Chicago Loop - Undefeated at Worlds 2018, 20th place

All aboard the express train to the Loop!

This deck went undefeated through all 9 rounds of swiss at Magnum Opus, carrying my less than optimal MaxX performance all the way to 20th place.

I absolutely think that the Obokata agenda suite is the right choice out of Mti. You often find yourself in a situation between kakugos and data loops where they are completely unable to steal 9 of the points in your deck. And now with thimblerig you don't have to worry about getting your ice placement right. Just move the loops to wherever your Obokatas are hiding. Move your spiky ice to the outside of your centrals so they can't farm turning wheel counters.

The weekend was a bit of a blur, but I think I played 3 MaxX, 1 Val, 2 Hayley, 2 Smoke, and 1 419 (not in that order). The Smoke games were definitely the hardest matchup due to film critic, but the deck has the flexibility to switch between taxing cards and taxing credits as necessary. And the incidental damage from kakugo can be devastating for non-anarchs. Anarchs really struggle against this ice suite, so I didn't feel like I needed any other spicy anarch tech like chronos or ark lockdown.

MVP cards were:

Attitude Adjustment - saved me from desperate flood multiple times

Sand Storm - in several games it was a 2 cost nisei counter sitting in my hand, or at least a horrible tax on Brahman/Laamb/Engolo. Atman can either deal with Excalibur or Sand Storm, but not both.

SSL Endorsement - I was originally testing TFP but the deck can lose steam on its econ. 9 free credits is good.

Play of the day: Brahman Hayley tried to casually run archives click 3 after running the other two centrals. He said "Hm, I guess I'll just check archives." I thought about it for what felt like 5 minutes then used my Nisei token. Shortly afterwards he lost the sneaky Apocalypse to Kakugo damage. I would have felt quite rused if he didn't have it, but I'm from Chicago and have become accustomed to shenanigans.

I'm excited to try to squeeze a copy of Border Control in here for yet another spicy at-will etr.