"Tempo" (Undefeated and King of Swiss at Fly to Emea 2)

Testrunning 1257

Fly to EMEA 2

This is the deck that got me to top of Swiss at Fly to EMEA 2, going undefeated vs a Hoshiko and 2 Kits. Sadly I had to drop after Swiss, so no idea where it would have landed in the cut. See my runner here.

Thanks Atien for organizing the event and everyone for participating!

What is this deck?

Actually this is neither grinder nor shell game. This is just pure tempo. You install things until the runner can not keep up any more and dies.

But ... how?

Usually you win by killing the runner (not by them accidentally impaling themselves or guessing wrong or any of that nonsense). The combo normally involves some amount of Bladderwort and Reaper at the start of the turn, scoring a Sting! or Fuji of the table (with the support of Cohort or Wage Workers) and maybe a Blood in the Water from hand for the finishing touches.

That still does not explain how you get there?

Well, you simply start of by installing as much into new remotes as possible. Wage Workers is your best card early. Random Steals, Bladderwort trigger and Bring them Home help slow the runner down to keep spamming the board (and that Runner are usually wary to run vs PE and expect Grinder or something. That is wrong. Against this deck you have to run aggressively).

If you managed to stick Wage Workers and/or Cohorts (the latter is usually the highest icing priority, then centrals, and then maybe agendas), the next step is scoring some House of Knives or False Lead. Scoring those makes it much harder for the Runner to run savely, giving you even more room to assemble your combo.

What does Front Company do?

Two things: protecting archives from being flipped up, so that Cohort is online, and wasting runner clicks (eg running and trashing Front Company instead of the more valuable Assets). You might have the urge to ice centrals first before rezzing Front Company, but that is not necessary.

With False Lead scored, this becomes actually very effective and protecting the other remotes.

PS: Sometimes it is also useful to duck under 4c to fire off Bladder.

Are these actually the correct cards to play?

No, you should play 3 False Lead and 2 Hok. Also the VSAs should be Gatekeeper and Mindscaping should be PAD Campaigns. But it is close enough.

So is this deck actually good?

Yes. Just pretend Loup is not real and cant hurt you.

So is this deck fun?

Maybe? Probably?

PS:

Derp

Note to self: If you want to post something screenshot with "UnDEfeAted oN JneT!!", dont test the deck when playing against tuno <3

6 comments
29 Apr 2024 Council

Yes! (this is the 3rd deck)

29 Apr 2024 Testrunning

What are the first 2 decks?

29 Apr 2024 Council

Sorry that's a song reference that makes no sense outside my head.

Seeing this list made me go "Yes!"

(this is the 3rd room) is a Khurangbin lyric: www.youtube.com

30 Apr 2024 Kikai

Terrifying.

30 Apr 2024 Dapperatchik

Awesome deck, the VSA + Mindscaping is a really clever way of forcing the runner to install real icebreakers cheaply.

Do you have any replays from the event where we can see the deck in action?

10 Nov 2024 Council

@Testrunning

But if I were to answer much later now, then perhaps the first two decks are other ways to play PE...

  1. Mushin, later Mitosis PE, Cambridge Style or Bag of Tricks
  2. Cornered Animal, Apex Predator, literal G-Word decks out to do unspeakable things to the runner's stack
  3. Tempo Pressure Kill seeking to overwhelm runner in one dollop. The question becomes whether you file the kind of deck Tratt built for Swedish Nationals in the same rank, which takes on a more glacier-rush based style and looks to kill via Fujii-Neurospike.

And that leaves

--> 4. Prana based asset-upgrade-ice decks like Thousand Knives and Loud...Perhaps even my favourite :)