Durham, NC (Atomic Empire) Regionals 2015 - 8th place Runner

narcow 204

This is the Kim deck I took to Regionals this year. It went 5-2 in the seven-round Swiss and (unfortunately) 0-2 in top 8. There are definitely some tweaks I'd like to make to the list, but it definitely has potential. Gang Sign + HQI is much better in action than it looks on paper.


Notes

Events

Day Job: Could probably have cut this. I never needed the money in a situation where I could afford a turn.
I've Had Worse: Every Anarch deck should have three of these.
Inject: Usually Diesel. Sometimes Green Level Clearance or a click and a credit to draw 4. Fantastic value in every case, but since the list is very light on recursion, it has to be played carefully.
Queen's Gambit: Played correctly, this card is Lucky Find that doesn't need PPVP. It is massively undervalued. Situationally, can also be used to prevent a trap access you don't want to make when there's an upgrade to deal with.
Sure Gamble: Runner staple

Hardware

Clone Chip - Mostly insurance against Injecting away both copies of a particular breaker. Occasionally useful to Parasite an ICE or recycle a D4V1D.
Grimoire - A free Datasucker counter directly won me a game, but I still wish the list could get away with running Vigil or Turntable. Unfortunately, late-game Anarch really needs the MU.
HQ Interface - Provides constant pressure to HQ and sets up for the star of the show.

Resources

Daily Casts - The profit from Daily Casts is better than Sure Gamble, assuming you can afford to wait.
Gang Sign - The star of the show. Brutal on its own, even better with HQI, and combos extremely well with Kim's ability to snipe key operations.
Kati Jones - Economy.
Liberated Account - More economy.

Icebreakers

Atman - A solution to traditional problem ICE for Anarchs - big Code Gates and Sentries. Mostly installed on 4 and 6, but I put it on 7 once when I was desperate to get through a Wraparound to stop the AstroTrain before it started.
Corroder / Mimic / Yog - Standard Anarch breakers, not much to say here.
D4v1d - Not technically an Icebreaker, but it makes runs successful. D4v1d put in some serious work.

Utility Programs

Datasucker - Almost all Anarch lists want 3 of these. They make your breaker suite work.
Medium - The best R&D-lock tool in the game. As with Whizzard, Kim has the ID ability to cheaply snipe key deck pieces out of R&D, which makes deep digs go farther.
Parasite - Deals with annoying ICE.

14 comments
19 Jul 2015 Laxen

Nice deck, I like it a lot. And not only cos it's Eddie :)

Personally I don't like Day Job though, would probably swap it for a Symmetrical Visage. But maybe it works better in decks with Gang Sign?

Did Inject ever cause you trouble? Having only 1 Clone Chip I mean.

19 Jul 2015 narcow

I agree that Symmetrical Visage probably would have been better than Day Job. The other card I'd like to find a slot for is Earthrise Hotel - I basically never had money issues, but I was clicking to draw more than I was happy to. Inject didn't really cause any issues - there's a remote chance that the first one hits both of two breakers, but it never happened at the event. The one time it happened in testing, I just played around it and held other copies of Inject until I wasn't worried about not having breakers anymore. It's usually 1: Draw 4 or equivalent Diesel, both of which are fantastic value.

19 Jul 2015 narcow

(Updated to add a brief run-down of the list.)

19 Jul 2015 W4lt3r B15h0p

@narcow any particular reason Imp didn't make the cut? Kinda figured to would synergize well with Kim's ability plus Gang Sign.

19 Jul 2015 narcow

@W4lt3r B15h0p Unfortunately there's just not enough room for all of the utility pieces in most Anarch lists. Imp definitely would have been useful, but Parasite and Medium are almost certainly better.

19 Jul 2015 Chuftbot

Glad you went so far with Eddie K! I think I actually talked to you at the tourney and complimented you on it? I was the Biotech player that kept murdering people.

This is a really solid list. I'm going to take it out for a spin and see if I can finally reach some competence with Ed.

20 Jul 2015 narcow

@Chuftbot Thanks! Your Biotech list sounded pretty awesome. I hope this deck works as well for you as it did for me. Good luck!

20 Jul 2015 GoldenArmKid

You find the single Atman enough to deal with Lotus Field?

20 Jul 2015 Stonar

I love this deck, I can't believe I didn't think of Gang Sign in Eddie. Few questions:

1) Wouldn't Street Peddler treat you better than Inject here? A straight 1-for-1 swap would bring you down to 10 cards that can't be peddled into play, and it fixes your "Might throw away programs" problem (since you can't lose 2x of 2 different types of cards, you can just install a card you find 2x of)

2) Is Atman just for lotus field? And if so, why not swap it out for an in-faction AI, like knight or faust? Or you could swap it out for a net-ready eyes, which is great value all the time.

3) I wonder if making those changes gives you wiggle room for Sneakdoor Beta. Its big downside is the MU, of course, but with 2x HQI, it seems like a very good include, especially since you can run a full rig with sneakdoor, datasucker, yog, mimic, corroder.

20 Jul 2015 Laxen

Heh, Street Peddler is quite cool with Gang Sign to install it as an agenda is being advanced :P

20 Jul 2015 narcow

@GoldenArmKid Hard to say, I only played against one RP all day, and it was Dan ("mediohxcore", the 2014 World Champion) in top 8. Most of my matches were against NEH (3 butchershop and 1 fastro), with one PE, one Titan, and one HB FA list (which I faced twice). My losses in Swiss were one Butchershop game where I made a bad read and the HB FA list, in top 8 I lost to Dan's RP and had a pretty close rematch with the HB.

@Stonar I tried both Peddler and Inject in testing - I found Inject to work better for me most of the time, but I can definitely see the argument for Peddler. It's probably down to preference. Atman is not just for Louts - it's the Lotus solution, but it also solves other extremely problem ICE like Archer, Gutenburg, Nebula, Grim, Wormhole, etc. If I were going to swap it out, I'd probably cut it and one Yog for Zu.13 and Eden Shard. I like the flexibility too much to do that. Running Knights makes the Blue Sun matchup infinitely more difficult, so I didn't want to do that. Sneakdoor is a good card - and even playable with Kim - but MU is tight as-is; there's just not room. Also, there are other nice things to spend influence on if it's freed, like Eden Shard or more economy and / or draw.

@Laxen Peddler is definitely good, I just like clicking for 2 cards and a credit or 3 cards (or 4 and -1 credit) more here. I have a Geist list I've been working on which runs Peddler and Gang Sign along with a pretty standard Criminal breaker suite, and I honestly think that ID is the way to go if you want to play Peddler - it makes the card so much better than it already is.

22 Jul 2015 AsteriskCGY

I worked up your deck and changed a few things. SV for day job, Peddlers over Inject, dropped a QG for another SV for consistency. Played against an NEH with Archer and Snare. I chose to toss both Grimores to get out a Yog and Mimic to hit R&D over Quandry/Architect, but that meant he had a LIttle Engine over his San san. Could change QG for Deja's, or more installable cash. I can see Inject in this case be more consistent to not lose Events or too many other non programs in a go.

23 Jul 2015 AsteriskCGY

I feel like one argument is Inject is "I'm okay with losing programs" and Peddlers is "I'm okay with losing events."

28 Sep 2015 Slain

Thanks narcow I'm having a lot of fun with this deck. Only change I made was to switch Clone Chip for Retrieval Run and Day Job for Lucky Find.