Tasty Hamburger Earth - 6th at German Nationals

Saan 3116

I had no idea what to play at the German Nationals this year, but was messing around making different looking Earth Station decks. Some were Glacery, some were Government Takeover decks (such as labbes's deck), and this one was just a kinda standard rushy-murder Weyland deck. It's probably the more boring of the builds, because this concept has been done to death with Argus and The Outfit, but I had no idea what to play, decided I didn't want to play just Argus again, so I threw this together. This one's not vegan; thus the name.

It's far from perfect, but I did end up murdering the runner in every game I won with it, so that was fun (including the eventual Nation Champion, and current World Champion, Pinsel) -- his one loss for the day. He destroyed me the next game we played in the cut, but hey, you take what you can get.

Most games start by installing an HQ ICE, installing a naked Rashida (or Wall to Wall if that's all you have), and flipping the ID. No one wants to go pay 6 credits to go see what's cooking in the remote, and few people want to test the HQ ICE to see how much it sucks to run into. There were even 2 games where, when I got the runner with Econ -> HHN and they were attempting to get out of tag hell, I installed a naked Atlas and advanced it. One person made me work for it, forcing me to ICE it before scoring, but the other couldn't do anything but let me score it, which I then used to find the HPT to murder them with.

Cayambe didn't do anything all day except make me wish it was another Crisium or maybe an NGO. The deck seemed a little light on cash some games. Actually, a couple NGOs would have been really, really good here, because sometimes you want to advance something in a remote to make someone spend money. If the only thing you're every advancing is agendas, it's going to be obvious what you're doing. I had Cayambe in as an "Oh shit, I guess this game is going long" card to help me glacier up, but the only game where that really happened I was facing down a Stargate who was trashing my ICE out of my deck, so glacering up wasn't really a thing I could do anyhow.

Another card that should be changed is Transport Monopoly. I put this in over Oaktown because I wanted another Crisium effect, but I wish I'd just kept the 3rd Crisium instead and left Oaktown. The one game where I did score it, I both forgot to use it to stop a Stargate run (my own fault; it was the final game of the day and I was really tilted from losing the previous game), and it left me with only 4 credits after scoring, which was a bad place to be. Oaktown would have left me on 12 credits instead (+4 for the credits Oaktown gives, and +4 from the credits I would have spent on Transport). 12 creds rather than 4 is a HUGE deal.

Sapper was kinda meh. I wanted another Sentry, and Sapper can be a nice ICE to throw in front of an undefended R&D when they're trying to Stargate you and are willing to just facecheck. It's also fine vs Anarchs, who usually have to pay 3 with MKUltra to break, which is a fine price for the rez cost. On the actual day it felt super mediocre. I wished it was something more relevant, but I don't even know what; I'd have to think about it more.

I'll tell you what's good, though. Econ Warfare. HHN is fine, and HPT is fine but Econ Warfare is the real killer. It's what lets the HHN land, and what lets you drain the runner's money so you can IA that Atlas. Wall to Wall is also a really good card. You just get so much value out of it. One game went long vs Heinzel's Hayley deck, and I ended up with a Masvingo on R&D with 8 ETR subs. It allows you to draw a card with it before deciding what else to use it for. Did I draw an Atlas? Well, it looks like you're giving me a credit and coming back to my hand, little dude. Heinzel was using it in Titan as well, which was really interesting. When you are allowed multiple remotes (which this deck obviously is not), you can rez it and a Rashida in a different server, fire the Rashida, and then fire it for all 3 options, since it's now the only rezzed asset. Heinzel was playing Titan; drawing an extra 4 cards is good in a rush deck.

I liked Slot Machine a lot, but 3 might be too many. More hard ETRs would be nice sometimes.

Anyhow, once again, thanks to everyone I played. It was great seeing everyone at the event, and the organization was fantastic.

2 comments
12 Jan 2020 koga

Congrats for 6th place!

Do you think it could be better to go full Argus slotting in the Data Ravens? It looks like the click tax from the id could force some weird runner turns

13 Jan 2020 Saan

I'm not sure, honestly. Argus' tags can also tax runner clicks, while also giving you a potential win condition if they accidentally take too many at once. I think what I really need is just some actual time to test the deck out. I never really felt like I knew what to do once Hayley gets set up, whereas with Argus you can still just try and make them take too many tags.

Trying to glacier up and tax them is a potential way out, but Heizel's Hayley deck (the only one I played against, which is why I'm talking about it so much) played Stargate, and it's super rough trying to stack ICE when they keep chucking it in the bin. Well set-up Shapers have always been the bane of Weyland rush decks, though, so maybe I shouldn't be too surprised. I tried the counter to that (rushing out harder) on the second game, but he had both his Stimhacks right when he needed them, and that hurt too much.