Cali-Town (37th+ at Worlds, 1st and Undefeated at EA Champs)

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Kikai 2445

"Had great fun piloting the deck and pulling skateboard tricks. Played lots of tense, down to the wire games on the day. EA Sports approved!" - Bartimaeus

37th / 88th at the 2023 World Championship

1st and undefeated at the East Anglian Championship

With thanks and love to @PSK, @YsengrinSC, @Havvy, @Cook_ed and everyone that was involved in making Worlds 2023 the best netrunner event I've ever been to, as well as to @not_yeti and @cobrabubbles for putting on a simply cracking EA Championship in Cambridge.

Special thanks to all of Unband 🍌 and EA Sports 🏅 for being just great groups of people to hang out and play netrunner with 💙.

Premise

This is a hybrid between the Fast-Advance Ob that NWE played at EMEA continentals, and the Rush-Ob that @YsengrinSC played at Cascadia. One that, I feel, takes the best of both decks (with the risk, of course, of being worse than either of them).

Card Choices

Tucana is a fantastically strong rush enabler. Calibration Testing into Tucana is genius, and all credit to NWE for pioneering that play pattern. Calibration Testing + Hostile Takeover to tutor and install Tucana and Border Control is a heck of a turn!

Tucana is also a card that wants us to build a remote. Pushing an Oaktown Renovation in a Tucana remote is a tempo positive play even if the runner does manage to get in and steal it.

Whitespace was a difficult exclude, but, we felt that our 1 cost installables (Ice Wall and Tithe) were more important, because they can be used to tutor out Spin Doctor.

Tithe is great for eating up the Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga trigger, or for defending archives against value Sable runs.

Winchester is much better HQ defence than Afshar. Surprisingly, it even holds up when installed on the remote!

Alternatives

@not_yeti played an alternate version that replaces the HafrĂșn with a Thimblerig and a 2nd Magnet, both of which served him very well against Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga!

Piloting

General play pattern is to leave R&D open while we rush out the first 2-4 points, then secure R&D with an Envelopment (from Tucana) while we Audacity or Calibration Testing out our last few points.

We never has as much money as we think we do. Scoring any agenda that isn't Oaktown Renovation will make us poor. A good economic play pattern that isn't obvious is to install Mavirus on a central Turn 1, then pop it at the end of the runner's turn to install Regolith Mining License and click Regolith three times.

Extract is a great way to bounce back from a low credit total. Otherwise, hold one in hand to recycle an almost empty Envelopment.

vs Hoshiko

(Best Matchup. 85%+)

Hoshiko has late game inevitability on their side, so build a remote and shove shove shove! Once we are at 4 points we can think about slowing down, ICEing centrals, and fast advancing our last 3 points.

This is our best matchup.

vs Criminal

(Tough but winnable. ~50%)

ICE centrals first, and build a remote later. Border Control and Stavka give us ways to push out points even when the runner has found their breakers. We will need to use Stavka as a way to tax Flip Switch. This is part of the reason why there is 2 x Stavka in the deck.

Remember that we can advance Ice Wall against Aumakua, and that we can (and should) Extract it against Curupira.

Against Sable we ICE all three centrals. Against Zahya, we probably don't need to ICE archives. (Sneakdoor Beta isn't real, and it can't hurt us).

vs Arissana

(Kind of dangerous. ~50%)

Similar to Hoshiko, but with much more things that can go wrong.

We will need to use Stavka (and possibly HafrĂșn) as a way to tax Simulchip, otherwise we won't be able to close with fast advance. This is part of the reason why there is 2 x Stavka in the deck.

vs Esa

(Just terrible. ~15%)

We have precious few turns before Begemot can break Envelopment. Use them to get at least 2 points. Stavka / Hafrun to get the next 2 points. Fast advance for the last 3 points.

Ob Spreadsheet

Border Control =>

Calibration Testing / Mavirus =>

Extract:

2 comments
17 Oct 2023 JackMade

Hey, OG deckbuilder of NWE Calitesting Ob :).

I also thought about the possibility of Oaktown Renovation in my list but i think the money and the rush is not even needed most of the time. Additionally, Oaktown does not scale well into the late game, where you want to be able to fast advance most agendas. Azef Protocol felt better and better to me since you get an Ob trigger on score and the 2 damage often mattered quite a bit, when the runner did not expect it, because they had to draw up again or even lost some critical cards on the hit.

Concerning Envelopment: I get that it is a big ICE and mostly hard to deal with, but when i am lower on credits in general, i dont want it. Being pretty bad against Hush and a little awkward if they let the last sub fire (so you get a Border Control but you dont really want to use it since you already triggered Ob).

Congrats on your result and I am super happy, that people like the deck and are playing it. I found it to be extremly rewarding and skill testing but also lots and lots of fun!

17 Oct 2023 Kikai

Hey @JackMade!

I think Unband consensus is that your list is definitely "better" than this one. I can't argue with your results! but Slash and Burn Agriculture never quite clicked for me. I felt like I either needed to play your list a bunch to "get it", or, more probably, watch an expert play it.

What I did realise, very late in testing, was how useful Slash and Burn can be when we score Project Atlas with any amount of counters (e.g. as our first agenda because Oaktown Renovation hasn't shown up). It's like a Maw proof Audacity.

Re: Envelopment, the one and only time the "trash this ICE" sub fired on the day, I realised after the game that Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga meant that that sub should have "done 1 net damage" instead. 😅. Even installing it with Tucana is expensive though.