2019 Polish Nats Khusyunesa (2-3)

This is a very simple deck that either can set up and Khusyuk for the win or lose painfully. Do try this at home (as opposed to a Nationals-level event, where it probably won’t do much for you).

After playing with metamatik and Ganelon at Worlds I thought that a Kabonesa deck should be fun to play. There’s already 3 Rezekis, so Khusyuk on 2s was not a bad plan. Enter Kati and Symmetrical Visage, to use both throughout the game. I applied the idea the French had to play Rebirth and decided Engolo was my restricted card. MKUltra seemed fine as a setup card with Spec Work (without PioT/Stimhack), and with Corroder I was satisfied that my support breakers costed two (I am not sorry, Gauss). As I wanted to win on Khusyuks, Escher was my card of choice to deal with Border Control. It’s a bit expensive, now that I think of it, but fun to play. For memory problems there’s Maya and I’d try to play 3 of instead of one of the Leprechauns (because I’m a coward and corps scoring SDS visit me in my nightmares). Legwork and Falsified Credentials are there to help when Khusyuks fail and SOT is there to revive the charm of the most useful event, including Stimhack. On the day I rather used it for Khusyuks but you never know.

On the day it went 2-3. I’ve had worse.

Tournament report:

Round 1 Loss vs quercia on Outfit

Man, that Outfit is filthy rich. I opted for a slow & steady game to play around his kill plan and build my board state for Khusyuk, allowing my opponent to score out really quick.

Round 2 Win vs Mamut on ASA

I knew this corp can outpace my Kabonesa, so seeing an early IA card I installed SMC and Stimhacked the hell out of EffCom protected by Hagen. Fortunately, the R&D was left open and after a proper setup, I did a few runs for single accesses and Khusyuks for 4/5 cards that found what I was looking for.

Round 3 Loss vs Baltar on Blue Sun

My opponent got really nicely set up, scored the first City Works I couldn’t contest. Welcome to mid game, he scores another one. Once I was set up, the Khusyuks didn’t show a thing. I got locked out of both remote and R&D and conceded. One precious thing was Baltar’s smile as he saw Escher exchanging the HQ Afshar with Border Control on R&D: ‘Oh, I haven’t seen that for a while’ :)

Round 4 Loss vs rattkin on ASA

It was the Worlds-winning ASA that was going to rush out, right? Right? Hey, I’ve got this, got one win with it under my belt already. Install Rezekis. Apply pressure. See the Hard-Hitting News. Try to clear some of the tags before it’s too late… Boom! GG.

Round 5 Win vs Aspen on Argus

This time I went for a slow setup against Weyland again, especially after an unexpected flatline the turn before. My opponent couldn’t find the agendas at the right time and I could install the things I needed. Mid game we both went down to around 0 credits and Kabonesa’s drip turned out really OK. I found Rebirth, chose Jesminder and successfully pressured the centrals to close.