Exile Pawnshop (Scottish Regionals 2nd place)

This is the Exile deck that I took to 2nd in the Scottish Regionals, It was undefeated in 6 rounds of swiss and went into the cut as top seed. Went 2-1 in top 8, losing the grand grand final to Laurie's RP.

The deck is basically the Exile Dumpster Gamble deck with some changes, please go and look at that deck as it is a thing of beauty. I've made some changes to fit my style a bit but that deck is the Grandaddy - props to @pandapersona.

Major changes from that deck were +3 sure gamble, +2 R&D Interface, dropping a few of the cheap edge-case programs like cloak, net shield and also dropping medium & nerve agent. If I were to make any changes in retrospect, I'd possibly drop crescentus for utopia shard but I'd be very sad to do so. Crescentus & D4v1d is such a boss combo against Blue Sun specifically. And if everyone (myself included) would stop playing fast advance, I'd swap the clot back to nerve agent as this deck has zero HQ pressure right now.

I'll do a short write up, but we played for 13 hours in the end and I could barely remember my own name by the end of it, so apologies if I get anything wrong!

Round 1: Store Champ bye, sitting with my good friends Seamus & Even and chatting with Tom who had come up from Newcastle - top guys.

Round 2: vs Jonny's Butchershop NEH. Jonny is another guy from the local scene, great player and all-round lovely dude. He makes money and digs to try and midseasons/scorch/traffic me, I steal an early astro and clone chip in 2 caches to draw up to six on his turn and make 8 bucks. After that we raced money but Exile just keeps finding money in bins and there was no way he was going to kill me and 2 R&D Interfaces give me the points eventually.

Round 3 vs Nic's Titan. Can't remember much apart from him telling me he was one credit away from his own midseasons/scorch/traffic combo. Again I think I pulled away in money and hammered R&D for the win.

Round 4 vs Peter's Waldemar HB variant. Peter is another one of my close mates from the local scene in Edinburgh, also an awesome player and good friend. He's taken down Exile at one of our lunchrunner sessions so I'm fearful of this matchup, plus I hate playing mates when 2 losses for either person could screw them out of the cut. Anyway, all I remember from this game is that I hate assets & upgrades with a burning passion. Every goddamn face down card is either Eve or Ash or Red Herrings and I want to strangle Peter until he expires. But I don't, and steal 4 points from somewhere then install R&D Interface and top deck 2 NAPDs for the win.

Round 5 vs Ilias's Turtlebacks Butchershop. This was a weird one, we raced money again, but for once Exile couldn't keep up with the asset spam for 3 creds a turn. Luckily I'd stolen a turn one astro, and time was close to being called. Sadly Ilias was racing faster than he should have been and on the final turn put down 3 new assets, I think just losing concentration, and i proceeded to run those 3 & another for 6 points and the win.

Round 6 vs Seamus's Blue Sun. Ah Seamus. The man with the nicest hair in the world, it's like a cresting wave of pure sunlight. Also the best-dressed man in any room, if you go to Nationals you'll spot him. Anyway, he's another of my closest friends and another superb player - we've played each other a zillion times and both know each others decks inside out pretty much. By round 6 there's real weariness setting in and some misplays are creeping in on both sides. As is standard, Exile made sick money so I didn't have to worry about getting killed and just ran like crazy and found 7 points in various places.

Top 8 vs Even's HB Glacier. And so to Even, yet another close friend and possibly my most frequent practice partner due to us both having free time in the afternoon. Plus he has gluten free beer in his fridge so I never want to leave. Obviously, Even is also an awesome player, who likes to surprise people with cards you don't always see (he was playing Professor), plus at least 3 tollbooths in every deck. From what I remember about this game (apart from him power shutdowning my scheherazade), he makes early money on a melange behind a lotus field while i dig for money & tools. He is forced to spend it all on nasty ice to try and keep my out of his remote but I sneak in for 3 points, then another 3 off R&D over the next few turns. He stabilises and things are looking tough for me, but unfortunately time is called and I have more points so advance.

Loser's bracket final vs Nic's Titan (again). Grudge match. He tries to sneak out an early atlas behind a hive but thankfully I have lady in hand and go grab it. He pushes another one thinking I'm out of counters but I sell the lady & buy an Atman at strength 3 to get to 4 points. He scores the final atlas & a firmware and gets Yale online so I money up, knowing there's both midseasons & SEA source in the deck + atlas counter. He locks down R&D with 4 taxing ice and with no RDI I switch to HQ, eventually stealing the cursed high risk investment just as time is called. Phew! On to the finals.

Grand Final game 2 vs Lawrie's RP. Exile just falls down in this game sadly, just couldn't find my economy early enough and by that stage things were locked down on the other side of the table. And if that wasn't bad enough, he executive boot camps for blacklist and installs it behind a lotus field, with CyCy on R&D and Zu, Atman & Femme in the trash. Game over. I hit R&D for a few cards & steal an NAPD but it's a consolation prize and Laurie takes it home. So well piloted, props to Laurie for playing a fantastic tournament.

I'll publish my Corp deck and a write up of the day on that one too.

Thanks to Stu for running a great tournament and powering through despite some serious bye-related software malfunctions. And thanks to everyone else who came along, especially the out-of-towners - not that easy to get back places on a sunday night so kudos.

Major shoutout to the boys from Quality Time™, you know who you are.