IG49 - 1st Place CT Regionals

There is nothing unique here, though I did swap a couple cards around to suit my preferences. You will notice that I don't run Obokata Protocol, not because I think it's bad, but because I didn't own the data pack it was from and instead of making last minute changes to the deck right before the tournament I decided to stick to my guns and play the list I had been testing all last month and was comfortable with. This deck overall went 4-2, but my runner deck was undefeated so I still ended up winning first place. My runner deck can be found here.

Round 1 vs. Andromeda
To prevent turn one siphon I put ICE over HQ. Turns out this deck was on Keyhole, which surprised me quite a bit. It felt like they were seeing agendas every time they ran, and I started flooding quite a bit myself. I couldn't find a jackson or good ICE for archives fast enough to save me from a quick defeat.

Round 2 vs Jesminder
My opponent had a pretty slow start this game. They weren't able to find account siphon or their console until after I had successfully set up a turtlebacks, two Bio-ethics, and a hostile infrastructure with a pretty loaded archives. They didn't even try to contest my assets so IG delivered a swift death to them.

Round 3 vs Andromeda
This was a more typical build of Andy, using Bloo Moose, Desperado, and Temujin for economy. Even so, the IG asset spam was too much for even that economy to handle, and we eventually got into a pretty stagnant state, where I had 2 bio-ethics ticking every turn and a genetics pavilion, and their turn was something like draw 2, run R&D, gain credit. Eventually I found a third bio-ethics which drove the nail into their coffin.

Round 4 ID into top 8

Round 1 of top 8 I ran (though against another IG with a similar list as me)

Round 2 of top 8, I played against a siphon whizzard. This matchup is quite annoying, because your ideal turn 1 is to overdraw and ICE archives so you can start filling it up with face down cards. Against the threat of imminent siphons, you either have to ICE your hand, or put down a hostile infrastructure to be able to rez when they try to siphon. This game I chose the latter, as I felt as long as I maintained a critical mass of unrezzed assets on the table, siphon wasn't an issue and I should priortize icing Archives. My turn 1 was draw, install hostile infrastructure, and gain a credit, discarding a Shock!. If Whizzard runs your hostile click 1, rez it! This is so important and not doing this is what lost my top 8 round 1 opponent the game. Even with whiz bucks, this hostile cost them 3 real credits and a net damage and prevented them from recovering economically because I only had 1 credit to siphon away. Not even Whizzard can keep up with all your assets when they've suddenly been dropped to 2 credits and have no way to use their main economy card. When both you and Whizzard are poor, you are very favored because your assets are much cheaper to rez than they are to trash. I ended up winning this game very quickly. My final turn of the game I rezzed my moon that had been sitting on the table, then installed Snare!, Fetal AI, and a bio-ethics. Moon was behind ICE so my opponent's turn was spent running each new server I made in order, and since they started the turn with only 4 cards in hand, they were punished for their aggressiveness with an immediate flatline.

Round 3 of top 8 was against Frantic coding Whizzard with Sifr and Bloo Moose. I didn't know if they were on siphon so I just ICE'd HQ turn 1 since I didn't have the Hostile in hand. I learned quickly enough they were on frantic, but it unfortunately only got them a medium. They were much too late to find a Magnum Opus and were behind economically the whole game. They also made the mistake of playing Hacktivist Meeting against me. There was one turn where I had a kakugo protecting archives and 1 face down card. On 6 credits, I decided to install two Bio-ethics. My opponent was on 1 real credit, so when they ran the bio ethics, I rezzed both of them and made the trash cost 5, while still maintaining 4 credits to rez kakugo if need be. Bio-ethics and poor economy on the runner's part ended up cinching the deal in my favor.

Grand finals I rematched the Siphon whizzard player from round 2 of top 8. They were much more conservative and trashed all of my turtlebacks, so I was pretty broke the whole game. They also got an early Apocalypse on me, which actually wasn't very harmful since it only trashed 4 cards, but they didn't want to hold onto it since it'd kill them if I had a hostile infrastructure. Eventually he played The Shadow Net and had 3 agendas to forfeit for recurring siphon. I was on 4 cards left in R&D, and he had an Employee Strike out so I ended up scooping, going to a game two in which my runner made quick work of his HB Moon deck.