Bacteria versus Viruses (4-3 World, 131th of 294)

Fast Protein Sales made the decklist of the week (as of 2020-10-03). Here are the changes I made to it, which I think makes it even better.

Short descriptions of the matches at the end.

Thanks goes to rattkins, for the questions and inputs. It made me rethink the deck.

The big changes are those.

1. Bacterial Programming instead of Obotaka Protocol or Improved Protein Source. This allow the setup of winning conditions for the deck. Looking at the next 7 cards, and rearranging them is very powerful. Scored or stolen, it will greatly enhance your strategy and set you up for the next few turns.

2. One Project Junebug. This is a Glacier. By midgame, the runner will try to contest the scoring remote whenever there is a card there, specially if it is advanced (2 tokens). This can win you the game (flatline the runner) or slow down the runner.

3. Anansi instead of Mlinzi. While facecheking Mlinzi hurt more, Anansi force Criminal ID (and Sunny) to be wary of using their bypass tools. Also, Boomerang will not make this hurt any less.

The rest is per usual. Crisium against DoF and Stargate, Cyberdex for viruses and trigger for the agenda. And a Preemptive as tech versus trashing.

Krams gave me the suggestion that having Barrier ices push the runner to install barrier breakers, costing a click and creds. I tried Vanilla, but since it can be broken by an empty Aumakua, for a deck that kill Aumakua, it was not a good value. Instead, I went for Himitsu-Bako. In theory, it you be also used as a mild form of ice movement. Also, to make the ice more taxing, I slotted Rainbow and Engram Flush. Both have a good strenght to rez ratio, making the runner spend creds on them (or lose cards).

After further testing, I found this deck never need to put Cyberdex Sandbox first at all cost (contrary to my Turtle no more deck). Every agenda give you something.

On that note, there is a reason for 2x Preemptive Action. Even with an average agendas ratios, I still find myself struggling to get ices in place on time. For that reason, practice suggest to archive the agenda and retrieve it with Preemptive Action. It is the YOLO strategy, but it will save you grief.

You might notice that I got 6 regions upgrades, which cannot be on the same server. But this is a rare occurence. Most of the time, you should value Jinja more than Crisium.

Like most Saraswati deck, this goes fast. All my games with it finished before turn 15. Unless you are flooded (in which case, use the YOLO strategy mentionned above), you should be able to make a fairly strong scoring server pretty fast.

With this, you should be scoring fast. Runner with long setup will not avail.

Matches at World.

1. Win (18 turns) versus Cryptograham with Leela. We could not finish because of time and I scored a Cyberdex Sandbox on the last turn.

2. Loss (12 turns) vs Chouxflower with 419. After scoring a CST, I was never able to gain an agenda in hand. Chouxflower amazing pressure on R&D allowed to gain all the points, I stood no chance. A lesson on putting more ices on R&D.

3. Loss (11 turns) vs neuropantser with Valencia. Bacterial Programming was stolen twice, allowing me to setup the game. But neuropantser trashing my ices and superb piloting were clearly superior.

4. Win (13 turns) vs plural with Hoshiko. The game was streamed on www.twitch.tv/newandes .Amazing start for plural, who top decked Cyberdex Sandbox and Bacterial Programming on turn 1 (5 points). Bacterial Programming allowed me to setup the R&D to make it impervious for a couple of turns. plural was never able to draw Paperclip and thus, not able to bypass Himitsu-Bako. Himitsu-Bako won me the game.

5. Win (12 turns) vs babyweyland with Geist. Scoring 2 CST and 1 Cyberdex kept me afloat with a lot of creds (105 creds, with only 2 clicks for creds). That made things difficult for Geist.

6. Loss (8 turns) vs Lucidit with Adam. Amazing pressure on HQ by Lucidit. Adam is a strong ID. I got flooded and had 2 agendas in hand and 1 in remote, which allowed Lucidit to score those 2 agendas in hand on that last turn.

7. Win (15 turns) vs CephalopodWizard with Freedom. I scored Cyberdex Sandbox on turn 6. From then, CephalopodWizard kept getting suppressed by a purge every other turn. It was a bad matchup for a Freedom deck. I really liked the use of Dedicated Processor on viruses breaker, it allow the use of Yusuf and Musaazi even after a purge.

Shout out to all the players. They all took the time to chat with me while playing, thus making the game much more enjoyable. Also, I did not see mistakes from the players, showing me the quality of those players. Thank to all of you and thanks to the organizer for this long tournament.