PalaLoop - 23rd at World's

divadus 1208

Mostly standard Palana shell, credit to TugtetguT for initial inspiration (though he may attribute the basics of the shell to someone else). My memory is utterly terrible, but I believe I went 6-2 on the day, facing up against Kit (win), Smoke (technically a timed win, but I was definitely winning this one), 3 Val (2 win, 1 loss), 1 MaxX (win), and 2 Hayley (1 win, 1 loss).


GENERAL CARD/PLAY COMMENTS

Deck is good - you should play it.

Special Reports were late additions/alterations that were worth their weight in gold (which wouldn't actually weigh very much, in fairness).

Snare! is still an insanely good card, and I'm glad that I didn't cut either of them.

News Hound is absurdly good against Anarchs (assuming you find your currents - of note, both games I lost I didn't find them).

DNA Tracker is ludicrous, period, especially when you have Obokata and Snares. Scarcity of Resources sometimes wins games on its own - card is extraordinarily potent right now.

Miraju used to boop Indexings.

Data Loop is basically remote-only (often with Kakugo) to make Obokata Protocol nigh-unstealable, especially alongside Batty- and/or Nisei-boops.

Cut to 1 Fast Track in the end (though almost wish I kept both), because Nisei Mk II is almost invariably the agenda you want to score as soon as possible.

Initially was on 2 Komainu, but swapped them out for Cobras, because I expected tons of Hunting Grounds (I was right) and because it's great with Batty.

5 comments
11 Nov 2017 Bloel

Did you try this out of Aginfusion at any point for the extra defensive ability or is the money from Palana just too important?

Great Deck by the way and congratulations on a strong performance.

11 Nov 2017 divadus

@BloelI definitely considered (and tested) AgInfusion, but Pālanā's economic ability is so key early, especially where rushing out an early Nisei is concerned. Pālanā is basically ETF-in-Red, and that's nothing to sneeze at. You don't get some of the 'guaranteed' scoring windows that AgInfusion provides with the likes of Excalibur, but you're also less contingent on getting 'the right' ice.

I think if you're going AgInfusion, you probably want to run a more 'lock-out' oriented build similar to Hydra/Loch Ness. For straightforward Nisei rushing, I feel like Pālanā is the better choice.

11 Nov 2017 manveruppd

I assume the Enforced Curfew is for making Obakata harder to steal? Was it at all helpful or do you wish you had cut it? And were 9 econ cards enough or do you wish you'd had more? A lot of Palana decks that have been successful also have Agroplex to act as a fake PAD, and a few have Marilyns too.

11 Nov 2017 divadus

@manveruppd Enforced Curfew is primarily there to 'turn on' News Hounds for 0 credits, but also has added synergy with Obokata - 3 currents is definitely not enough. It was originally a Targeted Marketing, but in the process of swapping around influence, I ended up on Curfew as the next best option.

RE: only 9 econ cards, that is precisely why I'm on Pālanā instead of AgInfusion. I'm running bare minimum economy to make room for all the other good cards. The Pālanā credit goes a long way. Also, I spent a lot of time evaluating the ice suite in light of how tight economically the list is - as such, I only ended up with 5 ice in the list that cost more than 4 (which were very intentionally chosen).

22 Nov 2017 manveruppd

Yeah I get that 3 currents might not be enough, even in Sol I prefer to have 4 :)