Parasite Nexus Kate 2nd place Planet Harry SC Vienna

Hannibal Rex 7

I've never been much of a Shaper player, but with everyone seemingly going all in on Anarchs post-MWL, I decided to give Nexus Kate a spin. I was happy to have an excuse to finally play Rabbit Holes in a tournament. Shaper recursion is a lot thinner nowadays, so I decided to ditch Clot and use the influence for Stimhack and Utopia Shard. I went up to two Trade-Ins, and ditched the second Nexus for a Parasite. Trade-In isn't a great tutor, but 3 influence is a lot for a card I decided I didn't need to see before I'm ready to install it. The two mem chips serve as trade-in food, and they also really help out early to set up a partial rig of MO + SMC + whichever breaker you draw first, before you install the Nexus. As an Anarch at heart, I really can't see myself playing a deck without ice destruction of some sort, so Parasite is in.

Looking back, one thing I should have done differently is realize it's no problem to install Nexus before you have your first Rabbit Hole. I lost at least one game, against a NEXT EtF, because I was afraid of face checking into NEXT Gold without an SMC or my full Nexus rig online, but really, simply using Nexus, losing the trace, and removing the tag is perfectly fine for face checking. I had another loss in Swiss against NEH, won once against a SYNC Batty/Archer deck, and won against Blue Sun.

In the top four, I lost my first corp game with an otherwise undefeated SYNC Psychobiotic deck, and had to play two games against NEH. To my complete amazement, I won both of these. Parasite was very helpful in keeping R&D open. Stimhack got me a twice advanced Beale out of an Archangel/Little Engine remote because my opponent thought I was too poor to SMC out my Cy-cy.

I lost the final game against a kill RP, making three huge mistakes, any one of which should deservedly have been enough to lose. I top-decked a Snare on his open R&D on the very first click, losing Opus, Film Critic and, I think Rabbit Hole out of my perfect opening hand. Then, I accessed a second Snare in HQ while I had Nexus in hand and lost it. Lastly, after finding a Fetal AI, I decided not to immediately use my installed Utopia Shard while I had fewer than four cards in hand, allowing him to draw up and play SEA source for the Scorch. The deck itself should have done fine against RP, but hey, player skill still matters.

This deck definitely has room for improvement from the way I built it. With recursion being thin, and since you really don't want to draw too many cards instead of clicking Opus once you're set up, I think swapping out the Ladys for a Corroder and the third SMC is a good idea. I'd also remove the second Scavenge for a Symmetrical Visage.

0 comments