Yellow Flash, Red Eye: 2nd at ANRPC Wausau, Jul 18

linuxmaier 702

This is a variant I built of the awesome When The Flash Wears Yellow deck. I chose it because Faust destroyed my NBN glacier deck I had been working on. If ICE can't tax credits and Anarchs have as many cards as they could ever want, what do you do? You make them play the money race.

I didn't like the ICE suite in the original deck, though. Errand Boy seems like a really bad investment in an Anarch heavy meta and much of the rest of the cards were all very low strength as well. So I dropped the Boys and picked up Lotus Field and Hive as replacements influence wise, and also picked up two Gutenbergs since that's one of the best pieces of NBN ICE in a long time and it fits right in with the way this deck wants to tax.

I was also worried about the fact that the deck didn't have any answer to Clot, so I packed in a Cyberdex Trial. The reasoning for that over Cyberdex Virus Suite is that the suite is easily trashable before it needs to be alive and I don't plan to be able to defend anywhere for it to live. The trial's usual downside is there's no window to play it in response to Clot but in a Psychographics deck, there is! Click one, install the agenda and the runner SMCs/Clone Chips for Clot. Click two, bravely Psychographics it anyway. Click three, play Cyberdex Trial and then score the agenda in the next window, before they can recur clot. As it turned out I didn't play Shaper all day so I never had to play it, but I wanted the insurance.

Ultimately it went 3-2 on the day, which was enough to keep my afloat while my Geist deck powered me into 2nd. I got a 7 point Beale which was very satisfying, and the deck its self plays very quick and easily (though you can still make play errors about how/when to score agendas if the single turn win combo isn't showing up, which lost me one game) which is very helpful in a tournament environment. I think if I were to bring it to another tournament, I'd drop Snatch and Grab and one NAPD Contract and pick up 2 Breaking News, since that's a better anti-Kati strategy anyway so long as you have a pre-scored AstroScript Pilot Program (which happens). I think I'll also try to find room for a Biotic Labor, but that's starting to dilute the deck's incredible speed and strength.

4 comments
20 Jul 2015 benticurus

Congrats :)

20 Jul 2015 linuxmaier

@benticurus Thank you! It's a beast of a deck and easily carried me with almost no practice; you built an awesome engine.

One question: how do you play around clot? It seems like that would be an auto loss for the original build.

20 Jul 2015 benticurus

@linuxmaier yeah, Clot is quite a problem. the thing is that i've played versions of this deck for over a year, but only that version that i published went viral. Clot is a new threat that really can become annoying (imagine how powerful this deck was before Clot!) , but your idea of Cyberdex Trial seems great given the windows of activation, etc. I hadnt thought about it before: even if they have a Clone Chip in play, the Corp has priority in the order of play, so you just instal agenda, Psycho, Cyberdex Trial, and score without the runner being able to do anything. The point being: you've offered what is to my eyes a great solution.

My strategy was just to hope that the runner wouldnt get all their recursion fast enough, etc. I've also tested a new version with stronger more taxing Ice (allowing myself to remove poor little Boy ). That version can create unexpected scoring windows for normal two-turn install/adv/score plays.

21 Jul 2015 linuxmaier

@benticurus I'd be interested to see it. At least until Film Critic comes out, this shell feels like a great meta call and it's a blast to play. I didn't want to mess with the 9 inf in the clearances, but after the tournament i think GLC could be anonymous tip and that gives you 6 inf to play with. I was thinking 1 of biotic 2 lotus, but I'll want to test it.