Soooooo Hunngrryyy! - 1st Place Store Championship, Brisbane

This report is not going to be in the same style as the one for my Titan Deck, just not inspired tonight - but hopefully anyone wanting to make similar or playing similar might find the write-up useful.

There are many ways to Anarch now that the box set has provided us some very powerful additions like Eater. This is the one I took to the Presents of Mind Store Championship in Brisbane on the 22/2/2015 which had 19 players attend.

This deck went through so many changes before I settled on the final list. The problem of course is trying to do too much at once which left the deck unfocused and often inconsistent. Every deck I made though had a huge amount of events, so I ended up shifting to Prepaid (a card I have never used before) over the usual cash generators of Armitage or Daily Casts. This was the best move I made. Obviously it increased the power of my cash generators (Day job, Sure gamble) but most importantly it helped make my turns almost free. Generally a turn was 1-2 clicks spent on drawing or events and 1-2 on running. The first part covered by PPDP the second covered by Spinal Modem, which was also a star. I originally went with Cyberfeeders as recurring credits to fuel eater/keyhole runs was vital for sustaining an economy but in an effort to trim cards I consolidated into a Spinal modem (the other consoles didn't offer much help (vigil was always a possibility though) and the 1 extra mem was useful if I wanted a full rig out). Spinal Modem is often overlooked because of its drawback but in this deck, where you will eater everything, getting traced just doesn't happen. In fact about the only card that even tried to trace me was Manhunt, and this was hardly a threat to my economy, just in case though, I decided to Reina over Quetzal for the extra Link. I should note here that you can effectively run this deck using Quetzal. Her early game barrier break ability can get you in (especially against wraparound) when you might not eater and help provide early pressure. My personal preference though was Reina, I wanted to hit their economy and the extra 1 credit over the game can make a huge difference.

The next biggest thing to note is that I am a hugely aggressive player. As you can see, no Plascretes and to many onlookers disbelief, I also floated tags from the get-go. In fact for our meta which is heavily dominated by Blue Sun, you might think I was crazy (and be mostly right). But it was vital for my tempo. Firstly, I couldn't afford to lose the credits in removing the tags (let alone the clicks) as Account Siphon because part of my economy and secondly, I would often fire off Account Siphon even if they only had 1-3 credits left when I got to access. This was how my deck worked and how Reina worked. Invariably most players will often rez a piece of ICE on HQ to spend credits they might be losing and to try and lower my gains. Works for me as recovering from zero creds is hard for most people that 2-3 where cards like Celebrity Gift can come into play. It also means that if their only source next turn is clicking, then 3 creds is not enough to power a snare. This was my time to check the hand or face down unadvanced cards. The choice to not use Plascrete wasn't made on a whim though. 'I've had worse' is extremely strong and did its job for me all day. The biggest hit I took was 3 lots of 2 meat damage (6 cards) of which I ended that with 4 cards in hand after starting with....4 cards in hand. The big power of this card is that in game where I had no real fear of Scorched (even though I always held 4 cards just in case they floated a single one), I effectively used it as a Diesel with PPDP. Inject here was also a star. I would often get 4 cards I could use, usually more economy and the doubles of Eater and Keyhole got trimmed out for a free cred. The use of Inject is partly why I also ran a single Retrieval Run as it allowed me the option to get back a program I lost without relying on Deja Vu which was far more important to use on either Account Siphon or the Cutlery.

Speaking of which, the Cutlery are extremely strong (no surprises here) but suffer from two huge drawbacks, getting the right one at the right time and decks that use a majority of one type of ICE. To help alleviate this I dropped from the usually compliment of 3 Account Siphons to two and added in the two Planned Assaults. This ended up being a great move and really smoothed out my consistency. If I needed the AS it was there but at the same time, if a Tollboth (one of this decks (and most) bane) was blocking me, or a Hadrians/Curtain Wall, I could easily dialup Knifed or Spooned to get them out of the way. In a pinch in also doubled as an expensive Retrieval Run though if it kept me on the attack it would be well worth the cards (The cost in creds with PPDP often equalled out). The cutlery however have to be matched to the meta. I went with 2 barriers a code gate and a sentry. At the end of the day I felt I could have dropped the sentry for another Code Gate (just to ensure I saw it more against Tollbooth) or even another barrier. That being said I probably wouldn't change them anyways. One of the most expensive cards to get through is Ichi and I did not see a single one on the day. Other Sentries suffer from low Strength making them not as bad to get through or an easy target for Parasite. Parasite also made to-be dropped list, but this was due to Blue Sun more than anything else. Regardless it was important to try and keep the cost of Keyholeing to a minimum though 2-3creds a run was not uncommon mid to late game and easily sustainable with my economy (1-3 runs a turn the first often mitigated by Spinal). Of course make sure you look at the cutlery as economy cards as well. I destroyed ICE in front of HQ as much as I did R&D simply because it wasted their cash and left a hole they had to spend time and cash to plug up. If they did not they left themselves vulnerable to Wanton Destruction, constant Account Siphons and just me taking a peak since their hands often filled with Agendas mid to late game.

My final Influence was spent on a single Special Order which helped smooth out my draw. You want to see Eater in your opening hand (if not then Special Order). Eater enables your early AS and Wanton Destructions as well as threatens Keyhole. It also allows fairly safe blind runs which keeps Reina’s ability in play or in many cases, gets you a free access. If you had Eater early then Special Order doubled as another way to get Corroder vs Wraparound and Mimic vs well I would say Jinteki, but its good just to have it out as much as for Swordsman as for Komainu splashes.

Finally some notes on Keyhole. Everyone has their own priorities as to what to trash from the 3 cards and I did get some questions over why I chose what I did. My priorities were Jackson first (this should almost always be your priority), followed by tag punishment (I was always floating tags), followed by Agendas, followed by economy cards, followed by ICE (prioritising ICE that was expensive for me to get through (for example, David will happily get me through Firewall a few times before it becomes a problem and at 6 to rez, it’s an expensive ICE for the Corp to have and thus I often left it). Many felt I should have targeted ICE as higher priority but without tag protection, I would prefer to have to grind through their ICE than to lose instantly. This worked for me.

There are a few changes I would make now that I put it through the fire of a major tournament (Utopia Shard over Hades and finding space for an Imp or two) but overall the deck performed exactly how I wanted it to and very consistently. I will be the first to admit that I had some luck during the day as I managed to evade being flatlined despite floating tags.

If you want to watch the Video of the finals game with this deck go to: http://youtu.be/bFVYydcgB18

Also here is a link to the tournament report that contains all the vids and some good stats info: http://atgn.com.au/netrunner-store-championship-brisbane-presents-mind/