Wind-up Merchant (King of Swiss, Irish Regional 2017)

I came top of swiss at the Irish Regional in Kilkenny on 23/07/17 - first round bye, 2-0, 2-0, ID - before blowing up and losing both games in the cut to finish fourth. (Corp was SYNC Fiery Informant, and there's nothing I can say about that amazing deck that hasn't already been said.)

My original version was entitled Cruelty and this latest list hasn't changed much over playtesting. The biggest change has probably been dropping the Daily Casts for Day Job in an effort to speed up the deck, as money can be tight and 8 credits for a turn can give you the boost you need early on.

Landing the early Siphon is a priority and you want to keep pressure on Archives too. When your opponent commits resources to defending Archives those are resources they aren't committing to other centrals or a remote and this is to your advantage. If they don't commit those resources, you have an easier time accessing Archives and this is to your advantage.

This deck doesn't lean full tilt into Alice's ability or pack Maw for added card trashing as I feel Obelus offers more utility in this setup, but I've had a lot of fun building and playing it. Played well, it's another monster of an Anarch deck.

Victories in swiss were against core Weyland and Tennin. The Weyland deck packed some beefy ICE but also handed out bad pub like it was going out of style, which in the end enabled free Keyhole runs on R&D which was my path to victory. This was a tough game that I initially thought I'd lost because my opponent was able to rez multiple tough barriers and keep me out of his scoring remote, but the bad pub was their undoing. A Curtain Wall on Archives is no defence against a Hades Shard.

I was able to take Tennin apart fast thanks to a Crisium install on Archives allowing me to land Siphons before poking R&D unchallenged for agendas and to deny the Tennin counters. Obelus was MVP here as I accessed the potentially winning Obokata Protocol on click three with only three cards in hand. The Obelus drew me card four and I was able to snag it on the last click and eat the damage.

The cut was a different story. Game one as Alice I ran click one face first into a Komainu on Archives against AgInfusion, binning my hand and losing all my tempo. I lost the game there and then, but limped on for a few turns before conceding as my opponent rezzed a Chiyashi on HQ to deny Siphons. With lots of unrezzed ICE everywhere this meant every run was a potential Chiyashi and breaking it with Eater on the board was just not going to happen.

Game two was against HB running Moons and DBS. I installed an Imp turn one which helped keep their board state down for the first few turns together with Hacktivist, but this was one of those times the deck drew everything in the wrong order and my opponent quickly accelerated away from me. Another game where the turn on which I lost was well before the last turn.

Thanks to all the great opponents on the day and the fantastic Black Kat Games in Kilkenny for hosting. This marks my best event performance ever and I achieved my personal goal of finishing in the top four.