Just_Rob's Hunting Whizzard (4-0) GNK Compulsion Edinburgh

This deck was played at the Compulsion Games Convention in Edinburgh for a Spring Kit going 4-0 on the day. My Corp went 3-1 (RP)

Deck template from "romanoSoprano". I loved the look of his list and after reading his card choices I was interested to test out Neutralize all Threats as HQ pressure. Also it had Street Peddler. I love that card. Kudos to him on the core of the list.

Whizzard is of course fantastic - I first tried him out using Timmy Wong's Whizzard from worlds and that deck was a blast to play. Inject, IHW, Earthrise and the glory that is street peddler meant that I was regularly going through my deck in a game. The speed of draw was incredible.

However his deck got hit really hard by the MWL and I have to say I've been scrambling around to try and make another deck feel similar in terms of speed as that one. The Dumblefork deck is amazing of course but I haven’t used Ice destruction before and I love runner decks that go fast. And this one does.

It has the usual Wyldside engine of course but it also adds in even more burst draw with Peddler and Inject and IHW.

The foundation of the deck is nothing new but there are some card which did immeasurable work today - Round by round I'll try to explain how they directly contributed to me winning games.

Round 1 - Jonny (Palana)

Jonny and I play all the time and his Palana deck beat my Atman Whizzard in the final of a store champ a few weeks before. (His Third Store champ win!) On that day I couldn't find my film critic and Multi access. Today was different thankfully. I had Neutralize all threats in my opening hand and after he installed over RnD and a new server leaving HQ open. I dropped NAT and ran his hand trashing a Jackson and then accessing a Crisium grid. Lucky that didn't happen the other way round. Having that HQ pressure early and crucially for no tempo hit ala HQI or Nerve agent meant that he had to install an ICE over HQ. Given it was undefended turn 1 it didn't feel like he was happy about the install. I ran into the crick on HQ and allowed Jackson back onto the board but scored a Nisei with NAT and went to trash the Jackson anyway.

A few turns later and the decks draw meant that I had Faust and Wyldside up within 3~4 turns and even better than that was a Film Critic sitting on a street peddler. After a celebrity gift showed The Future Perfect another HQ on NAT run meant the critic came out and the TFP was in the score area. A few more turns and I scored the Nisei off of a medium dig into RnD. (Medium is a good card.)

In return he destroyed my RnD relentlessly with his Whizzard against my RP.

Round 2 - Steve Against NEH Asset Spam This was a close game - Whizzard against Asset Spam NEH.

Again NAT was huge for me here. I saw it early again (This deck draws very very fast) and it allowed me to try and keep on top of his hand agenda wise whilst he installed ALL OF THE ASSETS. The downside of NAT could have been realised when Hostile infrastructures (2) were rezzed but it didn’t actually make too much of a difference 3 NET damage and both were trashed. I managed to get to 4 points pretty Fast and trashed the Hostiles before Steve snuck an Astro by me. D4vid and Knifed killed the RnD protection (Wraparound) and again Medium allowed me to try and stop him finding his second token. A timely CVS or two delayed things but eventually Medium forced RnD to give up agendas. (Medium is a good card). I would say though that being able to clear the hand with NAT made the Medium pressure greater. I went low on credits in that game towards the end and it could have gotten away from me but thankfully I got the last 2 agenda in time to stop him scoring more Astros.

Round 3 Mark NEH Asset Spam I feel bad for mark here - RnD was left open on turn 2 and I ran 4 times and scored 2 Beales, 1 Exploda, and trashed a CVS. I had a parasite on street peddler and was able to kill his resistor on the way in to HQ and stole the winning agenda a few turns later. The flood hit him hard and he said afterwards he just could find any ICE. We've all had that happen to us.

Round 4 Dave's NEH Dave's NEH, a thing of pure Beauty. Dave builds decks that are simply fantastic to watch. NEH may seem like a standard choice but not this one. I again found NAT fairly early and this allowed me to keep on top of his hand for the first few turns. Wyldside was up but for a change I struggled to find the Pancakes so I was struggling to keep up with Dave's Ad Blitz. (I don't just mean the style of deck I mean the Card, I think in total I trashed 5-6 Product Placements) Then I started hitting Grail ICE which slowed things down a bit. Faust was up and then E3 started pulling it weight. Multsub ICE is what Faust doesn't want to see but getting past Grail for a card and 2 credits felt amazing. However Dave had interns a facedown card into a remote with 2 upgrades and promptly scored what turned out to be an interns-ed astro! Perhaps NAT meant it didn't feel safe in hand. I ran centrals a bit more and saw nothing but I did get my Faust Willo-the-wisp-ed and so I had no breakers save for Corroder. Astro scored - I couldn't get accesses outside of a popup on HQ and seeing an aggressive secretary on an NAT access had me worried that I could end up just stuck out altogether. I wouldn't have time to Levy before Dave scored out. He scored a second astro but step in Turntable and Hunting Grounds! Hunting grounds against Grail is amazing but not why it was in the deck. The rise of Komainu in our area and online allowed its inclusion and as RomanoSoprano said in his write up - Waiting for your Mimic is time you cannot afford - I agree with this. I drew into my other Faust and Between Faust, Hunting grounds and E3 I was able to get into servers again. Turning a GFI for a Scored Astro and then turning the last astro back for the GFI. Dave had the win close on the board with another GFI but I managed to get in to steal it. Very very tight game.

The main thing about this deck is its speed. It puts a lot of pressure on the corp very early but in a different way. It doesn’t trash as much ice as Dumblefork but it allows consistent access across the whole game with E3 and more importantly I think is the more consistent central pressure between Medium and HQ. NAT was fantastic all day.

Yes HQI lets you do the same access for less influence and no "downside" of NAT but NAT is cheaper to install and doesn't slow you down to do it. It was described as HQI and Modded in 1 card for an Anarch and when deck slots are tight thanks to the abundance of good cards I am happy to pay the extra inf.

This deck felt as fast as Timmy Wong's Whizzard and a similar style of play. Run a server - can you get in? If yes then great, pressure with NAT or Medium and Trash assets or steal the agenda. If not then dig for the card to get you in. It won’t take too long to find it with the draw available.