Click me (1st @ Bratislava Regionals, 5-2)

This is the deck I took to Bratislava regionals past Saturday and won with. I was practicing Lock Hayley on jinteki.net the day before and played against AgInfusion for the first time – it was a nightmare and I was inspired to create my own take on it.

Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room:

Ruhr Valley I’ve been asked “But it’s 6 to rez – do you ever use it?” and I honestly think this card is the MVP of the deck! Combined with the ID (and/or ELP/Caprice) it creates scoring windows. The dream is Ruhr + ELP + ID: they run the remote for 3 clicks, you redirect them and they can’t run again. But even if it’s just Ruhr – you see their boardstate and they would have to spend their whole turn trying to get in.

Jackson Howard You probably want 3. Find a way to get the third in there :) I think I only used Friends in High Places 1 or 2 times over the course of the whole tournament - maybe that should be the JH.

Caprice Nisei She shines when the runner plays Employee Strike instead of Rumor Mill. Aside from that scenario I actually prefer Ruhr valley: for 6 rez you get a guaranteed 2 lost clicks and a 4 trash while caprice is 2-4 (rez+psi) for a gamble and a 1 trash (no synergy with ID)

ICE I’m not sure if Mind Game is a good include but I couldn’t decide on a replacement in the short time I had to build and try this deck. It’s great it the runner always breaks it – it can be a burden if the runner doesn’t. Chiyashi, DNA tracker, Komainu or Excalibur are your go-to outermost ICE choices (for later redirecting) depending on match up. Excalibur + Mother Goddess + ID can lock out non-AI runners.

Weaknesses Extra clicks, ICE destruction/derez, econ denial (although the ID is resilient against Account Siphon/Vamp/...) – The decks only full loss was against a derez Gabe rebirthed into Los (+timed loss against Leela that I conceded into a full loss for extra SoS). I also faced a Siphon Whizzard (with Employee Strike) – despite Planned Assault Account Siphon turn 1 on unprotected HQ I managed to hold on and in the end kill him with Philotic Entanglement when he ran out of cards.