GOTTA GO FAST (2016 Store Championship, 1st Place)

Hasty CI won the 2016 Store Championship at Curio Cavern. It went 5-1, along with a fairly standard Temujin Whizzard build that also went 5-1.

I'd like to give huge thanks to @foilflaws and @ellen (and Bruno!) for the deck idea and lots of testing, and @ion_fox for some post-tourney suggestions. I'd also like to thank my fiancee and our pet hedgehogs for giving me the inspiration to Just Go Fast.

Gameplan:

This deck is not 7-point Shutdown CI. It does not want to score all 7 points in one go. Instead, it aims to fast advance powerful agendas early, and snowball those agendas into scoring, usually, a Global Food for the win.

The fast advance strategy is pretty simple. Draw enough cards and make enough money until you have combo pieces in hand. You'll need 1 Hasty Relocation, 1 Accelerated Diagnostics, and a few click-compression cards. (Shipment from SanSan is the most essential, but Lateral Growth and Biotic Labor also qualify.) An ideal score goes something like:

Click 1: Play Hasty Relocation (Hasty), putting two Shipment from SanSan (SfSS) and Reclamation Order back on the deck. Click 2: Install an Efficiency Committee (EffComm). Click 3: Play Accelerated Diagnostics (AD). Play both Shipment from SanSans, and use Reclamation Order to get back the Shipment from SanSans.

Once you've got an EffComm scored, your scoring options are much more flexible. You can score a random 3/2 next turn with Click 1 Install, Click 2 Advance, Click 3 EffComm Take Two Clicks, Clicks 4 and 5 Shipment from San San. If you have two Shipments, you can score a Global Food from hand the same way, using two more EffComm counters. There are many ways to get there, and part of the fun of the deck is figuring out the tricks as you play!

Strategy:

Versus Regular Shapers (Nexus Kate, Smoke, etc): Keep centrals at bay early, and fast advance when you get the opportunity. Efficiency Committees are much more powerful than over-advanced Vitruviuses in this matchup, because they can allow you purge for free, or do other tricky things. One play that came up frequently in testing and once in real life is Hasty Relocation into a stack of Lateral Growth, SfSS, SfSS. If the Shaper does not play Clot after you Hasty, you can AD this pile and score EffComm from hand. (Side note: If you milled an agenda from Hasty, you can use Interns instead of Lateral to score the agenda from Archives.)

Versus Criminals: Protect HQ hard, and then worry about R&D. (Leela or Rebirth into Leela can strike at the most inopportune moments.) Generally it's not worth it to try to stuff Archives Temujin, you need everything that you can protecting your Agendas. EffComm is still the best score, but Vitruvius counters are useful as well.

Versus Regular Breakers Whizzard/Val: Keep them gearchecked while drawing towards your combos. Gearcheck ICE go where you need them, and usually Ichis go on R&D to impede Medium. Employee Strike is a pain from any identity but usually makes most of its appearances from RegWhizz. You've usually got some way to deal with it in hand, though, even if it isn't always the most economical.

Versus Damonfork (Faust Whizzard/Val): Same deal, but gearchecking doesn't really work versus Faust so you have to go a bit faster. Cyberdex Trial will help if you can draw it -- you can keep it / recur it to keep Medium digs in check.

Versus Siphon Anarch (Whizz/Quetzal/MinhMaxX): Lie down. Try not to cry. Cry a lot.

Card Choices:

ICE: Definitely something that's subject to a lot of change. In general, though, gearchecks are important, and Ichis slow down Medium. Mostly strength-0 ICE is questionable versus Atman, but it worked this time because people weren't quite sure what ICE I'd be playing. Definitely worth switching up in the future -- variable strengths help. Mother Goddess / Paper Wall also might be worth it. I'd contemplate switching a Quandary or two to Turing, as AIs can be a very large pain to the deck. Fairchild 3.0 is very powerful, but the 6-credit rez cost can really hurt.

Economy Operations: Most are pretty standard. Blue Level and Hedge Fund are essential. (Blue Level even more so, as you can stack it with Hasty to play it with AD. Just make sure to play it after your other two operations!) Restructure is okay, but the deck runs a bit lighter on credits than typical 7-point CI. Play the deck a few times and if you feel like you need more money and it won't get stuck in your hand, bump it up to 2x or even 3x. Lateral Growth is a decent econ card, but its trickiness is the main reason I played all three. It did get stuck in my hand occasionally later in the game. However, it's important to realize that many econ cards will be dead draws later, and they'll be just as good padding your hand whether they're a Lateral Growth or a Restructure. Cutting down to 2x Lateral Growth might be okay. Green Level is also a decent econ card, but it's the first I'd cut to make room for other cards.

Agendas: Pretty straightforward here. EffComm is your power agenda, Vitruvius keeps you flexible, Global Food is your finisher. Accelerated Beta Test is a blank 3/2, but sometimes that's just what you need. Plus it's got Accelerated in the name, so it'll help your deck go that much faster! If you're going to tinker, don't touch the EffComms, Vitruviuses, or Foods. I'm not sure what the ABT could change to, but there might be a reason to change it in the future.

Jackson Howard: Only two Jackson Howard?!? It's heresy, but you need every influence you can get, and Jackson Howard is the least valuable of your influence spends. It'll draw you cards and keep R&D fresh, but your combo isn't centered around him like the traditional CI deck.

Other Operations: Accelerated Diagnostics, Hasty Relocation, and Shipment from SanSan are linchpins of the deck -- you need three of each of them. Biotic Labor helps you remain flexible in the early game, and helps you close out the game with a Global Food. I think three would be too expensive, and one might be reasonable but would be inconsistent. Cyberdex Trial is great. It's much better than Cyberdex Virus Suite because it's free, and in Shaper matchups where it matters the most, you can recur it to economically tax their Clone Chips and Sacrificial Constructs. For recursion, I've chosen two Reclamation Orders and one Archived Memories. Archived Memories is better early when there's typically one combo piece (or milled agenda) that you want back into your hand. Reclamation Order has a much stronger late-game value, where it can get back multiple combo operations, often at the tail-end of a juicy AD stack, readying you to do it again quickly. Also, getting back multiples to your hand helps you pad HQ with non-agendas. Interns is there for Power Shutdown synergy, and helps you in some corner cases, but I'd say it is the weakest of your recursion. I could see adding another Archived Memories if you had a free slot.

What about...: There are a lot of potential changes to be made to the deck. Scarcity of Resources (or ELP) might be useful to remove Employee Strike, but generally you'll be able to get out of the strike on your own. Violet Level Clearance probably shows up in the deck when it comes out, replacing Green Level. If your meta is very Clot-heavy, one Ark Lockdown would be a spicy addition. I'm sure I've missed some options -- feel free to suggest some in the comments!

Fast Forward:

Bringing this to an event, I'd go -1 Power Shutdown, -1 Interns, -1 Quandary, +2 Crisium Grid, +1 Turing. The deck needs more legs against Anarch Siphon decks, so cutting the weakest part of the package (Power Shutdown, and Interns to potentially 2-pile combo to finish the game) makes sense.

This deck is a blast -- give it a spin at your local event and show everyone how fast you can go!