Clone Catcher - 3-1 at August AMT (4th)

(This deck was initially called IP Audits because it used Vulnerability Audit, but is now named Clone Catcher because it played multiple rounds vs the Girls Deck featuring Akiko Nisei: Head Case)

Hi all, the following is a deck I've been iterating on that's functionally a mashup of two existing really awesome A Teia Decks:

Timely Holo Pool from West Canada Nationals

and Flic-Flac - The World's Fastest Spider by Weltgeist

AMT Results

I ran this deck at the August 11th 2024 AMT, and went 3-1 with it picking up 1 win vs Hoshiko, 2 wins vs Akiko (Girls), and finally losing in the first top cut round vs MGK's Arissana deck. Looking at the replays, in each game I made several mistakes, even when winning, and I think there's a lot of room for me to improve the kickflips with this deck.

Deck Decisions

Agendas

I really liked Fli-Flac's agenda suite initially, but when the Timely Holo Pool's agenda selection with Project Yagi-Uda came out, I quickly felt like it was a better call. The perk of Project Yagi-Uda being a potentially blank 3/2 means if I get a third or fourth click run on a remote with Tatu-Bola, on swapping the ICE, I can install Yagi-Uda in the other remote. The next turn either via La Costa Grid or just through manually advancing I can try to rush out 2 points. This deck effectively follows the PD design of trying to get 4 points rushed out easily, and then find some way to fast advance a Bacterial Programming for the last 3 points. Timely Public Release has been an A Teia staple, and the potential kick flip potentials are left as an exercise to the reader (or look up all the kick flips in the decks listed above!).

Conceding or rushing a Bacterial early can be helpful, as it lets you reload HQ with all the cards you need, and also gives you a lot of control over R&D. Vs the Girls decks that are currently all the rage, being able to not worry about the top 4 cards in R&D until you're set up to score again can be really reassuring.

Assets

The assets selection is much closer to Flic-Flac's asset selection, with an additional Charlotte Caçador for econ. This deck can really quickly run out of money with how much ice you might rez (Anansi my beloved can quickly bankrupt me). Runners now seem to be speedrunning to get their full rig set up, including K2CP Turbine, which makes breaking ice trivial. I found waiting a turn for Regolith Mining License to be just too slow for my tastes, I wanted to get a bunch of start of turn triggers, like Charlotte and Cohort Guidance, using Cohort to either cycle out cards I don't need or to help fast advance agendas laid on the board earlier.

The goal is to always have assets in each remote, forcing the runner to have to decide if whatever I A Teia installed is an agenda, and then letting them decide if they want to waste their resources (while giving me credits via Tatu-Bola swaps)

Operations

My operations are essentially the same as other A Teia decks. Hansei Review can set up a quick advance via Cohort Guidance Program but I mostly used it as an emergency "I want to rez a Spider" button. Each Seamless Launch lets me rush out 2 points easily via a Timely Public Release install.

What's on the Grid?

I also want to do a quick rant about A Teia decks and regions. So far there seem to be three schools of A Teia Thought on regions. You either run one of:

1. Jinja City Grid
2. La Costa Grid
3. Tranquility Home Grid

I'm firmly in the second camp of La Costa grid. Jinja City Grid let me down a lot in testing, as I was hoping to use things like Flower Sermon counters to allow for a kickflip install in a remote. Unfortunately when testing, I kept drawing agendas and operations, so that left a sour taste in my mouth. Is Jinja viable? Absolutely yes. However it's not viable when I'm the one doing the draws :P

Tranquility Home Grid is nice. however, as an ice heavy deck, most of my A Teia installs and kickflips involve ice on one remote, and then maybe a tranquility grid trigger. Additionally, when running Tranquility Grid with Charlotte, I felt like I was slowing down because I then had to spend a click and credit to advance Charlotte, whereas La Costa Grid does that for free!

All of my personal testing seems to show La Costa as the winner for this style of deck, especially as it makes rushing out a Bacterial possible with only one Seamless Launch

ICE

I've made some modifications to the ice suite from both Flic-Flac and Timely Holo Pool, so I should probably spend some more time here.

First off, Thimblerig is immediately getting removed from this deck. Sadakais going to take its spot as an anti-Eru Ayase-Pessoa tech piece on Archives vs Akiko. I found Thimblerig to be underwhelming outside of maybe an early gearcheck. But Enigma just does it better.

The barrier suite involves tech pieces like Border Control as well as BIG ice like Boto which is hard to break, costing 4 credits at Threat vs the Turbine Rig, 5 with Pressure Spike, 3 with Propeller (just once) and 8 with Curipura. Tatu Bolas are phenomenal, allowing for cheap defense, and can be used to help keep the econ up. Unfortunately during the top cut, I became too reliant on them, and MGK managed to neutralize my econ via a very well placed Hush. Don't be like me, play smarter.

This deck will later only have one Code Gate, and that's Vampyronassa. Vampyronassa unfortunately is broken for 2 with the classic Turbine rig, but costs at least 5 for most other Decoders (thinking about Unity, Shibboleth, etc). If I expect to see a Buzzsaw, this card quickly turns into Hansei Review / Cohort Guidance Program fodder.

Rime is a magical card that I refuse to remove from this deck. It fundamentally breaks the math on a bunch of breakers, making Boto even bigger vs the Turbine Rig, or causing Tatu-Bola to cost 3 credits to break with Pressure Spike. A Rime + Anansi can be expensive at 6 credits to break (effectively 7 credits after the runner pays for Rime) when using Turbine + Echelon.

Speaking of the Spider, the amount of Sentries ends up being important. Saisentan can be annoying to deal with, and with some runners using Ika, forcing runners to redeploy Ika between Saisentan or Anansi can make the math on Ika much worse. Letting either Saisentan or Anansi fire can put the runner back so far that you can rush out an agenda while they're drawing back up.