After breaking my rule of always playing at least one self-built deck in tournaments and missing the cut in Antwerp, I decided to find something against the Surveyor-infested meta. Turns out wiping the board does help quite a bit... Here is your favourite <Insert Common Name Here> <Insert City Name Here> with his plans to end the world!

The deck is centered around Apocalypse and runs three of each breakers with two Aumakua as support disposing them left and right... Accidentally this composition also helps against Skorpios, which I only faced once in all the matches.

Since everyone is on Scarcity, I decided to forgo most of the resources except for PolOp and used all the event economy I could find. Peace is such a good econ card, so I decided to double down on it with Tapwrm and Fisk to put enough pressure on the corp and make the wrm fire.

I was fearing that some sort of CI7 combo would be around and since I was playing Fisk anyways, I went for Fisk + Information Sifting for HQ and The Maker's Eye for R&D multiaccess. Unfortunately in the only match against CI, Info Sifting was nowhere to be seen.

The deck lost half its games, but pretty much all of those matches were very close (barring all the ones in the cut against a flood of Crisium Grids...). I think Apocalypse decks in general are pretty strong right now and don't have many really bad matchups, but it always is a struggle to gain the upper hand and both wins and losses are always close ones.

I played the deck in both regionals in our German regional weekend and it went 2-1-2 in Bochum and 2-2 in Kassel. After so many games and so little sleep some of the memories are a blur but I will give it my best try to write up all the matchups.

Thanks to both TOs and all the players for making this a wonderful weekend full of great matches and much fun! This community is the best and I hope this will not have been the last regionals season for any of us!

Regional Bochum (8th out of 30 after Swiss and Cut)

Round 1 Timed Draw vs Skorpios (Krystian)

Early game agression with Inside Jobs and Aumakua give me 4 points while Krystian manages to score 5. Trying to keep the pressure up, I get him to forfeit a Hostile Takeover and end up with a timed draw on 4 points each.

Round 2: Loss vs NBN: Making News (Fabian)

Playing against Door to Door Making News with a Consulting Visit for D2D on turn 1 was hard but manageable with the econ of Tapwrms and Peace in our Time. Most of his econ was me running through Bailiff with Tycoon (1 to break, 2+1 credits for the corp), which at one point he had two of on R&D. Keeping up the pressure I hit Exchange of Information with an Embezzle run and feel a bit safer to float some tags but different forms of multi access did not end up giving me agendas. At one point I drew the Apoc and was ready to fire next turn but the inevitable happened and the D2D meat damage hit Apoc out of my hand. Searching for the second Apoc while R&D and HQ were iced up and my econ started faltering he managed to score out his final points.

Round 3: Win vs Mti Mwekundu (ff0x)

I could have been playing any ID and won this game... Found my breakers, ran three times, stole three agendas.

Round 4: Win vs Asa Group (Tyrox)

This was the matchup this deck was fully teched against. He starts using Jinja City Grid to install whatever he can find on his remote and starting to score while I get up my Peace+Tapwrm economy while drawing into breakers. I make my way to 4 agenda points from centrals and contest an early scoring attempt by making him fire Ash after which he manages to score. He continues by install advancing a card (probably NGO), which he afterwards advances three more times afterwards (probably not NGO...) correctly thinking I can't contest that remote. I run HQ. I run R&D. I announce my run on Archives and his face drops. "No..." - "Yes..." - "No... You are an awful, terrible person." - "Might be correct on that..." He ices up Archives after the End of the World but an Inside Job saves me the win.

Round 5: Loss against Mti Mwekundu (ayyyliens)

Neither of us ever were in a cut and we both were not sure if IDing would get either of us into the cut, so we played it out to the bitter end. Winning the first match with Corp calmed me a bit, but I was not sure what type of Mti I would be against and it did not help that he already had a pretty good idea on my plans to end the world at some point... While searching for breakers and trying to gain enough credits to not faceplant into a chiyashi, he manages to score a Nisei, which throws a wrench into my Apoc plans. Fisk + Information Sifting helps me putting up enough pressure for him to use the Token and allows me to Apoc him a few turns after. Unfortunately I didn't find another set of breakers at this point and couldn't contest the winning agenda afterwards.

Cut Round 1: Loss against Azmari Edtech (Klopstock)

He decides to let me run. Seeing his decklist reveals 1x Crisium Grid, which he quickly finds and installs on HQ. Having luck with my breakers I can get in and trash it, only to see him play Archived Memories and install it again the next turn. I start ever more desperate attempts at gaining access on any server but am quickly overpowered by News Hounds. Without the Faeries and no means to get enough accesses to get Aumakua to 4 counters, he quickly scores out throwing me into looser's bracket (and continues on his trip to second place!).

Cut Round 2: Loss against Asa Group (Clusterfox)

We both ran first round so we randomize and I get to run again. I get his decklist and I make my peace with an eight place in the cut. Who plays 3x Crisium Grid?!?! He also finds his Crisium and even makes it worse by playing Enhanced Login Protocol. I manage to get through everything with Inside Jobs and Deuces Wild, but thinking I can not get into the remote after the Apocalypse, I try to win from centrals and fail. Turns out I could have gotten into the remote of Turing into Vanilla, but hindsight is 20/20.

Regional Kassel (10th out of 16 after Swiss)

I made some changes to the decklist after struggling against Mti's early game pressure. I went with -1 Early Bird -1 Inside Job +2 Spear Phishing for the wonderful interaction with Mti and was not disappointed.

Round 1: Loss against Mti Mwekundu (Dalhill)

After yesterdays experience I switched out Inside Job and Early Bird against two Spear Phishing and hoped to put them to good use in this matchup. After finding my breakers, his first board state of two Turtlebacks, Jeeves, Political Dealings and DBS falls victim to a first Apocalypse. He quickly recovers and reaches 6 points, while I find a total of 4. With one Medical Breakthrough in both my and his score area, I decide to use Fisk, prepare and use Information Sifting last click. He ponders his decision and gives me the option between 3 and 4 cards. I randomize and pick the 3 card pile. Asset, Operation, Operation. Damn it. He scores the winning agenda and tells me to flip the other pile... 3x Viral Weaponization and 1 other card. Fun game either way!

Round 2: Win against Jemison Astronautics (Nils)

Second round I'm matched up against my meta mate and start my round with two fisk in hand. First turn: Fisk and setup. Second turn: Fisk, Embezzle HQ, take back a fisk. Third turn: Fisk, draw into another fisk. Fourth turn: Fisk, Information Sifting. At this point I'm at 6 points from central accesses (Vanity + Atlas) and find two more Hostiles to finish the game.

Round 3: Win against NBN: Controlling the Message (Antisthenes)

He mulligans and I jokingly cut his deck and tell him "here's your five agendas". Turns out I was not far off from the truth. I install a Faerie and Embezzle HQ to find a Beale and a 15 Minutes. Next turn I use Fisk and Embezzle to find a GFI and another Beale. I'm pretty sure that he is flooded at this point and run through his Resistor on HQ with Tycoon to quickly find 7 points.

Round 4: Loss against Cerebral Imaging (dome_)

I'm matched against the self-proclaimed Combolord of Doom and contest his assets early assets with accesses and Embezzle. Deuces Wild shows me Gatekeeper on R&D, and I try to get Aumakua to a high enough strength to get me through the first rez. I find a Vitruvius and keep drawing agressively for Information Sifting since I feel his combo is coming together faster than I'd like. I installed a Political Operative, but found a Malia which I couldn't trash on the remote. Without means to break it, I had the choice between letting Gatekeeper fire to use The Maker's Eye afterwards but the first hit would certainly have removed 3 agendas from HQ. Since I saw Information Sifting as the more important out, I decided against it and drew very agressively for Information Sifting. At the point where he successfully combo'd out his remaining points, I was through half my Stack with Sifting being the 6th card from the top.