Rude Deck Almost Wins Again (2nd @ Madison)

Orbital Tangent 168

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This deck is pretty much just a copy from @boreira 's original and @Ajar 's copy of it with tweaks. There was just one further tweak which was cutting a Punitive Counterstrike for a BOOM!.

It's not a big cut, but it opens up a line for those times when someone clears tags down to 2 and has 4 in hand to dome the HPT damage. Also, since we rock 2x Archived Memories, the trash isn't too big a deal.

You just do what the cards tell you to do. Make bold plays, score fast, and punish if they try to take your stuff. Win on 7, kill them dead, or score 9 if you're going for disrespect. But murder is best. I like murder.

On the Day

I took this to 2nd place, winning most of the games that I got to play with it. The one loss was to Hayley on a good remote snipe when I pushed my second score. This is what I remember of the games:

Round 1 vs Joe K. on Val

I got off to a pretty good start, bluffing a Rashida behind a Bulwark I couldn't rez. This gave me some pretty good tools to start scoring. I got on 4 before he took one, then double Punitived for the win.

I was actually one credit shy of for sure sticking both Punitive, so I did the first matching his credit pool on the trace. He declined to match, so the second one landed without any issue. If he'd have paid in, I would have instead HHN'd and done the murder next turn.

Round 2 vs Stephen R. on Hayley

I was off to a good start, doing Hedge Fund, Too Big to Fail, take cred on the first turn to burst to 20. Scored an SDS before he had breakers online. After that, I couldn't find enough ice to shore up the remote and/or more and agendas to score.

The game started to turn when he got Aesop's down and started making money. I landed HHN, which he cleared, and after that tried to push another SDS. He was able to get it with Shaper BS. I had a Punitive but lacked a second. Drawing didn't give me one either. Damn.

Game went long. Eventually I scored a City Works to get on 6, but he slapped down 2x RDI and locked R&D until he won.

Round 3 vs Melvin Lee on Val

I got some early scores uncontested, but basically he had a poor start on money and got HHN'd. I happened to have the HPT and that was that. This was a 241, so I collected 2 wins.

Round 4 vs Andrew S. on Val

This was on stream. It wasn't much to look at, though, as I got ahead early on Snare! hits. HHN'd and BOOM!'d him when he couldn't recover. Another 241, so 2 more wins in the bank.

Cut Round 2 (Loser's Bracket) vs @CTZ on Omar

This game was an absolute barn burner. Best all day. Supes fun. And, being against CTZ, the banter was enjoyable as hell.

I knew CTZ's plans going in (trash all the things), so I iced up R&D turn plus a remote and prayed he didn't have a DDoS as I pushed an SDS score the following few turns. That paid off, but he was able to Wanton me a few times to slow me down.

I scored City Works at some point, and then he managed to get one off the top of R&D too. He also got an SDS, but I had a second in hand he couldn't get because he didn't have programs after that. I thought I couldn't push it because I was afraid he'd be able to install and challenge the remote, so I waited turns and turns for a Hostile.

Turns out, he had no Paperclip and DDoS, which was why he was drawing. Remote was Bulwark.

CTZ started poking HQ and R&D with Omar in between drawing frantically, so I rezzed a Mausolus to stop him once I had another agenda in hand (City Works). This rez is important later.

I took all his credits with a Reversed, then after that tried to push a City Works in the remote with Dedication Ceremony. He had some Bad Pub and a few credits, but was basically going to have to do something magical or win somewhere else.

The last turn was him tanking for a million years. After he came back to Earth, he started by Stimhacking Archives to install Black Orchestra on that Mausolus. He then Omar'd into HQ for a 3-in-1 on SDS. There was a whiff and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

He had an EMP Device from way early in the game and there was Excalibur and Border Control on R&D, which he could easily get through. I figured I'd lose either way if there was something on top, so I rezzed and popped BC after he popped EMP. Last click went to R&D, and I rezzed the Excalibur for maximum disrespect.

Whiff.

Score 9 for the win.

Cut Round 3 (Loser's Bracket) vs Eric K. on Val

Poor Whiteblade. He and I had played Corp an equal number of times, so Cobra gave me Corp on random chance. If it had been his Gagarin, I would have lost bad. This went down a lot like the game between me and Melvin. He was poor, couldn't contest, and then I burned his house (and his dreams) down. ON TO THE FINAL!

Cut Round 4 (Final) vs King Joe on 419

I guess the same situation with Cobra put me on Corp again. I took all Joe's credits with Reversed Accounts on the first turn and then he just had a hard time recovering from there. Eventually murdered him to get to the Grand Finals.

Going Limitless, and No Surveyor

You'll notice this card doesn't have a restricted slotted. To be honest, there's not anything it really wants. @tundinator calls this Going Limitless, and I think I like that. Stolen like a three point agenda.

I spoke with @aandries about this and he suggested that maybe it could run a 1x Zealous Judge, but that you'd have to really work a line for that to do anything good, and find a slot. We talked about Mother Goddess, but decided it was bad because the meta might pack AI and paint. I concluded no restricto was best.

On Surveyor, it really needs more ice to shine and the deck is light. Also, by the time it's really good, you want to have already won the game. That said, I didn't test this. Perhaps even at low to mid strength it's good?

Winning vs This

  • Keeping money over 8 to tank a whole HHN. Basic, obvious HHN counterplay here; lol. Listing for completeness' sake.

  • Try to clear down to only one tag when you do get hit (and you will). Just accept the resource trashing. At least you won't die.

  • Face check ice -- especially early before you have anything installed. Some of it is spikey, but there's nothing game ending. Absolute worst case is you take a bit of damage and get a tag, or get an installed card trashed.

  • Trash Too Big to Fail and Reversed Accounts when you find them, if you can. Both are huge factors in creating credit differentials for HHN and Punitive. Reversed can be played around a bit by storing money on Liberated or Mercur.

  • You won't win the money game, but if you can stay at half their creds +4 and 3x cards in grip, they can't double Punitive. They need at minimum double your creds -4 to land this. +2 if using Consulting Visit. TBTF should be included in the math if you suspect double Punitive in hand.

Props

@cranked for running the Madison event and doing something I haven't seen many TOs do -- Taking a loss so that all the winnings could go back into store credit for a lot of the attendees. You rock, dude. Thank you.

@ctz for recording some of the event and letting OTG stream stay up after we figured out the store's WiFi wasn't going to handle both of us. We have almost all of the cut! Uploads pending. Thanks for the KILLER game.

@whiteblade111 and the Winnipeg crew for hosting me in their AirBnB. Also for driving me to and from the event. Hopefully next year we can bang more lefts and rights as we make reverse Faustian bargains. Thanks, guys.

@gh0st_b1rd for helping me make the cut. You've been a wonderful sounding board and sparring partner over the years, and IDK how we always get matched up at these damn things. Thanks!

@aandries and @Ajar for helping me with the deck. You're scholars and gentlemen. Sincerely appreciate your time. Thanks for the advice.

Lastly, a hearty thank you to everyone who keeps making it out to these and continuing to make the Best Game happen. Y'all know who you are, and you're all wonderful people.

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