Thaumaturgic DJ - 1st Place, Gameology Store Champs

Manticore 125

This is the runner deck I took to 1st place at the Gameology Store Championship (34 players) yesterday in Montclair, CA, beating Sync, Cybernetics Division, Gagarin and losing to Argus and RP in the Swiss, and going undefeated in double elimination versus Tennin, RP, Biotech, and Gagarin.

Below are some thoughts on card choices.

Imp is fantastic - I sometimes cut it from decks because I feel like I don't have room but that's probably always wrong.

Vamp is also great - very likely game winning in my rematch against RP during elimination, and would have done great work in that match during Swiss as well. (I had to pitch it to Faust to steal a Nisei fairly early on.) I don't think I drew it against anyone else but obviously it's also powerful against Mushin no Shin.

Notoriety - had one or two games where I got to 6 points and didn't find it, and the only game where I played it, I stole a Future Perfect and ended up at 6 points including Notoriety, so it sort of never mattered all day, but I also didn't play too many glacier-y decks. This was a last minute addition, and I'll probably keep trying it because losing at 6 pts. with Food stolen is the worst feeling, but it easily could be, and originally was, a third Career Fair.

Street Peddler - I love Peddler but this deck probably has too many events to use it. I had three event Peddlers at least twice on the day.

Deja Vu, Levy AR Lab Access - I never played Levy all day, and I Deja'd exactly once when a Swordsman landed. Cutting 1 Deja and switching to a 3rd Clone Chip to hit 45 cards might be good enough, but I like the safety net that Levy gives you if the game goes longer. SMC might also be OK, but I've already got memory problems.

Turntable - pretty sure I never triggered it all day but I think that's mostly dodging NBN; in general I've really loved it in all my testing before this event. Grimoire would be good too, though - solves a lot of memory issues and does great work with Parasite & Imp.

Random other thoughts: this started as a Val deck and I cut Scrubbers and Blackmail to get it to 46. Blackmail is great, of course, but I also had a number of games where I couldn't find what I needed and it got dicey; I'll likely be going to 45 with a single Deja Vu in the future.

Thanks to all my opponents for some excellent games! Also, thanks to @bblum for the Vamp and Imp includes.

4 comments
8 Feb 2016 moistloaf

did you use Vamp with success ?

8 Feb 2016 Manticore

@moistloaf I think just once - it got stuck on Peddler twice and of course sometimes you just don't see it; I didn't have any games go long enough to Levy, so I also wasn't drawing through my whole deck every time. I Vamped vs. RP to kill a Caprice and steal a Nisei, and my opponent didn't recover from that.

In my testing, when I draw it there's usually a strong line that makes use of it to pry open a remote or hammer R&D.

14 May 2016 apri

Hey! I was that argus player haha. Love the addition of notoriety btw, very stylish.

19 May 2016 Manticore

@apri Hah, I heard you mention that game on TWA. Can't find an icebreaker is classic #anarchproblems, especially before we all switched to cutlery the week after this event.