Yet another Apoc Val took down a merry little 8-player SC this Saturday. The only novelty here is cutting the career fairs to keep turtle and deuces, and dropping 1 earthrise because wanton destruction/hacktivist are a fun fun time for all involved and I like having them handy as often as possible.
DDos is a cheap old trick, but still an absurdly strong one. It's generally pretty ok to telegraph intent to Apocalypse a turn ahead (revealing it with Inject and/or setting up the DDos/Rebirth), as the corp still needs to topdeck or have held enough redundant ice to respond pronto. That said, Mti is a proper headache for this build and if I'd expected as much of it as there was on the day I'd have gone for Estrike/Corroder over Hacktivist/Clip, and found space for a retrieval run or 2. But with Direct Access just spoiled, no need to make that compromise for long.
The tournament was a blast, thanks to Gigabites & Jeff for hosting/running it well and to all my opponents for the solid games. My corp carried the day, a carbon copy of this malevolent monster:
https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/53126/tempo-neh-19-2-belgian-and-dutch-nationals
So thanks too to better decksmiths than I over the pond! And to my recent opponents in jnet casual for putting up with my testing this miserable nonsense! And to Anthony for dropping out after my grueling loss to him in the cut, without which I would've had to battle through another round of the loser's bracket before facing Nick's brutal Palana, and likely collapsed from mental strain before that time. Brain damage is real, yall. Don't forget your electrolytes, even as the world burns.
Was an incredible time and while I'm sorry I had to drop, I'm just glad I could give this monster of a deck a decent game. EStrike would make MTI the saddest of corporations and for that, I'm glad your version did not run it.
That said, congrats on making it to the winner's circle. Always fun to play some of the netrunner with ya!