War of the Worlds - 2nd & 4th SC (34 players) - 10 - 2

INTRODUCTION

I’ve been playing around with 44 card RPC decks for a good while now - first in Skorp (R.I.P), then Builder of Nations (Bad) & now BtL. 44 cards is in my opinion important because of the 18 point agenda suite that it enables (more on that later). Earlier in the week I brought the new BTL version into our local Bristol testing group with Algebraic (Ian) & I taking it to the event itself.

On the day the deck went 10 - 2, going 5-1 in both swiss and cut (low game count in swiss due to IDs). I believe that the deck is both very powerful in a general sense, and also very well placed in a meta where runners are adjusting to very fast corps. The constant econ from the BtL ID also offsets the cost of placing at least 9 advancement tokens on ice.

BUILD NOTES

As previously mentioned, the Agenda suite is the main reason to play this deck in BTL as opposed to something like Earth Station. If the runner does not take the Government Takeover, the only viable score plans are either 3x GFI 1x Hostile or 2x GFI 3x Hostile. Once a Hostile has been scored from hand this means that the runner has to take either the Takeover or close to every other agenda. This can often lead to the strange situation where you don’t care about the third Hostile when one has been scored/stolen by both sides.

The ice suite is largely built around the requirement that the ice is advanceable, which massively restricts the slots available for generically good ice e.g. Border Control & Surveyor. This leads to some otherwise dubious ice selection - Colossus especially does not perform brilliantly beyond being a sentry that can be advanced.

TECH SLOTS

There are 2 tech slots in the deck - 1x Macrophage and the second CVS. I believe that the first CVS is essential because otherwise Clot makes you sad, and in a world that contains Hivemind MaxX I think the Macrophage is also essential. Given the amount of Apoc in the event, the second CVS should probably have been a tech slot aimed at countering Apoc - either Crisium Grid or Border Control seem decent choices here. Your mileage may vary with these, so base your choices based on your meta.

MATCHUPS

The matchups in general are fairly flat (and good) across the board. The only bad matchup is some Knobkerie/Imp builds which can be very frustrating to play against when your combo pieces keep ending up in the bin. Good use of Spin Doctors to put back the combo pieces/Punitives is essential, and ideally get the Macrophage on HQ.

Against Apocalypse decks, the best bet is usually to try to seed archives with 2x GFI before the Apoc, and then punitive on the Apoc turn when an archives run is required. Failing that, keeping ice back in hand to rebuild after the first Apocalypse is always a good idea. It is close to impossible to keep the runner out for long enough to combo before the first Apocalypse, but if you can build your econ the rebuild phase is not too slow.

Against reg crims the plan is just to pile ice high and restrict accesses as much as possible. These are generally good matchups, but there is available tech for the crim to gain more of a foothold in the matchup e.g. Citadel Sanctuary to avoid Punitive & float tags from Boomerang -> Pharos, Embezzle to try to clear the combo pieces from hand, or a well-timed Legwork although that option for multi access has gone out of favour with the need to keep up with faster corps.

Against Hivemind MaxX, Macrophage on R&D is the very best card you ever will see. Separately, 10 strength Pharos will never be broken by Turtle and rarely broken by Paperclip so will require a Botulus/Tranquilizer. Similarly, 3 advanced Hortum also cannot be broken by Turtle and the MaxX decks often cut Black Orchestra, so they will also require a Botulus/Tranquilizer. Between the 3 Pharoses (Phari?) and the 3 Hortums the Simulchips can be taxed out quite hard with the runner forced to get their programs in the right place. This is another matchup where dumping GFIs in archives is solid - it clears them out of the deck and the runner will never want to run into an archives with CVS in it.

CONCLUSIONS

This is a fun, new take on an old meme, and has the advantage of being good this time. Whilst I think it has a high base power level and is very well placed in the current meta it’s important to note that we are both in a very new meta (big changes are possible) and that tech may begin to be slotted. However, I urge everyone to take BtL out for a spin, take over the government, and kill anyone who gets in your way.