Dies to Airblade II: Issuaq Edition (9th, APAC, 15/6/2024)

I'm very grateful to Wenjong, whose Issuaq deck went undefeated(!) at the ACC and inspired this one. While I didn't have quite the same level of success with it at APAC, and only went 3-3 across the Swiss and cut, it was still so much fun to play.

The influence is real tricky in this deck. Ideally, you would want to run three copies of Punitive Counterstrike, Seamless Launch and Spin Doctor, and also have two Data Loops (which are essential to having a scoring remote that can actually hold out in the late game). Numbers being what they are, that's unfortunately not an option, and so you have to skimp somewhere.

I chose to go with three Punitives which, as it turns out, are hard to land against cautious Runners! To make matters worse, not only are specific tech cards like Stoneship Chart Room seeing play at the moment, Runners are also commonly playing a whole range of other cards which happen to make the Punitive line more difficult (e.g., Lat, Aniccam, LilyPAD, Marrow, Steelskin Scarring, The Class Act, Burner and Cupellation).

To afford the third Punitive, I dropped two Spin Doctors and replaced them with two copies of Simulation Reset. Although the consistently solid draw off of Rashida Jaheem and Charlotte Cacador meant that I didn't miss the Spin Doctors too much, the Resets themselves were pretty underwhelming.

Lastly, while Data Loop, Daniela Jorge Inacio and Anoetic Void reliably came together to make a solid late-game server, that line crumbled hard against Jai's Airblades in the top cut. Once again, the Sydney crew were no match for a sick pair of rollerskates.

The deck's results across the tournament were:
Round 1 - Win vs Alice.
Round 4 - Loss vs Ayla.
Round 6 - Win vs Hoshiko.
Round 7 - Loss vs Lat.
Round 9 - Win vs Sable.
Cut Round 3 - Loss vs Arissana.