Freedom of Information (Tag Me) - 22nd UK Nats 2022

This was my Freedom list from UK Nats 2022 - it went 4w - 3L with all the losses being really close games - There is a good chance I should have won at least 6 out of the 7 if I hadn't made some dumb piloting errors!

First off I want to shout out FixB from my Bristol Meta who I ran into playing tag me Freedom and gave me the inspiration for this list.

I decided early on that I didn't feel like trying to out play the R+ prison decks and the quickest way out of those matchups is to lose/concede turn 4 (although my only R+ game of the day taught me that the matchup does have some winnable outcomes - even though I lost the game)

Against everything that ISN'T R+ this deck is a beast! Even other yellow matchups aren't the worst of times and it has a very favorable matchup against popular choices such as Sports, P.E, Rush Ob, Kill Ob, PD and Aginfusion.

Why Tag Me?

I love Freedom's ability but he has always suffered from being a bit slow and often a little poor and I think this list solves both those problems in one. Obelus is an incredible draw engine for an ID that gets a lot of value from central runs, Hot pursuit is possibly the most busted econ card in standard and rouge trading is the ultimate pad tap - giving you resources whilst slowing the corp down by forcing a trash.

Why Freedom?

Once we have our econ and draw sorted freedom is currently the most impactful anarch ID - even with 0-1 virus token we can trash a whole heap of current wincons and Tag Punishment - Audacity, Seamless, NEXT Activation, Self Growth, Retribution & (if your lucky) Market Forces all immediately spring to mind! -

Card Choices.

A lot of the deck writes itself - Moshing, Steelskin, Gamble, Hippo & Fermenter are all simple 3x includes.

Obelus is draw + Boom! protection so always play 3x Jailbreak is pure unadulterated gas in any obelus list and is always a 3x

12 of the influence is instantly tied up in Hot Pursuits and Rouge Tradings which leaves 3 inf to play with - originally this was 3x Stoneship so you could take 2 tags and 12 credits off R.T. and still draw up to 7 card in the same turn, but after re-reading Whiteblades write up on Tag me Zhaya I realised Docklands was a much better use of 2 of the inf.

I still like the single stoneship as it sometimes acts as your 4th Obelus - keeping you alive another turn till you find one! (Although other options include Turtle, Pinhole, Deuces, Peace in our time plus 1 wild 1 of choice which I need to do more testing with first before unleashing it on the world)

3 Botulus gives a very consistent way of landing an early Hot Pursuit (pls no magnet!) and allows us to play 2x breakers without too many issues.

2x Yusuf is not only great in Freedom but also can give you a chance of winning vs R+ with their usual ice suite.

2x Counter Surveillance - Is 'a choice' - In testing I often found that 2 was fine, but I lost 2 games to sports on the day because I found a CS 1 turn too late... so maybe this was incorrect.

3x Labor Rights - Could well be one too many - but I've really liked having 3 so I can mosh away liberally early on and then pull back what I need later - you also have some incredibly powerful recursion targets

Games on the Day

Game 1 - Loss VS Ryan H on Sports

Managed to trash some audacity's and get to 6 points, saw 3 from hand but missed the Vitruvius and Ryan managed to top deck an audacity the turn before I plan to CS on R&D

Game 2 - Win Vs Cahuita on Sports

Took tags, ran centrals, stole agendas

Game 3 - Loss Vs Tom Smith (if that IS his real name!) on Sports

Tom install, advances behind what turns out to be an unbreakable Loki (due to breakers being in the bin) - This gets him a GFI score which puts him very ahead. again we both get to 6 and he top decks a bifurcation the turn before I'm ready to CS.

Game 4 - Win Vs IceColdJazzv - on PE

Hand size of 10 vs PE = good!

Game 5 - Win Vs LostGeek on Rush Ob

Absolute pleasure to finally get to play against Lostgeek in person and this game didn't disappoint - I could steal the turn 1 Oaktown Jam due to hot pursuit and Paperclip in hand and after a real to and fro match and time being called I have 1 turn to steal the oaktown in the remote, on a skunkworks with at least 1 facedown formicary on board (in reality 2) - After a steelskin to find the final hot pursuit in the deck and a gamble I run last click with 14 credits and a bad pub and enough cards in hand to eat 2 formicarys - I would have been dead to Audacity -> Azef, but that isn't the top deck LG. pulls! We both admit that neither of us thought I was getting in that turn!

Game 6 - Win Vs Andrew Wright on Rush Ob

Another fun game that could have gone either way - but one that was cleared up with a CS dig finding the final agenda I needed!

Game 7 - Loss vs Chris Ferg on R+

FINALLY - my run of good matchup luck comes to an end - but this turns out to be a rather surprising game - one that didn't feel like a walk in the park for R+ at all! Survived an early Boom which was mainly there to get rid of the obelus that has just been self growthed and just put continuous pressure on, only taking tags when I was taking multiple turn to withhold Chris's Tempo and keep him on approx 2c for most of the game - found and trashed his tag punishment before he could draw it, but unfortunately didn't go back after trashing a Market Forces off the to[ of R&D and got top deck boomed.

Also in thinking back to this game I am pretty certain I had a CS in hand, about 12 tags and enough money to Access R&D and Pay the CS tax and still have enough to steal at least one Bellona (whilst also having 2 cards installed) - or at the least, just trash all his win cons!

THANKYOU!

Massive thanks the PaulyG, the judges and TO's, All my opponents, The Bristol Meta (a.k.a. House of the Drago) + esp. FixB, Brandon 'The King' and all the excellent members of the drop bear lair!