Haas is Boss at Worlds (Top 16, 4th after Swiss)

This is a deck I've been piloting all season trying to bring a can of whoop Hass to the wider world. The executives have been largely maligned among the wider netruner community, somewhat unfairly I think. The fear of imp is strong in many players, especially with anarchs running wild all over the place. Up until the week before Worlds I was thinking about bringing this list with two Biotic Labors instead of the Haas and the Tech Startup but I am so glad I went back mostly because I did not enjoy that deck nearly as much as this one. This deck makes opponents laugh, and it makes me laugh. Biotic is a great card, for sure, but in games where you are in trouble a well played (and protected) Haas can give you the boost you need to elbow past the runner and over the finish line.

Haas is the star of this deck and it becomes a different beast once you get her out. Ideally you want a Caprice and Ash protecting her. Fast advancing becomes an option and the one cyberdex included can be rezzed (hopefully for free with the Breaker Bay) if clot is played. Building up that sort of remote takes time so start setting it up early with an Adonis and, ideally, a Breaker Bay. Once you get to 4 points you are generally installing and double advancing a GFI (trashing the Haas :( and making yourself sad) but feel free to bluff out a two pointer as the GFI, you want them to panic and make last ditch runs and hopefully crash against your psi game. If they win the psi and you have ash installed you should spend as much as you can to prevent a Haas or caprice trash. In one game I pumped the trace to 7 to ensure Wizzard was a credit short to get to her.

The ice choice is primarily directed at the anarch suite, perhaps with a atman supporting them. The barriers already tax criminals heavily, and for Shaper Turing really pressures Godian or at least forces the Cyber-cypher install when you are facing prepaid kate. When the cypher comes down I often leave that remote for Adonis's, Eve's or Team Sponsorships and build a new one with another Turning, leaving them with the unenviable choice of wasting a precious Scavenge or worse, using ZU.13 . I really missed Viper at times and probably would have slotted it instead of an enigma and a Wall of Static (or Victor 2.0 even). I was worried that there would be a flood of Sunny's at Worlds and I was worried by HQ shenanigans, so I went upto two Crisiums. It makes sense as some decks still use siphon as their economy and this deck wins by taxing the runner and leveraging economic advantage. On the day, I think a Wraparound would have been a better choice in place of one Crisium. I also think another Heimdell 1.0 might be worth an include. The single one I had, almost always installed on the scoring remote broke a lot of runner and Faust engines.

The deck went 7-1 on the day beating truly excellent players that were exceptionally challenging, including Steven Wooley and Daryl Russell. The single loss was to a Noise player (apologies for not remembering the name...) who got to Haas in the midgame with an imp. I tried to bluff a Breaker Bay as an Ash or Caprice but he just powered through to it with Faust and clicked past a Turing. When Noise gets his pieces together early you really have to put the foot on the accelerator and go for the risky Beta tests, early scores and bluffs. If the agendas come up right you can score the 2 pointers before he's set up. Liberally feed him NAPDs to buy time. In the first game of the cut I played this deck against Colin Hanna and unfortunately a crapped out Beta Test (milling two Jacksons and a agenda) with the next few Noise installs netted two caprices and Haas which left me reeling with very few options. When I drew the next Jackson I had to use it to recycle agendas. Colin played a wonderfully purposeful game, building his board and getting into an early remote with an advanced Vitruvius which I had hoped he might think was a NAPD. And so the deck bowed out of Worlds having served me very well, my sole regret was that I never made it onto the cameras for the boys and girls back home and to give the deck a proper send off.

I had some great fun with this deck at worlds and really think that Director Haas is a great card. One story kind of sums it up for me, in my final game of swiss I was playing Kris Maclennan (I hope I'm remembering the name right) and in order to get an early Adonis running with a Breaker Bay I had to leave HQ iceless. Not TOO scary against Kate. I managed to wrangle out two NAPDs which neither of us really wanted to score while Kris stole an ABT and a Vitruvius. I also ditched an NAPD in the archives. At the start of my turn, with an ABT and GFI in hand I draw into Director Haas. Realizing three runs or even a well timed legwork will end the game I decide to install the Haas into a remote that already had one unrezzed piece of ice in front of it, install the GFI into the Turing, Eli remote with Caprice and advance it once feigning a NAPD. Kris thinks for a while, run HQ and nabs the only card in hand, the ABT, and I throw my hands up in disappointment. He looks at the remote, lucky finds and installs a SMC. I rez Haas and win the game and we both laugh. Kris tells me that he only ran HQ to make sure that I wasn't running Biotic Labor. There were a lot of moments like that during the day, like when players would run R&D, narrow their eyes and slowly say "That's fine" realizing they couldn't steal her, or stealing her would bankrupt them. She's a lot of fun and this deck can probably be taken in a lot of weird ways, maybe with Capital Investors or Melange. Enjoy!