Locked and Rigged (3rd Place Madison Regionals)

Dheraz 198

This deck went 5-0 in the Madison regional Swiss beating Apocalypse Kate, Perfume Gabe, Pitchfork Haley, Pancakes Maxx, and Stimshop Chaos Theory (with 1 ID). It lost one game to Spags after the cut because I had 4+ agendas in hand from turn three up until he won on turn 10-15, but beat AAndries's Whizzard and another Pitchfork Haley to bring me to third place after the cut.

This deck relies on Encryption Protocol and Snare! to gain a tempo advantage over the runner, allowing you to snowball your board state into a mid-game where you score out easily amidst an incredibly taxing central server, more taxing than average trash costs on your remotes, and traps to punish running on centrals. Mumba temple allows this deck to run stronger, more taxing ice- forcing runners to run less frequently and allowing you to push games out into the mid-game while you look for a second SanSan City Grid or that last agenda to score out.

Is Encryption Protocol a good card? I think its a good fit for this deck. Five credits cheaper and one influence cheaper than Hostile Infrastructure makes this a more effective way to tax a runner attempting to control your board state. Since it's only one influence, you can run three of them (and still save an influence over 2x HI) increasing the chance that you'll find one early. If you can find two of them in the first three turns, most (non-Whizzard) runners will never trash an asset for the rest of the game, basically setting you up for an easy win. When a runner has to stop mid-run and recalculate how much it's going to cost to trash something, they-- often not wanting to take the time to fully think it through-- are more likely to make bad decisions.

Is Snare! worth it? People have gotten pretty complacent. Lots of people run click four against NEH setting you up to trash their Professional Contacts/Wyldside or even in some lucky cases, kill them. After seeing the first Snare!, the thought that there could be another one makes most people run less often meaning they get less of the random accesses out of HQ and RnD which are the main way this deck loses games.

Is Sensie Actors Union better than DBS? I think so. Sensie's low trash cost and faster draw makes it a more must-trash asset than DBS. Because of this, you can rez your Sensies not only to draw through your deck, but to protect your valuable PAD campaigns which are the main source of econ in the deck. Most runners wont trash more than one asset per turn. Don't worry, you can recur them later with Team Sponsorship! Finally, when you're looking for that last agenda, nothing feels better than rezzing two to three Sensies and drawing between four and eleven cards to get that one last 2/1 you need! Just make sure you're not going to deck yourself!

Would I change anything moving forwards? Nah. Deck was fun.

5 comments
25 Apr 2016 sruman

Thanks for posting. With only 8 non-0 to rez assets, did you find you were getting consistent value out of your temples? I like sensie actors union alot as well, but it might be an argument for DBS over to help snergize with temple (especially for runners that do not run much cough shapers)

25 Apr 2016 Grimwalker

Salsette Slums of any concern?

25 Apr 2016 Dheraz

@sruman: Don't forget the most important rez target of all! SanSan City Grid! Including Cyberdex, there are actually 13 targets for Mumba Temple that are capable of being installed in remotes. However, I feel that the most important consideration is that having Mumba Temples lets you run better ice. I built an Assassin, Tollbooth, Tollbooth remote over my SanSan in my first Haley game and was able to successfully threaten to rez all three during a single run.

@Grimwalker Somewhat but they still have be able to afford to trash everything. If you're really worried, slot Self-Destruct.

25 Apr 2016 rubyvr00m

Congrats on the 3rd place finish! I would have never expected Snare!s if I was running against this. Maybe I'm fortunate that I didn't have to play against it in the cut.

I'm curious though, I was running a very similar NEH list and found myself operating on a relatively weak economy, did you ever find the Snare! trigger too expensive to fire? Was it pretty consistent for you?

26 Apr 2016 GrantZilla1979

I'd be tempted to run Tour Guide out of this but...nah. You got a really nice balance and a ton of mileage out of influence spent here. Team Sponsorship is such a great card.