Peg Leg MaxX (11th place) [SOCR2]

Having cards in your hand and/or stack is a crutch. They're supposed to be in the heap. Get to it.

Most of the deckbuilding decisions came from the fact that @jdc_wolfpack and I were, for some reason, committed to running MaxX in this tournament. MaxX means no C&C, which means no Same Old Thing or Levy. That basically took Siphon spam off the table, in our eyes. Plan A for the deck became "get a Magnum Opus down and use strong anarch cards + money to win games."

What to do when one has a self-mill ID, a lot of cards that work better when they're in your hand, and limited recursion? The answer, of course, is to run the jankiest possible form of recursion available to you. Enter Rip Deal + The Gauntlet.

The anarch bag of tricks is actually deep enough that you don't need your plan A. I won multiple games after milling both Mopuses because cutlery, parasucker, and Medium threaten centrals so strongly.

I'll discuss a few card choices below:

• Rip Deal: I expected to hate this card, but it was honestly a legitimate contender for deck MVP. Not only does it say "grab a Mopus from the bin if you have nothing else going early game and your opponent has no HQ ice," it also reads "gain 3+ hit points if your opponent wants to murder you and you have gotten them to rez multiple HQ ice." This was extremely crucial in several games in the tournament, as you'll see below. Pro tip: Rip Deal for Deja Vus, since those gain you 1 additional HP each.

• Demolition Run: This card directly won two games for me by trashing Biotics from hand when my opponent was on game point. It's not a lucky hit when you're trashing 3/4 of the cards in HQ thanks to Gauntlet. Another sick play that I never had a chance to pull off in the tournament: Demo Run + Medium can trash Biotic, 24/7, HHN, and other nasty stuff before the corp ever sees it. If you have enough Medium counters, R&D is cheap enough, and you have a real appetite for destruction, you can also consider Demo Run -> Demo Run -> Shadow Net Demo Run to trash a gigantic chunk of the stack. Who says there's no DLR in Cache Refresh?

• Spooned: By far the most sustainable answer to Fairchild 3.0 in the meta, if not the fastest.

• On the Lam: SYNC will almost always beat you if they can land a 24/7. Play as many Citadel and Jarogniew Mercs as you want--if they can Closed Accounts + Hard-Hitting you, they have all the time in the world to trash your resources and throw a missile at your face. This deck isn't tag-me, so its only real answer to 24/7 is to duck the tags in the first place.

• Bloo Moose; #loosethemoose. That is all.

• Ice Carver: I never installed this because it got milled every single game. The moose did tell me it was tasty.

• Sure Gamble: Ok, maybe this deck has a playset of crutches. So sue me.

Tournament report:

Round 1 - dave.laird on SYNC

I obviously assume this is 24/7 BOOM! SYNC. My opening hand has Mopus, Moose, and not much else that's relevant. I keep, thinking that I can punish a non-insane start on SYNC's end with Mopus-Moose economy. Naturally, SYNC goes t1 money, t2 Breaking News, t3 15 Minutes, t4 murder me. In retrospect, I think this is a snap mull. The only way I have to beat anything resembling a decent draw from this deck is On the Lam, and I should mull for it and draw hard for it. I got punished for making that mistake.

Round 2 - fingerzz on HB: EtF

I expect Moons when I see EtF, so I'm somewhat pleasantly surprised to see his first turns be installing ICE. Sadly, I mull into a fairly weak hand, ripping 2 points from R&D but taking until around turn 4 to find decent economic footing. I run HQ early, getting a Fairchild 1.0 and an Assassin rezzed, and he punishes my whiffs by scoring 5 points out of a Tollbooth remote. I drop a Parasite and trash the booth, only for it to be Friends'd back into place along with an Adonis to cement his economic lead. The game changes completely when I drop Gauntlet and rip an SFT and GFI from hand consecutively. On the run where I steal GFI, I see a Biotic with 0 ABT scored or stolen. I have exactly enough money to Demo Run back into HQ, trashing the Biotic. EtF draws up for the entire turn, and I run back into HQ and snag the ABT to win.

Round 3 - BearlyRelevant on Builder of Nations

So, as 47 card MaxX with no Levy, I figure that my only real prayer is that A) he draws very little ICE early, B) he doesn't ICE his centrals, and that C) he is flooded. Naturally, his first turn is Hedge-HQ ICE-R&D ICE, and his next turn is another Hedge and advancing them both. I find Hortum on both centrals early, which he triple-advances and my deck staunchly refuses to cough up answers to. I spend my turns Mopusing and crying a little. Finally, I find a Black Orchestra when my stack has 3 cards left in it. Time to make runs! This is where Rip Deal and Gauntlet prove their worth. I run HQ for accesses, finding two Biotics and an RPC. Gulp. I Mopus up until I can Rip Deal for Rip Deal, Deja Vu, and Demo Run. Deja grabs an extra hit point and I Demo Run HQ, hitting both Biotics. (I didn't know it at the time, but the Preemptive I hit was the last remaining way to recur the Biotics--this Demo Run effectively won me the game on the spot.) I durdle and wait for him to do something threatening, firing off another Rip Deal for Dejas so that I can run R&D a few times. Finally, the turn before he would deck out, I run HQ for accesses and steal two High-Risk Investments and a Government Takeover. In retrospect, this is 100% an incorrect move, because I've seen enough influence to know he has 0 more Biotics, and a win by decking is 500% more stylish than a win on points.

Round 4 - conphas on Harmony Medtech

Me, before game: Hmm, Harmony Medtech. How bad could this really be?

Conphas, turn 1: Mushin No Shin, advance.

Me: fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

And so we play the most dangerous game. Honestly, this game comes down to 2 things. First, I guess right on the Mushin remotes. I dodge the AggSec, snap up a TFP, and hit a Snare! with enough cards and clicks to keep the Moose loose. Second, Rip Deal. The game gets very difficult once I have 3 cards in hand and 0 in the stack. While I'm in this state, he Mushins a new remote, with enough advancement counters to threaten AAA win next turn. I gamble that the new remote isn't a Junebug (which even my OTL wouldn't save me from) and see an Obokata. I Rip Deal, he wisely doesn't rez HQ ICE, and I take back a Deja Vu. Deja Vu for 2 Parasites, steal Obokata with exactly 4 cards.

Round 5 - internet on HB: EtF

This was in fact the Moons matchup I was dreading. I rip 4 early points and stick a t1 Moose, but Magnum Opus and Rip Deal both decide to be shy this game, meaning my econ is otherwise limited. I trash some early campaigns, but give up once he finds ICE to stick them behind. But the anarch bag of tricks keeps on giving. He rezzes a Fairchild 3.0; I Spooned it into oblivion. He rezzes 3 other code gates; I drop Yog.0, Parasite the only non-Code Gate, and Medium to hammer R&D. He gets a Sandburg out behind ICE; I farm Sucker counters. I keep him just poor enough for just long enough with just enough wrecked ICE to pry the winning points out of R&D and HQ.

I ended the tournament at 7-3, 11th place after tiebreakers.

Overall, do I recommend Peg Leg MaxX? That depends what you want out of your games. This deck has a real shot against just about anything, but the games all play out very differently, and the margin between winning and losing often comes down to picking the right line of play out of several that seem similar. Also access luck. So if your goal is to win, this is probably not the strongest choice you could make. But if your goal is to win in style or not at all... have I got a deck for you.

published by AlwaysBeRunning.net