IcyHot: Undefeated, 1st at November AMT

Please don't play this online please please im begging you i wont if you dont please nonononono

This is a mesh of Blighttown and some of the ideas from my teammate @ksodiya's Mighty Morphin' Mirror, with 3 Cold Site Servers to pair with Warm Reception (the combo where the deck name comes from).

The lockout is to get the 3 CSS's on your centrals, then all 3 Warm Receptions and a Front Company installed. At the start of your turn, you trigger each Warm Reception to derez a Cold Site Server, keeping the power counters on it for future use.

At that point, you can click all 3 CSS's, and use your mirrormorph click to gain cash, usually through a 5 power counter Working Prototype, and slowly get the 3-5 counters you need on each CSS to fully prevent the runner from making any runs in the future.

I piloted this deck in the November AMT, and beat every runner that I encountered (three Lat, and one Esâ). I realized in building this that this sort of lockout absolutely wrecks much of the current runner meta, as most runners are fine with sitting back a turn or two to build their own boards.

Big mistake for this matchup.

On Gamestate

Once you've set up your boardstate of a Warm Reception or two and the Front Company, with an ice or two on each central, its effectively game over in the worst sort of way. Front Company + a single Cold Site Server on HQ or RND really limits runner options on clearing any more of your board from then on out.

At this point its all about trapping the runner into horrible lines of play. They trash your Front Company? The second one was installed two turns ago. Run everything you can? At some point the runner runs out of money and thats when I shift from installing Trieste Model Bioroids and Lady Liberty to the actual goodstuff.

I think the correct play from the runner side is to find a Hákarl 1.0 and just bounce off it tanking the core, then going all out on the remotes with Wheels or something. There were originally three in here (we originally started with the ice setup of PrisonMorph), but because of this weakness I cut 1 of them for a second Týr.

Tyr is a crazy ice to have rezzed at any point. With Trieste Model Bioroids the tempo gain on facecheck wins you tons of games. It also massively empowers Ravana, with a Tyr + 2 Ravana being my ideal central outer ice. You'll definitely be spending a few turns getting the money for rez though, especially if its your only ice early game. Once it's rezzed though, it's insane. If your opener is bad consider just handing the runner a SAM to rez Tyr for free.

The Good Cards (beyond the combo)

• Restore keeps the whole deck running. The list is so fragile without it, but when you've got 1 or 2 in hand the play pattern becomes just jamming what you've got and restoring it back the next turn. It's amazing to have the runner spend so many clicks trashing a Front Company only to have it pop right back up next turn.
• Depending on the boardstate, I really like bluffing Warden Fatuma as something more important then it actually is. A lot of runners can't afford to spend the 5 to trash it on sight, and you can use it in a lot of situations as a bluff to blunt the second Trick Shot run/Pinhole Threading.
• Charlotte Caçador allowing for more advancing on the table which gives more MirrorMorph triggers. Great card if you can stick it on the table, and it's a single click drip econ that pays for all 3 Warm Receptions once you've hit lockout.
• Trieste is great for the taunt alone. If the runner sees this they're going to make it their mission to get it off the board. Use that time to install everything else. In really bad scenarios I like sacrificing one or two of these to slow down the runner by 3 credits.

Possible changes

• Bring back in Malia because a big early weakness is Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga and we gotta deal with that one (once you're set up though Working Prototype does that job for you).
• Go back to 3 Hakarl 1 Tyr, and you can probably drop the Nanoetching Matrix for something else that isn't money.
• TBH I wasn't even really thinking about Ganked! and just swapped out for more econ but it seems preeeetty good :D
• There was some discussion we had about swapping Subliminal Messaging for something else, like Greasing the Palm or Red Level Clearance. I think Red Level could be good to test, but tbh maybe you just run Distract the Masses instead to have an operation to bring back those Restores even more.
• There was some thought I had about Warroid Tracker just to be even more disgusting + maybe being better into ice destruction, but I'm not that much of a monster :)

I knew this deck was strong, but the performance this tournament was even better then I expected. I hadn't tested too many games with it (you know, to make sure I wouldn't be on half of Jnets block list) but I figured it'd be good into a few matchups:

• Lat for sure.
• On top of that, anything with Deep Dive in general will not be deep diving.
• Esa maybe. Restore do be good and once you've got HQ cold sited it's much harder for any big sabatoges to hit you.
• Reg anarch/shaper feels too slow and Trieste Model Bioroids nulls a lot of the value from turbine rigs. If a single Working Prototype sticks on the table Bankhar can be completely invalidated on the anarch side too.

Haven't played against these but I think they'll be harder to deal with:

• Any fast crim. They've got asset trashing, run economy, and bypass nulls a lot of your early game Trieste/Front Company threat. If they keep up the pressure you can lose before you have a chance to get set up.
• Ice destruction could be bad, but thats what Restore is for :D. The one good thing about it is that your ice is pretty high strength and there's only a limited number of Devil Charm. I think there's pretty high risk of getting blown out of this matchup though, especially if they're Seb or Freedom with Wheels and Bones.
• A lot of runners have ways of getting bonus clicks (and then Deep Diving, but any runner that has a bunch of click compression early will do good things. Early Trick Shots, Bahia Bands, Wheels + Dirty Laundry keeps the cash flowing and the cards drawing while still killing my boardstate.

As the runner, if you've ever seen a game of asset spam where the runner surgically defuses every bit of your board turn after turn, thats the sort of play you need to be on for as long as possible in the early game. If you slow down to set up for a later turn, there won't be a later turn. Always Be Running.

A huge shoutout to everyone I played against at the AMT, and a big thanks to everyone who made it possible. I try to make as many of these as I can because they're always a blast, and regardless of performance I get to meet new people and have a ton of fun messing around with some jank.

Speaking of jank, another big shoutout to my team Janktinho, who helped me polish this up for the tournament. I feel like we've opened pandoras box with this one.