Futurecrash (2nd place Edinburgh, 3rd place Stirling SCs)

2nd place Edinburgh Games Hub Store Championship (26 players), 3rd place Stirling (Common Ground Games) Store Championship (20ish players).

Three main points:

• No scorch. Good players expect it and will almost never get hit, but will waste time clearing tags and Plascreting as a precaution, so the influence is better spent elsewhere. Weaker players will find plenty of other ways to die.

• False Lead > Gila Hands. FL is just too good in a deck like this. Makes it worth sacrificing other cards to include the extra econ required to replace Gila (Medical Research Fundraiser in place of ICE/Shi.Kyu in this case)

• Swordsman > Pup to combat Eater. Saved me once during this tournament, not 100% sure it's worth it though.

Depending on how the cards fall, stage one is figuring out if they'll run a Mushin, ideally with a Ronin or a 1-pointer. If they will, it's just a matter of time until Cerebral Overwriter sets up the win. If not - usually the case - Ronins will result in many flatlines, especially in combo with False Lead and Neural EMP. Cannot overstate how important False Lead is.

Scoring 1-pointers isn't too much of an issue. Snare!, Psychic Field, and Fetals make running unadvanced remotes fairly unappealing.

I expected I've Had Worse to be the final nail in the coffin of this much-loved deck. But every. single. deck. was running that card at this tournament, and it still did OK.