"That's the best deck name I've seen so far." - NSG Judge, five minutes after registration opened.
![bad darts]()
Assumptions going into Worlds
1. Hoshipko would be the most popular runner, and wouldn't be on Clot.
2. Wu would be second most popular, and some versions aren't on Clot.
3. Most runners when setup would steamroll you, so you need to go fast.
Doesn't that mean you should play Sports? Yes, absolutely. Maybe something like this. But Sports has never really gelled with me. So after encountering the idea at York CO (thanks, Jamie!), I thought I'd give Big Deal Outfit (BDO) a try.
"What the heck is Big Deal Outfit?" It's a rush deck with a kill backup plan/deterrent and a couple of surprises up its fully opaque sleeve. The plan is to get to three or preferably four points before the runner feels safe to play with you. You do this by scoring Hostiles from hand, jamming Atlas or AtL behind a couple of pieces of ice, or by going for a cheeky SDS when the runner has no programs installed. If this comes off then you're in a real strong position to win.
If the runner overstretches themselves then HHN should at least slow them down for a turn, if not set up the BOOM! kill.
The next step is to sure up R&D with some taxing ice and a Crisium Grid, ideally without giving up too much bad pub. With that in place, you're trying to money up and get a Big Deal in hand. From four points, you can score an SDS from hand, possibly even playing around Clot, as people aren't expecting it. Or from three points, you can score an Atlas from hand with two tokens. That in turn sets up either AtL and Audacity or two Hostiles.
Perhaps surprisingly, all those options only account for about 40 cards, and we had a lot of debate about what the last nine cards should be. I'm certainly not confident I made the right decisions. Here are some of the thoughts:
* Runners are too rich to land HHN, or at the least you'll need Economic Warfare too (which were in the original version of the deck)
* An alternative to HHN is Public Trail that you can then follow up with Retribution to get rid of boats and Stargates or just use the basic action card to hit key resources.
* Wake Up Call is good at sinking boats but is limited when you don't have a lot of "must trashables" and/or when you have nothing to follow up with, meaning tanking the meat is an option.
*Is a kill/disruption package/plan B worth it or should you just swap it for more money and draw? Sprint got mentioned a few times, as well as Government Subsidy.
*If you're only using ice as gear checks, should you avoid the BP ice (to keep it under control) and look at more Hortums and Ballistas instead?
On the day it went 2-3. First round was a bit of a non-event as we had 10 minutes to try and fit the game in and I got caught trying to rush hard (though it would have been a really tough match up anyway). Second round was one turn off winning when the runner ripped five points off a 1/5 HQ access into a Deep Dive. My opponent didn't show up for Round 3 (so I went gunslinging where I saw two scoops and won some Overclocks!). Round 4 I scored out against a Padma deck. Round 5 I scraped past a Hoshipko list by leaning on Archer on R&D. Round 6 was a 241 where I ran. And in the last round I finally ran into a Clot lock that I couldn't break.
Fun times, great weekend. Thanks to all the organisers and attendees.
