NEH Podo Shop v2 (1st Place, MBH SC, 27 Players)

podoboyz99 2364

So yeah, the name. I jokingly made a bet with a friend of mine that if I won this tournament, I would have to change the name to his choice. So I present to you “The Podo Shop” Please direct all criticism of the name to @sfxasure.

Enough with all this fuss about the name, the deck is still great.

I piloted Podo Shop to 1st place at the Mox Boarding House Store Championship on 2/6/16 in a 27 player field. I played it alongside my MaxX list, which you can find a report on all my games with that deck here.

I won't go into a full card breakdown, you can see that in my previous write up. The strategy is the same, for the most part. Play loose, be aggressive, make the runner scared, and most of all, be fast.

Changes from original: I took out the Midseasons because it is a trap card and it never got played. I also took out the Archangel because it never seemed impactful enough to make a difference. I put in a Tollbooth because I could pay for it if the runner doesn't trash my PAD’s. I also chose to slot a Cyberdex for resilience to Medium digs, and it doubles as anti Clot tech

Recommended changes: One less Pop Up for a Special Offer is nice, and has been doing well in testing. I usually end up putting one Pop Up on a remote, and Special Offer is better in NEH on a remote. As a meta call, you could take out the Tollbooth and the Enigma for 2 Little Engine. This makes you very good against Faust, but really bad verses D4V1D.

The day of:

Round 1: Ben (Nexus Kate)

A local meta mate and I are frustrated as we had done some testing on Jinteki.net in this matchup the night before. Anyways, we get started and I can't find a second Breaking News. He gets set up after facechecking an early Raven on R&D, and gets all his stuff ready. I continually dig for one, and find it. Got the Traffic and the 24/7, no Scorch yet, not enough money to score off a SanSan. He is Quality Timeing and Dieseling to try and find a Plascrete, but no luck. Finally, after many turns of us both digging, he drops, to my horror, an Artist Colony, and promptly fetches a Plascrete from a Breaking News he had gotten on the way. I am able to put enough meat damage in my hand to try and kill through Plascrete, and he fetches another one as soon as I play the first Scorch. With an established Clot recursion rig set up, the rest of the game is just a formallty. Overall Prestige: 0

Round 2: Bye

I came to play netrunner and I get to sit around pretending like I'm not scouting the bottom table. How fun. Overall Prestige: 4

Round 3: Ryan D. (Faust Adam)

Again, paired up with someone from my local store, we both know each others decks. Ryan is one of the best Adam player I know, I think his Adam went 4-2 on the day and I know both losses he had a Psi game for the win. I am super scared of Drug Dealers, as they turn off the kill. He gets his economy up faster than I suspects, and I immediately start digging for a SanSan. He pulls a couple out of HQ and continues to set up. By the time he has his full rig up, I am up to 6 points, and he is struggling to keep up. However, the Drug Dealers start to give him tempo in the ability to break ice department, and a Hunting Grounds allows him to plow through a 5 ice R&D every turn for 2 accesses as well as get into HQ for two. I am able to draw past R&D lock, and draw the Beale second. click with a rezzed SanSan, so can't score it out. He has been checking HQ every other turn up to this point, and goes through to R&D to see 2 cards. Nothing. He then draws some cards, and instead of removing a tag when he knows I have two Scorch he choses to run HQ last click, he goes for HQ, where he has a 40% chance of getting the agenda. He pulls it. Overall Prestige: 6

Round 4: Paul (CT Stealth)

I’m glad I get to play someone that's not from my home game store. This game goes blazingly fast as I am able to set up a SanSan and a PAD in my first two turns, getting a scored Astro after he pulls two off the top on turn one. Then, he declines to click Opus 4 times instead of 3 and trash an empty SanSan, and i happily score a Beale. I then topdeck a Breaking News and Secure R&D, and he chose not to Clot it with an SMC on the table. He then pokes at R&D, taking tags then spending clicks clicking Opus and detagging. I click to draw a lot and find a Beale, but on second click again so can't score using Astro token. On his last click, he runs HQ, SMCing for a Refractor, paying through my Enigma, and stealing the one agenda in my hand on a single access. Second game in a row a similar thing happened, so I'm on tilt in a major way. Overall Prestige: 8

Round 5: Alex (Old School Noise)

Not much to say here, opponent is playing Rara Noise with no Clot, I draw all the right cards and I AstroTrain out in about 5 minutes. Lucksack win, I know his Noise is really good when it gets going, lost to it in a GNK about a month ago. Overall Prestige: 12

At this point, I’ve accepted that I have not made it to top 8, but at least 5 of my friends had! As time winds down, my one competitor for the who has 10 prestige at this point and is on his second game with 5 points and an Astro counter, but can't find an agenda to make quick work of the Noise player he was facing. He ends at 11, Im at twelve, my SoS is terrible, but that doesn't matter now, I was the only player with 12 prestige, so I snuck into the top 8. Yay!

Top 8 Game 1: Ryan B. @theRyanBurke (Choke Val)

I am trembling after the close call for the top 8. But not because of that, because I am probably going to have to face Ryan’s homebrew Valencia, a deck I have played against many times, and have no idea how to beat. His list can be found here. I don't remember much about this game, except he went semi tag me early, floating one tag to evade Traffic Accident. He then proceeded to slow Parasite a Wraparound on HQ then pummel me into the ground with Siphon. I had already failed to kill him once this game, and I drew the pieces and went for it again. Hit another I've Had Worse. He then proceeds to Deja Vu his third I've Had Worse and then Keyhole me when I had just Jacksoned 3 Traffics back into my deck. He hits 2 agendas with Keyhole and his run on archives yields 2 more facedown. Close, very tense game, and I tell him I'm rooting for that Val deck if I don't make it. At this point I think I'm the top 8 cannon fodder, and I move over to next match.

Top 8 Losers Bracket Game 2: Ryan D.

Runner win.

Top 8 Losers Bracket Game 3: Ben

Runner win.

Top 8 Losers Bracket Game 4: Kyle (Reg Val)

As I pull up across from a prestigious player from Portland, we have a quick discussion about how our favorite decks that got axed by the MWL. I comment that I used to love Reg Val, and he replies with “Reg Val was fun...” I then play a very short game where I mulligan a bad hand into something worse, and he proceeds to surgically remove 5 points of agendas. I have 2 SanSans in the trash and 2 Beales in hand with a mere Breaking News in the score area. He decides to install a second Medium, and uncharacteristically spend 3 clicks going tag me on R&D digs. I promptly Scorch him out of the water. I know I got lucky on that one.

Top 8 Losers Bracket Game 5: Zach (Devil's Food Cake)

Still breathing heavily from my near victory in the last game, I nervously shuffle my cards as I see MaxX across the table. She is the best runner, and I saw so much Apocolypse MaxX at a SC last weekend that I am not feeling good. However, prepared for the onslaught, I see he milled a Wyldside, and my heart dropped. Zach was playing a Devil's Food Cake deck, possibly the best (not the most oppressive) deck in Netrunner. I do have a really good start, getting a early Breaking News and seeing a Scorch. He gets a Palooza, which was fine, because I was short on money. I see him install a Grimoire, and I ask him how many cards are in his deck, and was relieved when he said 50, which (generally) means Blueberry Pancakes and not my Maxximum Punk Bach list that has a better yellow matchup. Zach lacks central pressure for most of the game, and after I hit I've Had Worse on the failed kill once, I immediately Jackson pieces back and trash his Pancakes, leaving him with 3 clicks for the rest of the game. I assemble the kill again quick enough to where I get it off just after he Levy’d and had no I've Had Worse in hand.

Top 8 Finals Game 6: Ryan B. @theRyanBurke (Chronos PE)

Runner win.

Top 8 Grand Finals Game 7: Ryan B. @theRyanBurke (Choke Val)

Unfortunately, I have to play against the deck I least want to play against. Fortunately, I get a opening hand from the gods, with a PAD, a Hedge Fund, and a Wraparound for HQ (which I learned in our previous game he had a hard time deallng with). He runs R&D twice and pulls an Astro and a Beale off the top. I start to claw my way back, scoring a Breaking News, then next turn another one. A well timed Wanton his 2 useless cards and a Traffic leaving me with two cards, an agenda and a Scorch. Dodged one there. I draw furiously as Ryan tries to keep me off asset econ for a long time. I get 24/7 double Scorch in hand and decide to go for it to try and clear out the I've Had Worse for the Traffic-Scorch later. I hit 2 Deja Vus as well, restricting his ability to recur I've Had Worse. He plays very cautiously from this point on, and a Raven on R&D and an unrezzed card restricted his ability to Keyhole me three times to try and go for the win, and after I score a Beale. Next turn 24/7-Traffic-Scorch finishes him off.

The Podo Shop is a top tier, competitive deck. It is a bit meta dependant (People have started to play Shaper with 2 Plascrete in my meta, so I will be off this for a while), but the speed of Podo Shp is what makes it good.

Big thanks to Frank for running the tournament, to everyone I played for withstanding their desire to choke me with my DLRing and AstroTraining them. And big thanks to Ryan for a set of fun finals games.

4 comments
11 Feb 2016 che4p

Nice! Slim and straight forward. Gratz to your win

11 Feb 2016 Clamatius

Congrats! I was the other guy with that Astro counter in round 5. Pretty sure I would have just lost in top 8 anyway since my brain was about dead. :)

11 Feb 2016 DarlingSensei

Savage list as always. Questions abound: -Thoughts on turnpike? -Can you get away with just two 24/7? -Is shattered remains helpful, or would you rather power through with multiple kill cards?

11 Feb 2016 podoboyz99

@DarlingSensei Turnpike is ok, more of a tax than Gutenberg, but easier to break. Would be worth testing. You don't want to cut a 24/7, consistency in draws is key here. You don't want to be digging for a combo peice (but with 2 Scorch, it's sometimes necessary. Shattered Remains just slows you down way to much. As soon as you see a Plascrete, you probably just want to try and score out as fast as possible.