That's no moon, it's a tech startup (BABW Winner)

Nemamiah 3914

Major props to the Mooninites Cabal, who created the initial shell that this list was based off. Theo Clifford and Laurie Poulter then did all the legwork in testing and refining this version, and Tim Fowler provided the last minute tweaks to squeeze one more yellow card in to the list.

Slops to Alex White and Laurie for deciding to play a different Corp deck.

Some version of Moon is clearly the most powerful Corp deck right now. This version is focused on having an Estelle on the board and ready to go at the start of turn 2 as consistently as possible.

Tech Startup also has neat synergy with Estelle (you double dip on counters) and Friends (with that and AAL you can often put two of your own assets in the discard pile on turn 1, ready to be reinstalled for Estelle counters next turn). It also lets you lean on your one of tech cards (CSM and Lakshmi) to close out depending on how the game is developing.

Daily Business Show is important in this deck to stop you agenda flooding, and if you're good at counting cards can provide guaranteed protection in R&D via Lakshmi. Turtlebacks is mad econ and often sticks because it's low on the list of must trash assets.

There's ten ice to boost the Siphon matchup, and to make your ideal turn 1 more likely (ice HQ, ice a remote, install Moon or Tech Startup). We switched it from Quandary to Wraparound at the last minute to boost the Siphon Anarch match, which paid dividends throughout the day.

This deck was patchy in Swiss, only managing a 2-3 record but then went 3-0 in the cut.

Play this at your own risk; Moon is so clearly powerful that there's​ a lot of hate cards floating around right now in the form of Hacktivist, Maw, Rumour Mill and Film Critic. The Moon archetype is pretty vulnerable to hate, so you might find yourself staring down some bad matchups.

8 comments
21 May 2017 Shmeguy

I hate you for consistently winning without the best card ever mumba temple

21 May 2017 Nemamiah

There was one in the list until that morning, but it got cut during Tim's last minute reform packages.

21 May 2017 Ollie

What went wrong in the games you lost in swiss?

22 May 2017 Nemamiah

I lost one game to Alice's Andromeda where I didn't get early ice and she expertly picked HQ clean via a Temujin before switching to Medium pressure (I actually dropped a card from my deck and so got a game loss, but I'm 99% sure Alice would have easily won anyway).

Lost a game to Ben's DLR where I flooded early and so couldn't build up any Moon counters, then got Siphon locked.

Then lost an incredible game to Don's aggro MaxX that came down to the last access, but I probably made a bad decision on where to allow that access and Lakshmi counters.

22 May 2017 maxey

Is 1 ELP and 1 CSM enough? ELP seems like such a powerful card in this deck, especially with hacktivist and rumour mill ruining your day. Also you do you find teamspon does enough work? Seems like you will only get a max of 2 triggers off each which seems mediocre with friends existing.

22 May 2017 Nemamiah

Funnily enough, -1 Team Sponsorship +1 ELP is a change that we've been discussing. Team is sometimes good when you're trying to rush, especially against Shapers, because the clicks become very valuable under those circumstances. It can also help you keep your economy and board state in tact after you Biotic an agenda, because you can reinstall AAL for value.

The danger is that you really need to maintain a critical mass of assets in order to make sure Moon is explosive, and it's extremely rare for a CSM to stick.

24 May 2017 grogboxer

what is the advantage of this over Mooninites, in your opinion?

25 May 2017 Nemamiah

A much smoother set-up, because you have Tech Startup and Daily Business Show shaping your early draws for you. It's much more consistent and finding and exploiting the first Moon, which can often tip the game further in your direction. it's also a bit more flexible in how it wins, because you have a very viable fast advance option.

On the flip side, the late game board is far less oppressive and you don't lock the game out in the same way that Mooninites does. You don't have Caprice, so you're more vulnerable to an early Siphon and you can't lean on psi games in a remote if all else fails you; that's particularly relevant against Shapers with Clot and Critic.

TLDR; they're both good, I don't know which one is better.