Egg Beater- 1st, 3rd, 31st @ Americas Conts

Lore

This is the list rohit, Sokka, and I brought this past weekend (Sokka stuck to 2 Carmens instead of the Revolver but otherwise played the same thing). I went 6-0 on it and Sokka went 4-1. Unfortunately the list didn't perform as well for rohit, but the two wins he got with it were against Au Co, contributing to the collective 5-1 record vs Egg and helping earn the deck its name.

Going into continentals, I had the luxuries of being able to test a lot, having a lot of teammates around to test with, and having about 3 weeks worth of testing time. Naturally, it seemed right to start by trying runners I was considering against Au Co.

Fast forward to the night before CoS, I was still trying to find something that beat Au Co. Lia's Sable from Cascadia seemed really good at first, but the King's online conts winning Egg gave it issues. With the better ice and regenesi, I was having more trouble getting in to trash assets before they got out of control and Regenesis meant you couldn't just sit back on NFL to avoid dying. I knew Audrey Loup was a good answer to the top decks, but people had brought Audrey Anarchs the previous weekend so they were a known quantity and I was worried about that archetype's vulnerability to a good meta call. Reg Hosh probably was good enough, but I've never brought Hosh to a tournament before and I didn't want to lose my claim to moral superiority now.

At CoS, Bling Az went 0-1-1 against AuCo, but I realized from playing those games that I've learned the matchup better over the past weeks and was more confident that I could use crim's tools to navigate it and play to my outs. I had a conversation at dinner with Toronto Josh and then Sokka where I started to put to words the kind of tech that I think could make the matchup Sable-favored. I got Sokka on board, and we played two immensely helpful copilot games at our AirBnb against AuCo, and then 1 vs Ob, which was enough to get the 3 of us to take it the next day.

Card Choices (Reg Sable is so unique and cool I promise 🥺)

2 Airblades- You really want to find one of these early against Egg. The way I play Crim at least, I hate taking damage, and against Au Co damage has the compounding effect of making them go faster than you can keep up with. With an Airblade, you can more safely play your Bravados and Transfer of Wealths into unknown ice and run your mark when a Phat is installed. In short, it lets you keep playing Crim against a deck that's built to stop you playing Crim. Also, it has applications against Nebula ice, and if you're silly and don't get your killer down against Ob before it gets hit by damage (like I did in swiss) it can get you through some tithes.

3 Pinhole- Speaking of Phat, we gotta kill him and Cohort as quickly as possible. Make sure you build towards getting your breakers down so these are eventually unnecessary, but they will tide you over in the meantime.

1 Steelskin- Airblades is sick, but I wanted something extra to help take damage more easily that wasn't dead in other matchups. Something this does that blades doesn't is help you tank Semaks (doesn't give them an Au Co counter), which came up in testing but not on the day- its only a play you want to do when you're really desperate anyway. Steelskin's also nice if you're forced to go tagme, as they have to play Mindscaping and EotL or 2 Mindscapings to kill you. Note: this is useless against Kill Nebula as protection, just play it to draw three in that matchup. It's nice to keep in hand vs. Ob bc they like dealing incidental damage, but likewise it's not protecting you vs Measured Response.

2 No Free Lunch- Just wanted to say that this is almost exclusively Nebula/other NBN tech. You're trying to control the board vs. AuCo: it might come up to shut off their outs at the end and let you focus your runs elsewhere but you're aiming to not get to the point where there is a Phat rezzed that you can't trash and multiple facedown remotes in play.

Future Changes

It's likely after this weekend that fast advance and glacier out of HB become more prominent in the meta. In that case, I'd look into trying to play more multiaccess and efficient breakers respectively. However, there's a very good reason why AuCo has won 2 of 4 continentals so far and there's talk of something getting banned out of it. If you can, I'd definitely try to get some AuCo testing in if you're thinking of trimming tech.

Shoutouts

Andrej and the rest of the volunteers- Thank you so much for putting this on!!! I'm pretty sure this was the biggest non-worlds tournament in NA in the NSG era and y'all handled it like champs. The ship was run tight, which you could tell when Andrej announced "we're going on break, be back by 7:12."

Backroom Dealer and Safer- Thank you for the amazing commentary on the final game! Safer, you hit the nail on the head when you said "I think with this deck SebK is trying to make the game about him." That really explains how to play the deck too.

Toron- Had to devote the PD writeup to lovingly shaming Mr. Squeakers & Co, but that deck wouldn't have been possible without you making yours first. Spending 6 influence on Tatu especially is not something I would have found and is key to how the deck functions despite DooF/ToW existing. Looking forward to seeing what you brew up next and you taking the W next time :) Note to others: this is why you build your own decks and test your mettle at the highest level. It is so rewarding when it works out, and if it doesn't, you learn a lot.

All my opponents- Thanks for the games. Rongydoge especially, that last game was a blast, and thank you for making me put on a show.

Everyone who came up to talk to me/everyone I eavesdropped on and then interrupted their conversation to insert myself into it- Thank you/sorry I did that

TAI Breakers- best testing group I could ask for

Rohit, Coldlava, and the King- best teammates I could ask for

Sokka- best honorary teammate I could ask for

Icecreamcollege- unfortunately Main Ass wasn't the strat but we'll rip that Main Ass next time

rubenpieters- didn't get the photos of me crying like I said I would, but you only would have missed 1 photo. Would have been a couple more if you hadn't convinced me to play NFL, thanks so much for that.

Ant1 and ZelteHonor- It was great meeting both of you and thank you for joining us for dinner and pokering Sunday night. Hope both of you made it to work the next day in a passable state.

The Atlanta Meta- For continuing to be in my corner years after I moved away

Jai and Aksu- Damn, okay, maybe this leaking thing is something we should do more often

Takeaways

This was the first really big tournament I've won, and something that became clear to me immediately was how amazing it felt to be surrounded by friends and teammates celebrating your success. Reflecting on how I've behaved in the past, I realized that I've gotten way too caught up on my own shoulda coulda wouldas when I should have been cheering on my teammates in the cut or partying after they took it down. There was one time that I'm not proud of when instead of going back to the venue on Sunday to support a teammate and have fun playing side events I just sulked in my hotel room until it was time to go home. Thank you so much for not doing the same to me, and next time, whenever that may be, I'll have your back.