Edmonton Regionals 1st place (Undefeated)

Guess I should do a brief write up. This is a pretty well known deck by now, which is why I was shocked to see I was the only Skorp player in a 21 player regional. I thought for sure more folks would have brought it. I'll give some brief thoughts at the end of the rounds.

This went undefeated through Swiss.

FIRST ROUND: BYE. I won a SC earlier in the year. This was as good of a time as any to use it.

SECOND ROUND: Versus Merik. Great player, good friend. He had 419 as his runner. This made a few ice placements more awkward, but in the end a little bit rushy and a little bit bad luck on his part made this match not too hard. As always, icing HQ is important against a Crim these days, so that was a priority.

THIRD ROUND: Sean S from Calgary. First time I'd met him, and he was a fine player and good sport. Playing Sunny. This match was tense. He had a SacCon on the board early, making me have all sorts of issues trying to Hunter Seeker his breakers or Security Nexus. He played out a clot and a tapwrm which I both dutifully purged hoping he'd misplay by using SacCon to save them. He wisely chose not to. This was a very back and forth game that was decided by one thing alone...his 2 Shermans (fractors) were in the bottom 10 cards of his Stack. That saved my butt when I was able to double-barrier my remote and Fast Track my last Atlas through it. He had me essentially in R&D lock up to that fateful gamble. Absolutly heart pounding match.

ROUND FOUR: ID with William. It guaranteed us both Top 8, so we did it.

TOP 8, ROUND ONE: Up against my good friend Josh. Relatively new to the game, but by no means a rookie or a pushover (he made a top 8 Regionals as his first ever bigger-than-rando-GNK tournament, so...yeah he's new but not bad!) This game was absolutely CRUSHING in how tense it was. He was on Sunny, got his Nexus online very early so I wanted to bait him into stealing an agenda. I threw out my SSL behind an ice and double advanced it. He went and took it. I thought Great! I have my Hunter Seeker in hand. Perfect play. Nope. He ran archives next click, then WHITE HAT! Oh shi....wait, I could be the trace by going absolutely broke then the SSL credits next turn still let me kill the Nexus. Whew, everything is fine. I beat the trace. He grins at me and lays his SECOND WHITE HAT for last click. Shuffling away my Hunter Seeker. I was crushed. He had just stolen my only 5/3, made me go broke, and got away with no punishment. Cheeky Bastard! I'm still not sure how the rest of the game progressed from here other than I snuck out a Hostile or two, got money back up, eventually baited a Standoff-into-HunterSeeker to finally kill the Nexus...and bluffed an Atlas on game point again for the win. I had to go for a walk and splash some water on my face after that one.

TOP 8 ROUND 2: Against Thomas. I know this was another close game, he was on Adam making there very little permanent stuff I could kill to lock him out. Logic Bombs were always a threat. I don't recall much. I know at one point he stole and agenda when I had both a Hunter Seeker and Hostile Takeover in hand. I opted to take the point and cash instead of trashing his Always Be Running. Rushed out an Atlas-with-token the one turn he gave me a gap in Logic Bomb coverage (after a D+C+TTW combo that whiffed) and scored out the Hostile the next turn.

TOP 8 ROUND 4: (Yeah, I lucked out into playing Corp this many times in the top 8, it just worked out like that. RNGesus bless) Against William. The record in ABR is not right on this, I didn't run this game. He was on Val, very similar build to mine. He joked I'd draw Oaktown, two Archers, and nothing else relevant. So I installed a remote ice, installed an Oaktown and advanced it. He chuckled, said 'No way'...and promptly face checked an Enigma in front of it. I rode that tempo pretty much the rest of the game. Nothing exciting. Finals, here I came! (which I ran, not Corp)

Observations: Damn, rushing is a fine strategy still. Money from Agendas is good. My changes from the Nationals list: Cut 1 Archer. It's an ice I only ever want to see after scoring an agenda. Does nothing to start the game with. So 2 felt right. I never once rezzed one all tournament long, but that's just variance and not a knock against it. However adding the 1 more Enigma DID feel significant, I was able to rush behind Enigma in more than one occasion. Hortum does fine as that as well, but sometimes the investment of 4 to rez isn't as doable as 3 in the early game. I dunno. YMMV, Cut 1 Fast Track to add 1 Under the Bus. 2 Fast Track felt too much. It was a closer card, not something I had to have early. Under the Bus, in testing, made potential Pirate decks much more manageable (though I never saw any) Sure, Corporate Town CAN do the same, but Under the Bus has far fewer restrictions and can come out of nowhere.

And...that's Edmonton Regionals Corp side for me. It was a great time.