Rival 3.2 (European Championships)

"By far the most interesting deck full stop that I saw!"

̶ Mike Sheehan, European Champion

"This deck is amazing, I really enjoy playing against it!"

̶ Gabriel Fiedler, Nordic Champion

"I don't know you, so..."

̶̶ Dan D'Argenio, 2014, 2015 World Champion

The Combo

Valencia has a solid 50 card deck. But she also a bad pub (!), which combos well with Blackmail. Use this card to threaten remotes, poke HQ, dig R&D, or to dismantle remotes along with En Passant. It's a very well-rounded card.

Played the deck at Euros. It did well. I had a tie to top my score off with, so I was probably in ID range for top 16 cut, when Dan (who was't in a safe spot) wanted to play, and swept me. Went down hill from there.

The deck name was my phone helping spell 'rdi val'.

Cards

Hacktivist & Rumor Mill

Mostly for Moon decks. Rumor Mill is good for Caprices too which can be annoying to Blackmail through.

Rebirth

Another way to deal with Caprice on centrals or get central accesses (with Omar) or to disrupt SYNC Operations (Edward). Can also be used as a super-scrubber (Whizz).

RDI

Gives much more value to R&D runs after purges, especially with Obelus in play.

Obelus & John Masanori

Turns Blackmails into card draw to be able to keep a constant R&D lock. John also does a lot of work when dealing with asset spam (together with Scrubbers).

Trope(s)

Turns 9 Blackmails into 27. Also a necessary mean to prevent ever having 3 Blackmails in the heap, which is a great way to lose against Ark Lockdown.

"Breakers"

Backup against annoying stuff like ABT's and Oversight AIs. Never installed.

Matchups

Moon

Wins some, lose some. Honestly not sure. Didn't practice this matchup enough. Scrubber + Bad Pub is great for controlling assets, and Blackmail + En Pessant can dismantle servers protecting key assets. When R&D is down to like 20 cards, Medium can do a lot of work.

Other ETF/Palana

Lock remote if able, try to set up an R&D lock. Rumor Mill is key here as Caprice can be hard to deal with. Quite even matchup.

SYNC

Good matchup. You don't have to deal with all annoying ICE. Tagme is a possibility due to Obelus, but try and not go for that while to many QPMs are still in circulation. Rebirth to Kim is important to trash EoIs.

Skorpios

Sad times. Make your 3 Blackmails count.

Lastly, I'd like to thank all the amazing people I met and got to play at Euros. I had a blast. See you all next year.