A Skorpios Story 6 - Who's really in prison?

My name is PowerBunz and I love Skorpios. I've built more Skorpios decks than any other ID and It's time to share my enthusiasm and joy for the murderous and oppressive. Not all these decks will be good, not all of them will have actually been sleeved up and played; they together tell a story of learning, improvement, and, most importantly, huge remove-from-game piles.

Alright, stay with me here. This one was actually pretty alright. Even with Lycan.

Like all good prison decks, this list made people angry and want to stop playing with me. Whenever they actually did get their breakers out and stop fighting my board, Hunter Seeker appeared. R&D was just sharp and pointy enough with Shock! and Sapper. Money was plentiful and the rush factor worked with both Oaktown Renovation and New Construction, which was a pretty great turn 2 rush attempt thanks to its board boost. Prisec protected Bio-Ethics Association, Friends in High Places made people sad. It worked, at least in casuals.

I think this was one of the earlier lists I wrote for Skorpios. It's hard to place on my bad-ideas timeline thanks to its strange play style and seemingly sensible card choices, but I do remember its inception early on after spoilers were released. It saw some play on Jnet, and I think even won a game or two. I just didn't enjoy playing it. So let's talk about why I enjoy ANR.

I started playing thanks to a review on Rock Paper Shotgun by Robert Florence in his now retired Cardboard Children column. He pointed out how it played like nothing else, that the interactions between players were unique, about how even at its most basic levels it's about the fear of the other player's potential. His description of how a run works was wonderful, and he inspired me to buy a core set. I taught anyone around me who wanted to learn, playing only the equivalent of kitchen table games for years. I slowly expanded my collection, and eventually caught wind of the other local players and started to play competitively. Even now when I catch up with old friends they comment on how glad they are I never dropped my enthusiasm for the game, years after I played with them.

When I became more competitive, learning more about real decks made by real people, I never dropped that feeling that this game is something I'm playing with my friends at a kitchen table. The highs and lows of tracing and scorching, the innate drama of deeper and deeper Medium digs. Even when I'm playing against the best, most competitive, on meta players in my area, I still treat them as I would my old friends as we're all trying to understand some new ridiculous card (looking at you, Keyhole, the bane of my learning years).

Decks were interactive and dramatic and huge. Everything was huge. Every game ended with some ridiculous Stimhack run, or being 1 credit short. Going forward into my competitive ANR career I maintained my love of these huge dramatic decks. This one strayed too far into the negative player experience, substituting that drama for slow, grinding inevitability. It somehow managed this despite still obviously being terrible, but the key point is that this isn't the game I want to play. So I don't play it, and I don't force others to either.