The Many Modes of Loud (11th @ UK Nats)

WE DID IT! Going into Nationals, there was only one deck for me, facing an even-ish matchup against shaper and pretty great matchups against the rest of the field, Loud was an obvious choice. I made a couple of small changes, cutting the Fully Op and Mavirus from the worlds list to play an extra Wage Workers and a copy of Powers, but otherwise it's the same list.

Variations of this deck played by myself have gone a combined 9-1 at Sheffield Regionals and UK Nationals, going undefeated against all but Chris Dyer. If you add the earlier Cambridge regionals where I was a little less confident with the deck, that's 12-3 for Loud this season. So I think I can say, I love this deck!

In my opinion, there are 2 main reasons why you'd play Loud over a more straightforward deck like ASA or PD (which I was playing before I switched). Number 1 is that you will often just get some kills in Swiss from people who don't know your plan, which is very nice in larger tournaments. However, in UK nats especially the field was really tough and I don't think I got any real freebies, which leads me into Number 2: There are many different ways to play this deck, and you can adapt on the fly to the match and change your gameplan dramatically depending on what's going on.

With that in mind, I'd like to take this time to explain the many different routes Loud can take through a game, and why you might want to switch to one of them. Bear in mind, multiple Modes can be worked towards at once, and you can freely switch between them as the situation demands.

The First Mode: Scoring out

This is your standard gameplan. Prana and PE means your agendas all refund themselves on score, so you can just jam agendas behind powerful ICE and still have the credits to rez everything. Try to score HoN first for econ, then a Sting! if possible. You will have to score a Fuji, but if the remote is looking dicey you can always try for a regenesis play. Finish the game by fast advancing using Holo Man/Moon Pool/Blood in the Water.

The Second Mode: Assetspam/Shell game

The First mode's main weakness is leaving centrals quite wide open (Anemone can break up deep dives, but it doesn't tax at all). You can get around this by using your powerful ICE on centrals, and using Wage Workers to power out assets faster than the runner can deal with them. Tatu-Bola is great in this mode for protecting assets, as you'll get some money back if they go to trash something and you can always swap to a more powerful ice if you're trying to switch modes. Moon Pool is absolutely fantastic here, it's unlikely to get trashed if the runner is busy with all the wage workers, pranas and cohorts. This can set up into a score, or you can often get kills off a fuji/snare when the runner finally goes for centrals after being drained of resources.

The Third Mode: Dedicated Regenesis

Obviously, Regenesis/Fuji is of the strongest plays you can make, and you can actually guarantee it off a single remote. A Moon Pool + Holo Man remote with fuji and regenesis in hand can do it from 10 credits, which is pricey but absolutely worth it. Just fire moon pool at the end of the runner's turn to dump fuji in the bin, then use the holo man to fast advance the regenesis without putting anything in archives! You can also obviously just score a regenesis the normal way, if the runner just doesn't check archives, or if you're also playing mode 4...

The Fourth Mode: Archives Poison

If the runner is being very passive, it's entirely possible you can dump a lethal amount of damage into archives. Fuji-Sting-Sting will deal 7 damage and only get them 5 points, and a scored sting will do 6 damage for only 2 points! If they don't run archives, just score regenesis out of a remote like normal, and enjoy the lack of agenda densities in other centrals! This works best against runners that like to sit back and win the game off deep dives alone.

The Fifth Mode: Dedicated Prana

Starting a turn with a prana on 6 or a prana on 5 and Blood in the Water in hand wins you the game, plain and simple. I wouldn't ever start with this mode since it's super soft to Pinhole, but if you take those out it's really easy to get tons of prana counters and strip away runner resources (anemone, HoN, data loop). It's also a pretty solid hail-mary plan if the runner gets to 6 points by stealing a fuji with Prana out and already on 1-2 counters.

The Sixth Mode: Deck them Out

And finally, if all else fails, turtle up and go for the long game. Runners who recklessly play all their events and overdraw will quickly find themselves short on cards, and a lot of Shapers don't run Ashen. The tricky part is getting this to work whilst keeping the runner below 4 points - if fuji is unstealable then you're on easy street. Multiple scored HoNs and a Snare/anansi activation are a good sign you can go for the deck out.

A huge thank you to QTM for making this deck archetype, it's by far the most fun I've had on Corp in the entire NSG meta. A massive thank you to the UK nats organisers as well, and all of QEH that helped me with testing! (You know who you are). Check out my runner deck for a more detailed tournament writeup!

~ King Solomon