Esablade - Top cut 6th (3-2) at Canada East Nat 2023

I took this deck to Canadian East Coast National (2023-08-26) in Montreal and got to 5th place (of 39) in swiss. The deck won once in top cut and lost once in the top cut, finishing my day. What a ride this competition was for me.

On the day it went like this :

• Loss vs Chouxflower (Restoring humanity)
• Win vs Andre (Asa)
• Win vs Robert (Thule)
• Loss vs Nick (PE)
• Win vs Alex (Epiphany)
• Top cut, won vs Marc-André (Asa)
• Top cut, lost vs Sven (Issuaq)

Game plan : Sabotage and pressure the corp.

Mulligan plan : Marrow, Ghosttongue or Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga in hand.

Check it on stream here.

At the last minute, I almost switched one Jailbreak for one Light the Fire!, because I was afraid of AgInfusion: New Miracles for a New World. But I made the meta call that there would be few of those in the event. We had only 2 players with it (alongside Dr. Vientiane Keeling of course).

This is a breakerless deck (I consider Slap Vandal like Boomerang rather than a breaker). Unless the corp can double ice HQ really early, I can usually sabotage enough with this deck that it becomes difficult to double ice everything that needs to be iced. I seldom found myself wanting for a breaker (for which I would not have the economy to support it).

As usual, AirbladeX (JSRF Ed.) is such a great card, combined with Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga. It double up as added protection against NBN.

The other unusual cards are Jailbreak and Moshing. The former gives me the much needed additional pressure, which can be on HQ, while giving me more draw. The latter allows me to exchange unused cards for better cards and credits. It synergize really well with Strike Fund and Steelskin Scarring.

Finally, nothing say "jank deck" like a runner without Sure Gamble. But my tests showed me that I did not need much econ to power up this deck, especially once Ghosttongue is played.

MVP, outside of Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga, is Hush, which is really needed and really help manage corp ices. Having a third one would be welcome.

Thanks to all the participants, it was a blast to see and play with all of you. Special thanks to Andrej for organizing, Mattie for supporting the whole event and Adam at the Silver Goblin for hosting us past its normal hours.

Cheers!