"Eh, but why though?" 5-1 American Continentals

Booshy 157

Standing outside of Gamestoria in NYC for the NYC store champs ctz and I asked Osclate aka Laura about why she didn't consider Shaper playable in the meta, in which she replied "Eh, but why though?". Because yeah, you can get the same effect from Anarch/Crim with a lot less effort.

This Tao deck brought me 5-1 in American Continentals, winning against 2 Precision Design, 1 Personal Evolution, 1 Sportsmetal, and 1 Aginfusion. At least one of those games were by the skin of my teeth 1/6 agenda pick off HQ on the last click vs PD. Palms were sweaty).

Only loss was in round 6 vs Greg aka "notdabees" aka crithitd20 running Sportsmetal due to not seeing econ and Sports picking up tempo and leaving me in the dust.

The deck is designed to keep the pressure up while you get your credit drip up. You are able to remote camp, and then pressure R&D/HQ to get single accesses. Tao's ability allows you to set up the corps servers the way you want, allowing for cheap single accesses/moving pesky ice off of the remote.

Early tempo comes from Criminals in the form of Tread Lightly and Boomerang, along with Aniccam to get draws from all of the operations you are playing.

Potential changes: 4 credits for Na'no'tek is so much, and will probably be swapping it with Ika in the future. I am also thinking of swapping the Clot and one Deuces Wild out for an Imp to trash fast advance/seamless. I also found myself not installing the Conduit all day, so I would probably try and find some influence for a TTW or two.

This deck is a lot less forgiving when making mistakes than playing 419/maxx, which is all the rage right now. However, this is what makes this deck so satisfying. When you do well with this deck it feels EARNED. After 6 grueling rounds of swiss, being able to kick my feet back, drink a delicious beverage while watching Andrej and Holly commentate the last round/tiebreakers and know that the results of the day were the results of the hard work I put in is a great way to end a tournament.

4 comments
29 Aug 2021 tzeentchling

Great results from this! An interesting fact is that most of the deck is Startup cards - Misdirection, Beth, Na'not'k and Deuces being the exceptions, and probably less needed in those formats.

3 Sep 2021 voltorocks

@tzeentchling been running this deck all week in startup with 2x wildcat strike in place of deuces and a third of both SMC and rezeki in place of Beth and Na'not'k. It absolutely crushes, imo one of the strongest decks I've played in the format. Feels absolutely wonderful to be back in the shaper saddle, thanks @Booshy :D

4 Sep 2021 Havvy

I love it when I see a Reg Shaper deck do well :)

4 Sep 2021 Bilby

LETS GO TAO