The Brainjuice Converter (1st in Swiss at WI Regional)

The author dreaming of the potatoes he will convert to brainjuice tomorrow morning

Background:

My testing partner (Marcus) and myself had theorized that the meta would be full of Anarchs and Weyland in the post mwl world. I knew Gagarin had a good Val matchup, and that my experience piloting Gagarin over the years would be an asset. We added in some more econ at 2 am, went to bed, and woke up at 5, getting ready for a 4 hour drive to Madison..

It's a common scientific fact that potatoes convert to brainjuice at a one to one ratio, so I had three mcdonalds Hashbrowns at 6 AM for breakfest, and didn't eat again until 2pm. I would like to think that this deck acted as a conduit for that converted brainjuice. I also had 3 hashbrowns and ended third, so I think that's all the evidence you need.

I played four games with this deck on the day, and it did not drop a game in testing online or irl.

Round 1: Val

I played a very nice Val player from Chicago, and I was initially intimidated by his top 32 magnum opus mat. I drew the absolute nuts against him, installing Rashida, CBG and Pad campaign on turn 1. He draws, deuce’s for a run and a credit, and clicks for two. I fire Rashida into HHN, HHN, Zealous Judge. I install Zealous and am credit perfect to tag him and rez Zealous. He clears 3 tags and trashes Zealous Judge. I HHN him again, and the game is effectively over, as he can’t single access me on centrals to win, and I kill him with HPT.

Round 2: Melvin on Val

I’ve known Melvin for a few years, and he’s always a great opponent and nice guy. He had a rough mulligan into little econ, and I had some early pads and a cbg. He runs early, gets HHN, and trashes the Zealous I rez. He floats tags for a while but I can’t draw a HPT. He drops the tags while I bait him into more runs with Urban Renewal. Eventually I credit up and get a second Zealous behind a border control, and tag him for the kill.

Round 3: Hayden on Val

I was terrified playing this game. I cut my teeth on a lot of Gagarin games against my brother, and he’s one of the few Winnipeg locals who I feel knows Gagarin just as well as I do. He fumbled into an early HHN and made the smart call and started running my centrals with no abandon. He got up to six early, and then I got very lucky. He proceeded to hit SDS Drone Deployments on the single access RnD runs, and I did not rez my ice so he couldn’t get his bin breakers. It was a very close game, but eventually I HPT’d him for the kill.

First Round of Cut: Josh on Val

Josh had ridden in the car with us from Hastings to Madison, and he self admitted to me that he did not know how to beat asset spam. I had a decent opening, but he double falsified me on the first turn and injected into two sure gambles. Up 12 credits, he blew his lead on trashing some face down assets, instead of contesting my active econ. Eventually I landed a HHN into Zealous lock, and killed him with HPT. He would go on to knock me out of the cut with his Outfit.

Individual Card Choices:

This is pretty standard Gagarin, I just wanted to highlight two aspects.

Pad Campaign over Economic Warfare: I think that Economic warfare is a bit of a winmore card, and it doesn’t help you set up the economic lead you need to crush the runner in the long game. I preferred the drip pad gave, and if they run and trash it, they essentially econ warfared themselves. I also found that as you played against stronger opponents, the economic warfares become less useful.

Hostile Infastructure: This was my answer to Apoc Val, who I thought would you be popular on the day (it was not). I think it’s still valuable in a meta where Apoc is stronger then usual, and taxing the runners hand and credit total is valuable.

I want to shoutout a few people who helped me:

Marcus: For playing against this deck over and over, and providing useful advice

Hayden: For convincing me to stay on Gagarin over RP, and telling me to cut Econ Warfare

0xthmxma: For creating the awesome Gif in the writeup itself.