92% Solomir's Arissana (3rd @ West Coast Nats)

This deck went 3-0 for me in swiss at the US West Coast Nationals, and sadly 0-2 in the cut. I think it had more potential, but I had a few misplays that cost me those games. You can find my corp over here.

Only having played standard for 2 months, I decided to stick with Arissana (who I played at Cascadia), but trust someone with a little more experience deckbuilding. I enjoyed Solomir's Arissana, and this deck is 92% the same as that one.

Changes from the original decklist:

• The original included 3x Aeneas Informant, which I swapped for 3x Pinhole Threading. Personally, it never felt like the right time to install Aeneas, and with the prevalence of Manegarm Skunkworks and Anoetic Void (not to mention Dr. Vientiane Keeling who was legal for this tournament) I felt that Pinhole would net me more credits on average, and felt a little better for my playstyle. During the tournament, it's not clear which would have been better. I don't think either was totally right, so I'd probably look for other uses of influence if I continued using this deck. Maybe The Twinning? 🤷
• Original included only 2x LilyPAD, which was a huge pain for me in testing because I never seemed to find it and I always ran out of MU. I probably needed to kickflip harder, but adding the 3rd LilyPAD seemed like a safer answer.
• 48 cards 😱. Initially when the ban list update was announced, I replaced DreamNet with the 3rd LilyPAD, but then I heard this tournament would be on the old banlist and slotted it back in. I like to lie to myself and say that between Gachapon and the draw from both DreamNet and LilyPAD 48 cards wasn't a problem. There was only one game where I couldn't find my Urban Art Vernissage for the life of me, but otherwise I didn't seem to notice the 3 extra cards.

Round Recap

Swiss

Round 1: Win vs @Joevovich - Epiphany Analytica: Nations Undivided

Had a great start, getting my econ up and putting on pressure very early. Kept my econ up, stayed cautious of trashing anything due to Oppo Research, and plucked AR-Enhanced Security off the table before it could be scored. This game took a long time, seemed like the corp wasn't drawing any agendas and they were sitting at the bottom of R&D. I stayed patient, didn't rush in when I didn't need to, and won after 59 minutes. This left a whopping 6 minutes for the second game of the round (which we finished!), but you'll have to read about that in my corp writeup over here.

Round 2: Win vs @Zee - Asa Group: Security Through Vigilance

This was the second match of round 2 and we only had about 15 minutes for it. Nothing like time pressure to create wacky play patterns. Corp got an early Stegodon MK IV score putting me on my back foot for a bit. I managed to snipe a Stegodon MK IV a few turns later, and win on the last turn after time was called on my third Conduit run, finding Luminal Transubstantiation for the win.

Round 3: ID against @Sindarin

Round 4: Win vs @GhostMeat - NBN: Reality Plus

I had a hard time finding what I needed to get setup this game, and I never had enough credits when I bumped into Bellona. I was certain I was going to lose this game until time was called and I had to do something drastic. On 3 points and less than 5 credits, I decided to run HQ, scoring the 1 in 5 Beale, ran R&D hoping the single ice remained unrezzed (it did), ran archives, and finally Deep Dived to score the winning Beale.

Cut:

Round 1: Loss vs @GhostMeat - NBN: Reality Plus

I'm learning I have no idea how to play against R+. The game never felt like it was going my way, and Oppo Research turned out to be the End of the Line for me. The one thing that (kinda?) worked out for me here is that I noticed after installing a few ice the corp made sure to stay above 10 credits, so I didn't facecheck Hydra until I knew I had a way to deal with it. So that's something at least?

Round 2: -- (corp round)

Round 3: Loss vs @GhostMeat - NBN: Reality Plus Third time's a charm, and this time I was ready for GhostMeats' R+. I knew his deck would outpace mine, but I didn't want to rush into things too quickly. I tried to sit back for a few turns, but by only turn 3 or 4 there was no ice down, I had some money, and I found my Conduit. Seemed reasonable enough, until I stole a Bellona and hit a Behold!. End of the Line put me at 0 cards in hand and Oppo Research piled me in tags. I knew GhostMeat was going for the kill, but I didn't think he had EotL in hand so I was torn between drawing back up and clearing the tags next turn, or going all in on Conduit runs to try to close the game out that turn. Historically I think I run too aggressively, often finding myself in holes I never get out of so I thought this time I would "play it safe" and hope he didn't draw both kill cards he needed. This is my biggest regret of the day - I should have followed Wolf #2 and listened to the immortal words of @CTZ to "Put on a goddamn show." It seemed I was right that he didn't have the kill in hand, but Rashida Jaheem and Predictive Planogram took care of that real quick, knocking me out of the cut with the good old Mindscaping End of the Line combo.

Overall, great day, great matches, and I would play this deck again. I think next I'm more interested to play a more aggressive version with Prognostic Q-Loop and Environmental Testing.