1st place at Italian Nationals 2016: Hounding Tags

The data pack “Blood Money” was not legal for the Italian nationals 2016.

This is the corp deck that allowed me to win the Italian national. The tournament was 6 turns of swiss and top 8.

Total score: 5-1 and 2 intentional draws

It won against: Silhouette, Dumblefork, Dumblefork, Silver Bullet Kate, Dumblefork. I lost against Dumblefork, the player was a good Whizzard player and he had good starting economy.

There are only few tweaks from the best known builds but News Hound was MVP. I thought that Employee Strike spam in Dumblefork and Silver Bullet Kate would justify his presence. Against anarch is a very good tempo ice. Facing silver bullet Kate forces atman 4 (10 credits to install with self modifying code and breaking subs) and most of all punishes last click runs. For me it is a better choice compared to Turnpike.

Targeted Marketing was an auto include: "protecting" me from siphons, dlr and other painful cards for ctm. Furthermore it slowed some players running dumbleforks that decided to dig for Employee Strike before install a key piece called with TM.

3 Pad Campaign was also a difficult choice thinking at the presence of Daily Business Show in faction, but the trash cost of 4 is psychologically too high in early/mid game therefore it grants me economy compared with an already excellent draw engine.

So that's it. I want to thank my meta mates (from Genoa and Milan) and also those who supported me along 13 hours of tournament in a 35C degree location that forced me to drink 3 liters of water, 2 red bull, 1 tea and different forms of sugars. It was an amazing experience that let me learn new things, convinced me even more that every click choice is crucial and that in a very competitive tournament you have to try thinking at least 2 turns ahead.