Friday Night Firefight [Stockport 8th, 3-1 in Swiss]

Cluster Fox 592

The deck is what it is. It has a whole lot of triggers and it's fun to play (often not so for your opponent), and it has plenty of lines but the main one is of course Clan Vengeance. The main difference is, this deck isn't "reg" by any means (padumpum) and often elicits the desired response from your opponent, namely "what is happening?!".

I built this deck initially back in December or January and it did fine then, I've just swapped some cards for two Zer0s. You fly through the deck with Off-Campus Apartment, Street Peddler, Zer0, Inject, I've Had Worse, and sometimes Fisk Investment Seminar on your first run through the deck before you Levy. If you lose it somehow, that's what the Same Old Thing is there for. If you draw it, install it. Ideally you'll want to run now and then to get your breakers down before the Levy, but having them on a Peddler is nice too.

You have two copies of the conspiracy breakers and 3 copies of DDoS to punish rush strategies and your main objective in your first rush through the deck is getting your three Tech Traders on the board. It doesn't seem like a lot, but once they're down they make you ridiculous amounts of money considering roughly a third of the deck has bins. Three Hacktivist Meetings to turn off Scarcity of Resources and just synergizes well with trashing pieces from hand. There are plenty of ways to slow the corp down as you go, mainly the extremely undervalued Officer Frank. There are plenty of way to trigger her like Titanium Ribs (that lets you control your trashes), By Any Means (which is good against asset spam or just emptying out a remote filled with upgrades, it also fills up your Clan Vengeance but remember to have an I've Had Worse in hand when you play it), Mad Dashing randomly or Respirocytes.

A side note about this card, it triggers WHENEVER you have 0 cards in hand. So for example when you play Levy, you go down to 0, Respi's trigger, then you draw back up. Or Zer0'ing the last card in your hand (bonus points if it's an IHW). Or when you get hit by Brain Rewiring (just hope they're not on Best Defence).

The star of this deck though, is the one copy of Corporate Defector. Once it's down, the corp player really doesn't want to draw cards. You can check their hand or continue building boardstate. If they do draw and you see an agenda, pop a Clan Vengeance and Mad Dash their bin. If they don't, that's what Fisk is there for.

All in all, I'm sure everyone is sick and tired of Clan Vengeance decks and I'm fine with the spoiled MWL killing it. It's dumb. Although I'm not sure a lot changes if you just drop the Zer0s for an extra Mad Dash and Respirocytes. But if you're looking for one last chance to double down on the combo before the MWL, give it a spin. If you want to see it played, I showcased it on The Métropole Grid stream at around the 32-minute mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9ktqqf6HMo

Below is a short report of two tournaments I took it to so you can see how sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't.


STOCKPORT REGIONAL - 5th in Swiss, 8th overall

ROUND 1 vs Sportsmetal - LOSS
Agendas were flying out all over the place and I couldn't go fast enough. Happens.

ROUND 2 vs Jemison - WIN
He was throwing down cards and Dedication Ceremony'ing them without scoring them, I had no idea what was going on. Turned out to be False Flags, dodged that bullet huh? I ignored it, set up, trashed stuff from his hand at regular intervals and Mad Dashed on Archives for the win.

ROUND 3 vs Argus - WIN
Only ran on remotes when I knew I could clear his hand to avoid HHN/HPT shenanigans. Stuffed a lot of his plans with Officer Franks. Mad Dashing an Oaktown won me the game, he didn't think I had another one as I'd just played one on Archives and he underestimated the money I could generate with Tech Traders (popping a Peddler to install a Fall Guy and pop that too gave me 9 credits and a draw without spending a click).

ROUND 4 vs The Outfit - WIN
Much like the previous game I knocked a lot of his pieces out of hand stopping him from playing aggressively. Defector stopped him from drawing and I overheard him say later that since he was ahead on points, he hoped he could go to time without doing anything. Fisk and Mad Dash asked to step in to their office.

CUT ROUND 2 vs SYNC - LOSS
Things were going well, I'd torched his hand and hit two Beales in Archives. Shortly after, he'd thrown down three Daily Business Shows to somewhat break my Defector lock. I went ham and By Any Means'ed them to load up more counters on another Clan Vengeance. The next card he topdecks? Hard-Hitting News, what are the odds. And him having the econ advantage and it costing me 12 to clear the tags against SYNC, my heart sunk. He trashed all my resources and and I had 4 cards left in R&D. I tried valiantly to find the last 3 points to no avail. Ah well.
THE HAGUE REGIONAL - 14th overall

ROUND 1 vs Azmari - WIN
This was a game about current war. I got a lot of mileage out of my DDoS'es. I knew I could run because I was familiar with my opponent's deck and went tag me, knowing he had no meat damage. I got lucky on my hand destruction and Mad Dashes.

ROUND 2 vs Asa Group - LOSS
Welp. My three Peddlers were in the last 10 cards of my deck and I'm not even kidding, literally the last two cards in the deck were my two Paperclips. Sometimes that happens. I was pretty annoyed because I literally couldn't contest his barrier-filled servers. Ah well.

ROUND 3 vs Controlling the Message - LOSS
This was a game I lost off human error, I was probably tilting. I By Any Means'ed his Bankers, DBS and Team Sponsorship, and totally spaced on the fact that I ended the turn with a tag. I probably would have pointed that out to my opponent but fair game in premier tournaments, should have paid more attention. I managed to get to 5 points on single accesses after that but it went downhill quickly due to Exchange of Information.

ROUND 4 vs Personal Evolution - LOSS
I had an early Clan Vengeance and I'd done some running and saw things like Junebug and Overwriter, he Mushin'ed things out which I didn't trust. I binned an Obokata and used an IHW + Mad Dash to steal it putting me low on cards. Turns out the things he Mushin'ed were a Show of Force and a Ronin. Welp.
2 comments
13 Aug 2018 adquen

With the spoiled MWL Mad Dash is also on the restricted list (same as Levy), so just adding an extra Mad Dash is not happening - you actually lose that card as well. Which, of course, doesn't kill the deck, but it's another hit.

13 Aug 2018 Cluster Fox

Ah right. Fair enough :)