Oh look, another scorch deck.

Smokestack 463

Haarpsichord meat damage deck. 3rd after top cut, 5th in swiss at mead hall store champs out of 48 players. 5/3 on the day.

I decided I wanted to run Haarpsichord over NEH for my meat damage ID because I felt like it added some different opprotunities and more intricacies to the "butcher shop" archetype. The higher agenda density didnt matter when they could only score one per turn. Dumping 3 Quantum Predictive Model into archives allows you the possibility of scoring out 3 points ( or 2 if they have an unloaded film critic) as long as there is a data raven in front of archives. Things like that.

As far as cards in the deck go, I feel like MVPs, aside from the usual suspects (Data Raven), were Resistor, Archangel, and Quantum Predictive Model. Resistor feels so good everytime I rez it. If they dont have a breaker to break it and no link, it costs as much as an eli, once they drop a fracter its the same cost to break as a wraparound, and makes the runner feel more iffy about going tag me mode. Archangel is such an expenisive surprise for the runner. They dont break it and you can pop that film critic so they might have to steal an agenda, or pop their plascrete. And Quantum, it can be such easy free points. Drop an early data raven on archives, dump all your Quantum Predictive Model and News Team, maybe an Explode-a-palooza too. The runner runs archives, gets -1 point, you go up 3 points and 5 credits. Theres so much that can happen.

Cards I didnt feel strongly about, Lily Lockwell. When I ran a list with more midseasons, she was fantastic, without them, she did nothing. SanSan City Grid, don't get me wrong, i think this card should be in here, but it always feels like a huge credit sink that's going to get protected at best by a wraparound or a Quandary. granted a lot of the time you only need to score one AstroScript Pilot Program off of it given the frequency of 2/1s.

Round 1: VS Andy Stealth Win 7 to 3 I dont feel like there was much to say about this game. I won by points. It took him a while to set up his stealth rig, and even once he had it set up, data raven was still something that caused a problem. Turn one I hedged, iced HQ with Data Raven and did something. Turn 2 I pushed a Breaking News out, and then turn 4 I drew another for turn and pushed it out as well. I already had the scorch/traffic in hand, so dug turn 5 for a 24/7, but he got a plascrete out before I saw the 24/7 News Cycle. I drew into a SanSan City Grid and an AstroScript Pilot Program, and decided to drop to 2 credits with a Sweeps Week in hand to score out the AstroScript Pilot Program. while i was low on credits for a turn he pulled a quantum off R&D and trashed the grid. I did get a 24/7 News Cycle, I held onto that with the one Scorched Earth, but I dumped the Traffic Accident. At this point if I drew Midseason Replacements and Scorched Earth I could try for the kill, but neither kill play worked without the second scorch. He scored an astro off the top of R&D, I drew my 3rd breaking news and scored it putting me to 5 points and him to 3. next turn i drew twice and saw nothing. His turn he checked archives, saw nothing and made some money, I top decked my last astro and scored it out for game.

Rd 2 VS Jesminder Loss 5 to 7 I dont remember a lot of this game, and I dont have a lot of notes on it. Of the three plays I do remember, one was a mistake on my part. Not being very used to playing against Film critic as I dont see it a lot in my local meta, I tried to double bluff two astros on the board, he ran one, hosted it and cleared it then ran and hosted the other. I had drawn a midseason at one point. I decided to try to play out an agenda, to score next turn as he had a clot on board and a clone chip. I installed a quantum on a grid, installed an archangel in front of it, so that I could bounce his film critic of the board and either push through me scoring the agenda, or him actually stealing an agenda and enabling midseasons. He unfortunately dropped his code gate breaker and had exactly enough credits to break the archangel and steal the 3/1. I purge at some point, draw into my last astro and a quantum, I already scored 2 breaking and my 15 minutes earlier in the game. I play the quantum on the grid, he is at 5 points and I am at 3, I advance the quantum once and he breaks in a clot with clone chip. last click I overwrite the quantum with a astroscript. He checks R&D and decides not to call my bluff so I score out an astro. Unfortunately the turn after that he finds an explode off the top of R&D for the win.

RD 3 VS Kit Win Flatline He spends most of the early game using Pro Con to draw up his rig, gets a public sympathy down. I score out an astro and a breaking news, but cant land a kill as he keeps 7 in hand at all times. Eventually I draw into a midseasons and his poking nets him an agenda, after which i tag him, dropping to 5 credits, trash the public sympathy going to 3, with a scorch and a traffic in hand. he spends his next turn using procon to try and find something to keep him alive. his only other answer was a second public sympathy which actually turned out to be the bottom card of his deck. My turn I scorch/traffic him for the win.

RD 4 VS Ken Tenma Win 7/2 I start with a hedge and a data raven on HQ to deter the siphons. He makes a couple of early pokes and doesnt see anything. I push out a pair of breaking news, with 24/7 News Cycle and Traffic Accident in my hand and start to dig. I end up with grid on the board and an astro so I score it out. He manages to drop a plascrete before I can draw a Scorched Earth. I push out another astro and then draw into a 15 minutes and score it for game before he can do much else.

RD 5 VS Leela Loss 7/2 I had a hard time this round. I didnt see any early breaking news. I managed to push out an early astroscript. He got all of his breaker suite down fairly early, kept me low on credits by siphoning and clearing his tags while he picked off agendas and disrupted my board state with his game text.

Top 8

RD 1 VS Leela Win Flatline This was the same Leela I lost to the round before. This time all I drew was gas. My opener was scorch/traffic/breaking news/sweeps/data raven and I drew a hedge, so i dropped the raven on HQ and made money. turn 2 I pushed out a breaking news. turn 3 I dropped the raven he bounce back onto hq, installed the gutenberg I drew on R&D and drew a second breaking news. he bounces off the data raven, and I score the breaking news on my 4th turn, drawing the 24/7 that turn as well. He uses his turn to siphon me down, clear tags and gambles. Turn 5 I click for 3 credits, he spends his next turn digging for a plascrete but doesnt find it. Turn 6 I flatline him with 24/7, traffic, scorch.

RD 4 VS CT Loss 7 to 5 I had a couple play errors this game. One of which I would say definitely cost me the game. Turn one i saw a sweeps, a hedge and a raven, so I iced HQ, and gained money. turn 2 I scored a breaking, turn 3 i scored a breaking. I had a 24/7 in hand, so i started to dig. he got a plascrete out turn 5, so i scored another breaking and my 15 minutes. I had a grid on board and i drew into an astro. For some reason, i decided to push out the astro, but then, after already rezzing the grid realized he had a self modifying code and plenty of credits. I figured i already screwed up by rezzing the grid, i might as well challege the code and see if he actually had the clot in his deck, which he did. so i gave him 2 points there. after a few R&D pokes he had a film critic out and had managed to score an explode a palooza. with a clear film critic, he makers R&D click 4, first access he hosts an astro, second access he sees a TGTBT which he is forced to steal and take a tag from. At this point its worth mentioning, I had already seen all 3 Quantums, and dumped all 3 into archives behind a data raven, as well as two news teams. on my turn I blow up his film critic and the astro dumps into archives. I wait about 3 turns with a facedown jackson on board waiting form him to hit the face up astro in archives. Then I make the mistake that probably costs me the game. He's been hitting R&D for those 3 turns and i get impatient. Given clot and film critic I figure my only chance is to score the quantums off being tagged, so i shuffle 2 of them into R&D along with the astro and a facedown exploda that were in archives. the turn after that he decides to check archives, taking -2 from news team and scoring me the one quantum I had left there. The point here is that if I had left those 2 quantums in archives that would have been game point for me. After that, he dropped an artist colony and cleared off the two news teams. Then scored out the remaining points he needed.

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