Turtle Palana - 16th at Worlds 2020

Bridgeman 2157

This deck carried me into the top cut of worlds going 6-1 during the tournament with 3 of those being 241 wins that miraculously saved me after a slow start.

I figured that since Palana was already a decent ID as shown particularly in intercontinentals it would only be stronger now that pad tap was gone. I had tried to make other glacierish decks work but they didnt feel right.

This list isnt too different from other Palana decks but I think I made some good tweaks here to push the deck a little further.

First I believe 8 agendas is the way to go, especially with a lot of leela in the meta. Fewer agendas means more whiffs on access and further opportunities for your ice to tax the runner. I compensate for the lack of the ninth agenda with a DRM, which also allows me to get the perfect agenda for the situation. The future perfect follows this theme as well, often the fact that one of the agendas in the deck is not a guaranteed steal creates situations where the runners odds of finding the last points are slim.

Got a crisium in there as a little tech vs apoc hayley, but it is also neat vs the dofs and stargates going around in the meta. Rarely a dead card at 1 copy.

Corporate sales team instead of sandbox! Sandbox kind of demands that you play many copies of it to be consistent, and since I was going down to 8 agendas this was not possible. Plus, the sales team gives more money in most cases, doesnt require you to build around it, and is effective against all decks. There is no more pad tap to punish it. I didnt feel a particular need to hate on viruses as IP block already hates on aumakua, and purging isnt too bad as the ID has semi drip built in and la costa can still place counters while you purge.

DNA tracker?!??!? Are you stupid?: So yes this card is not good value against Amina admittedly, however crims often take their sweet time installing Amina. In the meantime this is a mean facecheck that cannot be completely broken with a boomerang, it is great vs anarch, and reasonable against engolo. Geist needs to use at least two trash effects to break this completely. Even in the worst case it is a tax of 4 to get through, sometimes with all your etr abilities all you need is one big piece of ice that absolutely needs to be broken by the runner. I´d rather have 4-5 anansi in the deck, but since I cant this is the next best thing to get a little more big ice in the deck.

Preemptive action is arguable, but does work from time to time.

The rest of the slots are pretty self explanatory, score those niseis as fast as the runner lets you and finish them off with the obo ;)

The list is solid, dont really regret any includes, recommended.

Big shouts to Leopold, Arndt and Mitch from our new testing group Unband for all the practice games ;)

Hats off to nisei for a well run event, and keeping the game fresh and alive! Hard to stress enough how appreciated this is!

2 comments
21 Nov 2020 Council

I told you man

I told you to play AgInfusion

Memes aside, a great list by an even greater player - top16 twice in a row is no mean feat.

30 Nov 2020 Bridgeman

Hahaha :D

Thanks man ;) The deck could almost not have done better so I´m glad I stuck to my guns on this one :)