Need for Speed (3rd Swiss/7th Cut @ NANPC Toronto)

Feel the need...

-- Asku and xdg goldfishing opening hands

You don't have time to think up there!

It's ironic to say this when glacier corp just got a shot in the arm with Charlotte and other tools, but I think we're still in a rush meta. Big rig shaper has more tools, too, and every faction has ways to trash, burn, steal, destroy, or bypass your board and hand.

For me, personally, I'm not good at reading scoring windows. Other than punitive Ag, my glacier corp play has been erratic and I feel pressured by the clock in tournament play. For NANPC Toronto, I decided to pick 2 fast, consistent, straightforward decks so I could just focus on jamming my way forward to victory.

[Funny thing -- my runner deck both did and didn't succeed at that plan. In my matchups it set up fast, but often felt like a control deck and I was winning at the buzzer.]

This PD deck is almost identical to one that Aksu brought to the internal TAIB league, with a tiny modification I'll mention later in Reflections. If I've done well with it, all credit goes to him.

Matchup report (2-2*)

^{*Both losses were the same matchup.}

• Round 1: win vs Aesop's Lat. Opponent was so busy setting up the Aesop's engine that he didn't run centrals and I just windmilled agendas through the remote. When the runner's rig was finally up, I was on game point. I played DRM to tutor a Luminal, then put a Tranq Grid in the remote instead. Vovo saved me 5 net rezzing BC, MIC and Brân. The runner got poor running those to find no agenda, opening the scoring window for the win.

• Round 4: win vs Q-Loop Ari. I knew I had to go fast and was able to ice a remote and gradually empty a Regolith as I iced everything up drew into agendas. My second score was the ADT. I hoped for some big ice, but instead saw Ikawah, Seamless, Tranq Grid, Luminal, and Hedge fund. I installed the Tranq to bounce back credits jamming the Ikawah, knowing Seamless #2 was coming up next. Runner dropped a Conduit when we were at 4-4 and took Luminal, but R&D held through the Conduit dig and I double Seamless'd the Ikawah for the win.

• Round 5: loss vs Bankhar Steve. I mulliganed into two big ice and then got flooded. Saci + Window of Opportunity + Emergency Shutdown gave the runner tons of money and set me back far enough that there was no way to recover.

• Cut round 2: loss vs Bankhar Steve. This was an exact rematch of Round 5 with a different strategy but the same result. This time, I drew a bunch of mid-range ice and money, so iced up centrals to shut off Steve and Turtle/Leech value. I even trashed two unrezzed ice, one with Saci, the other with Boomerang and was carefully counting how many Doof, E-shutdowns, and Windows of Opportunity were getting lost to Bankhar net damage as I tried to hold the line and time a score. But Sneakdoor Beta came down and found the chink in my armor and there was no way out. Either this matchup is fundamentally cursed or at least I just couldn't figure it out.

Reflections on the deck

Overall -- I really enjoyed the simplicity of this deck. It's not Grug level simple, but the choices are linear, with ice placement and credit management being the biggest considerations.

Brân and MIC -- With the popularity of Boomerang, Bankhar, and Mulch decks, generally, these expensive 3-sub ice punch above their weight. They're also very expensive, which makes paying for them a problem. If only there was a card that made them cheaper...

Vovo -- This card was good for a discount of 4-6 per game. He can also pretend to be a Manegarm, trigger Tranq grid, and then pop up to throw off the runner's calculation of how much Ice you can rez.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) -- When you really need an agenda to jam, DRM is the answer that keeps the tempo up. It completely saved me in Round #1.

Spin → Wraparound -- Aksu goldfished a ton of opening hands with me and I noticed how many times his comment was about lacking ice. It's a running TAI Breaker's joke that AugustusCaesar loves to cut Spin Doctor, but then he showed us that PD can win without Spin. We took inspiration from that and cut just 1 for a cheap gearcheck.

Appreciation

❤️👔🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

In particular, I want to thank Aksu for spending an hour goldfishing with me the week before the tournament. I felt much more confident in my mulligan decisions thanks to his patient help.

I want to also thank Jai for his hydration advocacy. Go Team 💧!

See additional thanks in my runner deck write up.