Rush - Winning Store Championship deck

fredrikc 134

I won our store championship with 12 participants with this fast playing Harmony Medtech deck. The thought behind the deck was that most people will be bringing tech to counter Weyland and/or Near Earth Hub so I built a fast deck that could protect its servers.

There is Crisium Grid to protect against Keyhole/Account Siphon, a single swordsman to annoy all the runners using Eater, Guard for Criminal hate and Ash + Caprice for scoring remote shenanigans...

The deck could be refined further but this is a good start.

6 comments
23 Feb 2015 Lorgar

Well done, great work to win with Harmony Medtech! Rush works really fine at the moment. I played sucessfully Rush-Decks out of The Foundry. I saw that the Ash is not so important for Rush decks because you operate on a small budget and need you creds to rezz ICE.

But why the Nisei? Would NAPD not be the better choice? What`s about Shi.kyu, have you tested it?

23 Feb 2015 fredrikc

@Lorgar Even the runner was poor in some of the games and I was happy with its performance but another Caprice would probably be about as good. I will re-evaluate it it.

Regarding Nisei vs NAPD I choose Nisei mostly because I was afraid of Bad Publicity from Valencia and I was able to use the end the run-ability a couple of key moments when testing the deck. I did not score a single Nisei during the tournament so I would have been happier if the runners would have had to pay some credits to steal my agendas!

Shi.kyu was in the deck in the initial version but was cut due to economic reasons, my testing was mostly against my friend who runs heavy economic denial decks so I did never have the money to give him negative agenda points. The economic package is improved in this version so I could see myself adding it again.

26 Feb 2015 Veste

@fredrikc Firstly, congrats on your win! I really love this ID.

So I've been messing around with a version of this deck. I really like the rush style, so this appealed to me a lot! I'm trying to work out economically how to make this deck tick. Sometimes it is so fast that it doesn't need a whole lot, and other times I feel starved.

I've tried this with and without Mental Health Clinic and to be honest I can't find the right balance. None is not enough, and 3 feels like overkill, especially when I want to fit Shi.Kyū so badly.

I have also been playing this with only 1x Crisium Grid which feels right honestly. I haven't needed it in enough games to be upset by not seeing it. I have tried this without Ash 2X3ZB9CY and it still does okay as long as you do well with psi games.

I guess my biggest question is the ICE/econ. Lotus Field and Tsurugi are hefty. I want them to be great, but Tsurugi/Komainu just die so easily to parasite, and I want them with Inazuma! The combo is card/time/money taxing, but not a straight end the run all the time. It also can land you kills, so I'm not sure what the right answer is, mostly ETR ICE seems like the right move, especially with Shi.Kyū not working from R&D.

I've landed two flatlines, I think mostly on dumb luck/bad play by the runner. They spent most of the game seeing nothing that hurt them... so I've had situations where they finished their turn with 3 cards or less, and the subsequent turn I score a Philotic Entanglement I already had installed, for the kill. Once with Shi.Kyū and 3 agendas, once with just two agendas.

NAPD Contract is a rock star, but I've had a few cases where I wished I had a Nisei MK II token, so I'm not sure what the right answer is... NAPD opens up score windows.

How much has Architect been doing for you? I really think the include is interesting but I'm just curious how you've been using it mainly? To nab an agenda out and dump it into your score server? Setup the score server faster? I mean most decks run Mimic at this point so it really ends up being just a 2c tax for most runners.

When you play your MHC do you typically ICE over them at all? Even a pup? Also, have you thought about what you would change/remove to fit Shi.Kyū and MHC? I have had a couple of times where I put a Shi.Kyū in score remote and let them nab it for the negative point, similarly with archives, and I feel like making them have to steal 4 of the 9 agendas is a pretty big deal.

Sorry for the absurd wall of text, just trying to bounce some ideas around. I really enjoy playing this deck, it's very fast and very much my play style. I'm seriously considering bringing it to a Store Championship this coming Sunday.

26 Feb 2015 fredrikc

@VesteThank you! I really like the ID too but this deck is not that refined.

In my meta every second runner plays to many account siphons for me to handle so 3 MHC:s and 2 Crisium Grid reflect that all all the Keyholes out there.

Ash has won me at least one game protecting the caprice one more psi game.

The nisei are good in theory but they have been very marginal so far, I'm testing NAPD instead. The same goes for Architect, it is mostly just a 2 credit tax, I have not been able to fire it more than once.

I tend to not ice my MHC:s, possibly just a pup if I have one available but nothing more than that unless playing against Whizzard or being in a serious economic disadvantage.

The third MHC, the Ash and the Architect are the cards I would look at if I wanted to make room for cards such as Shi.Kyū and replace a Himitsu-Bako for Wraparound or Eli depending on what I expected to meet. Right now there are lots and lots of Eaters but also Ladies...

I have an updated version of the deck but I'm not satisfied with how either of them perform.

10 May 2015 BayushiOliveira

I played this deck two days ago, and thank you for it! It was very cool and I won two games after the runner making 4 points (once in his second click). I will probably make some changes to make it my own, but thank you again for giving me a start.

10 May 2015 fredrikc

@BayushiOliveira Great to hear that you are having fun with the deck. The last iteration of this deck was even quicker using Cortex Lock to really punish aggressive running. I would love to hear what you change with the deck!