Quandary keeps runners out (2nd place German Nats)

Eloden 132

A standard IG49 deck I've been playing throughout the tournament season. Most of the deck build itself.

During the German Nationals this deck only dropped a single game to an Andromeda and came back to kill the runner later during the top 8. Wins against Cache Haley, Maw/Gangsign Leela, Desperado Wiz, Siphon/Keyhole Wiz, Steve, Lock Haley, same Siphon/Keyhole Wiz as in Swiss and Andromeda. As expected all wins were kills.

Some personal choices based on the flex spots:

  • Ice suite: I prefer to run low cost ice, because usually this deck puts the runner under enough pressure that they cant find all breakers in time. That is also the main reason why I added the single Quandary.

  • Chairman Hiro was dropped to add another Enforced Curfew, as he kept on losing me games and only enabled a single kill in previous tournaments.

  • Psychic Field/Snare! help against the rich Runners with Strikes and Slums. Without them they can keep on checking servers without being punished.

8 comments
1 Sep 2017 Klopstock

I really like the list and was very happy I did not have to play against it - even though it didn't help much :)

What would be your changes for rotation? I think the swap Shock! to Breached Dome is obvious, and Quandary to Enigma (I guess?) is worse, but should at least be okay. Jackson Howard and Fetal AI are the big ones, though, can you simply replace them with other cards like The Future Perfect, Preemptive Action and Special Report? Or are bigger modifications necessary to compensate the losses?

1 Sep 2017 aero

How bad would Vanilla be in place in place of Quandary?

1 Sep 2017 Klopstock

It doesn't fill the same spot. The main purpose of the Quandary is to force Runners to install (and, more importantly, search for) their Decoder, which Vanilla unfortunately does not do.

1 Sep 2017 aero

Yeah I should have assumed that, I'm so used to Inversificator right now that I feel like the single Quandary or really any code gate feels more like a liability. But it's understandable as a gear check.

2 Sep 2017 shanodin

How does this deck fare against runners with 3 Employee Strike? And have you tested it vs the new God of War/Obelus massive handsize nonsense? Very interested to hear your thoguhts.

3 Sep 2017 WhackedMaki

Not the author, but I've played a very similar deck throughtout tournament season myself. Also congrats on your finish, IG is very strong and fun right now.

Aiki or Crick are both good code gates. While they don't EtR they are not something that your opponent wants to let fire ever.

Post rotation is hard to say, I'm expecting FiHP at T3 MWL which will change things up. Clone Suffrage Movement may be very solid in it as well. 3x Obokata, 3x TFP and Philotic/2x HoK will likely be the future agenda suite, with 3x Curfew to make up for less score off board ability to turn off EStrike.

@shanodinThe deck holds up against 3x EStike but it is very draw dependant, and making any mistakes will quickly lose you control of the game. Against big hand decks get out your Genetics Pavilion early and you'll keep their hand small.

5 Sep 2017 Eloden

@Klopstock I have been thinking about the rotation as well and will experiment with Whampoa Reclamation & Preemptive Action for Jackson. Jackson is the only major loss.

@shanodin Pretty much what @WhackedMaki said. Additionally, you can ice important assets like Hostile Infrastructure. If they keep on checking every asset they will lose lots of important cards to Snare!, Shock! and Psychic Field.

I milled two wizzards over the tournament who kept on trashing everything.

6 Sep 2017 Klopstock

I came to the same conclusion later on and played around with it a bit and Whampoa Reclamation is really good, since it has the same Jackson-utility of being able to keep Agendas in Archives until the Runner runs it.