By the time the runner has found his answer, it has bought you several turns of precious ETR protection. If his answer is cycy, then you just abandon the server. Swapped GLC for beanstalk royalties. Pretty minor and mostly inconsequential. Just thought it'd be nice to have in case you get vamped so you don't have to click for cred :-) Last swap I made was License Acquisition in for Breaking News. Feels so delicious to pull a SanSan out of archives and get a free rezz. The runner will cry if he sees you have 2 rezzed SanSan scoring servers! Haha!!

This is a fantastic deck you've posted here.

26 Jun 2015 ff0X

In my experience Rototurret is just a gear check for Parasite and a rather expensive one, too.