HB Fast Archer - Sleeper Car (Scottish Regionals 2nd place)

Angedelo 1352

This is the deck that took me to second place in the scottish regionals. Thanks to @NyanPudge for the decklist, it suits my style perfectly - pure HB fast advance with domestic sleepers as archer fodder. I actually hardly used archer in my games, usually using the domestic sleepers as the seventh point instead. Most games ended with the runner needing an unobtainable number of points on a final turn.

Changes from the original deck were minimal, dropping one Eve campaign, an IQ & an NAPD for two Gila Hands & a Turing. I need Gila in all my HB decks, I love that card more than my dog.

Round 1 Super Bye. Yay.

Round 2 vs Jonny's Headlock Reina. He starts making money and digging for his horrible tools, getting crescentus & lamprey online, and derezzing my HQ Eli a couple of times. However a Turing on the remote keeps my sansan safe for a couple of turns and I am quickly up to 6 points. He vamps me, and I could offshore some credits into another sansan after he killed the last one - however I have domestic sleepers & shipment from sansan in hand, and don't want him to choose to access instead. So I take the vamp to zero, scoring sleepers next turn. He digs R&D and finds 2 points but it's not enough.

Round 3 vs Nic's Valencia. Usually I like my chances against Valencia, HB does never advance better than anyone. Lots of campaigns, sansans etc make her burn through blackmails and recursion. Some careful IQ related hand management keeps the blackmails ticking over on my remote and I tax him to the point that I get a sansan to stick and score 6 points then a sleepers for the win.

Round 4 vs Peter's Drip Andy. Tough matchup for me, I know Peter is running E3... He gets a slow start and I score 5 points and 2 sleepers, but his clickless drip econ is running now and 2 RDIs are getting him into R&D every turn. Can I survive 2 turns to click both sleepers? No. I get one, then he hits R&D and scores 3 points from 3 cards for the win. Well played Peter.

Round 5 vs Ilias's Valencia. I stupidly trying to sneak out a vitruvius on the table like an idiot, failed of course. He parasites my Turing on R&D and keyholes an ABT into archives which he steals. I get a Heimdall on R&D and biotic out 4 points. He gets clot out, and I purge, although he has a clone chip on the table. I take another gamble - install onto what we both know is a sansan, he does nothing and I get to shipment from sansan and rez the grid to score immediately. A cyberdex rez kills clot for good and a domestic sleepers seals the win.

Round 6 vs Seamus's Kit. Another tough matchup, usually a marathon in the pub. Can't remember a great deal from this, other than I have to sack 2 sleepers to rez archers just to tax his stealth & real credits. He gets 3 (3!) RDIs up and hits R&D a couple of times over a few turns but sees nothing. I take my windows to score out on sansans and with biotics (after he misses with utopia shard).

Top 8 vs Shemek's Quetzal. This game is a bloodbath, the deck just sings as it fires out code gates to keep him out, money for days and tools at the right points to score 7 points in about 6 turns.

Winner's bracket finals vs Laurie's PPvP Kate. This game is also a bloodbath, just not the way I would have liked it! The clot threat is always online, with bags of money, self-mod & clone chip on the table & he never lets a CVS sit for a turn. I get horrendously flooded, drawing more agendas while I dig for jackson. He finds 3 points in archives and legworks for all the marbles.

Final game 1 vs Laurie's PPvP Kate. Here we go again! This time i manage to get a score out pretty early as well as a sleepers online. He legworks for 2 points and another sleepers, taking an NAPD from the trash that I'd ditched earlier. His top-notch instincts tell him to same-old legwork me again the next turn and duly steals the ABT i'd drawn - big moment and he thinks it's the win before realising he only has sleepers, not a one-pointer (this was around 1am....). With clot brain damaged into the bin from stimhack, and no clone chip, I optional draw an ABT, and biotic into score on a sansan. He isn't as rich as he would like so leaves the sansan one turn, banking on me not drawing a 3/2 considering how many were gone by that point. I pull efficiency committee and can biotic it out onto the sansan for 6 points. One turn before I click sleepers and he hits R&D but is shut out.

We go onto game 2 where his RP blasts my Exile into pieces!

7 comments
20 May 2015 NyanPudge

Thanks for the shout! I'm glad to see this deck did so well for you. I like the edits you've made, and I'm guessing the dropped Eve didn't really damage your economy noticably since you had Gila on hand?

21 May 2015 Angedelo

@NyanPudge yeah I don't recall money being much of an issue on the day, gila is so strong. I would like another Eve but I'd also like another sansan, shipment, cyberdex etc. Can't have everything! Cheers again for helping me get a better placed finish than I ever thought I would!

21 May 2015 iloveMRT

What's idea behind not using NEXTs?

21 May 2015 Angedelo

@iloveMRT I have used the next suite in past fast advance decks, but I've found there are problems with it. The main one is what do you do if those pieces don't show up? Sure NEXT Silver becomes crazy taxing late game, but if you can't find others it's just a parasite target that costs a credit or so to get through.

This deck aims to just power through agendas quickly, and if the game goes long, use archer, IQ & Eli to tax the hell out of the runner to the stage where you can actually score in the remote or get a sansan to stick.

I don't think next is bad, just I prefer this build - NEXT Gold is just not good enough for the cost.

22 May 2015 unitled

Do you find Turing is doing much work for you? I'm thinking it's probably the most 'flexible' of the Scientist ice, I'm not too unhappy seeing it over a central to stop something like Eater/Keyhole.

22 May 2015 Angedelo

@unitled Hey dude, yeah I used it on r&d once as I was wary of eater/keyhole - just got parasited the next turn. But it basically won me the game against Jonny as he couldn't find parasite or D4v1d so I could score off a sansan no problem.

I think one is maybe the right call, but in a post-Blacklist world, Cyber-Cypher isn't as strong, so IQ becomes a really good bit of ice. The number of times I was able to rez it for cheap then refill my hand was awesome.

1 Jun 2015 taione

Hey, @Angedelo. Just thought you should know that I took this deck list to 2nd place in the South German regionals. Lost to a crypsis-based noise deck piloted by the eventual winner.