1st Place Regional Brussels (22p): BURN THEM ALL

ryanbantwins 2738

BURN THEM ALL

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This is the deck that I played during the regional in Brussels (22p). It went 4-0 just as my runner, and was a pain for my opponents. It's a very similar to the deck I played during the euregio tournament a few weeks earlier. If you want the longer write-up check it out in the "derived from".

CHANGES

I messed a bit with the agenda suit, because why not. It really doesn't matter what 4/2 you play, just don't remove the Atlas or GFI. And you never know if you need to screw an atman with Helium-3 right?

3 EBC, oh boy was that a good metacall. First of all it's almost the same as tech startup. Slightly less efficient but harder to trash for the runner. Second it's really good vs Au revoir decks, rezzing ICE (hopefully assassin) slows them down a lot. It won't stop them from getting money, but they no longer can farm Turning Wheel. Also helps against DDOS bullshit and blackmail. Third, knowing that 3xIndexing is really common in Kate nowadays, having 6 instashuffle cards is pretty good.

Swapped a Caduceus for a datapike to keep people honest. Mostly because our meta shifted away from Whizzard, so subtypes actually matter again.

TOURNAMENT

4 Rounds Top 8

Round 1 vs rebirth Andy

If I remember correctly he siphoned me early for a full 5 creds managed to get 4 points. Early sec testing with desperado and Massanori and 2 bank jobs helped him a lot early game. But the asset spam overwhelms eventually. Diversified guaranteed the econ lead. Trashed his hopper with PGO en SEA SE SE a bit later.

4 points

Round 2 vs Whizzard dumblefork

Damn I've got to play vs one of the few Whizzards in the tournament. He trashes some stuff early, but again the spam with a strong defense on MCH comes on top. I think he knows that IHW is not that good because of Salem and he uses it to draw. I finish with SEA SE SE.

8 points

Round 3 vs Kate

We are the two only peole with 8, and we both know that we'll easily make the cut if we ID. We play against each other every week, and there's no reason to take any risks or even being responsable that your friend misses the cut. So we go outside a have a nice chat and talk about how stupid ID is.

10 points

Round 4 vs Andy

4 people on ten points equals a nice chat outside. Let's just say we realised too late that somebody brought mainframe.

12 points

Top 8 part 1 vs au revoir andy

Well this is why I play 3 EBC right. Early SMC tells me enough, and I don't use EBC for MCH but to rez some ICE. While my setup is pretty good, I also manage t get a rezzed Hive (HQ) and Assassin (R&D). He starts to farm Turning Wheel counters, and I tripple advance a facedown card from turn 2. He doesn't bit and I start to annoy him with Salem and advance once more. He still doesn't bite on what he thinks is an agenda. And after some trash talk about GTO I salem salem Ronin for the win. I guess he didn't expect that card.

Top 8 part 2 runner win

Top 8 part 3 vs Kate

Winner bracket finals against Ronzacapa who dominates the Belgian meta, great. He slows me down a bit early game and gets and early astrolabe. Steals an agenda out of my hand and because of my cockiness (EBC use to deny 5 creds from Laundry) he steals another one with indexing. At that point whe're like 10 minutes in the game and he kinda decides to go for time. While it's true that he isn't slowplaying he's just taking his time during his turns and always shuffling my deck as is his right. He doesn't run and has 2 plascrete and a polop, so I decide to go for the ronin kill. He dances around my salems (smart boy) but eventually he has to use his polop and now he is vulnerable again. Sadly 5 minutes are called and getting a new ronin, advancing it and doing the salem dance might not be fast enough. He is saying that I can't get pressure quickly enough. So I just score a naked atlas (2-4). Next turn I install EBC, look for Ronin and install advance a card. He doesn't run it. I tripple advance the Glenn station (4-4). Joke's on you, I'm highest seed. He tries to multiaccess R&D but he whiffed.

Top 8 part 4 runner win

Tournament win with double ID and almost no interaction, yeah

Salem dance: trying to keep 5 different cards in hand so you don't die to Salem Salem Ronin

8 comments
27 Jun 2016 RonZacapa

"He is saying that I can't get pressure quickly enough."

I didn't you say you couldn't, I said you weren't doing it fast enough. And after I said that, you did do it faster :D.

Now stop bringing that lame deck. it's boring as fuck!

27 Jun 2016 ryanbantwins

Fair enough. It kinda backfired tho, because I don't think I would have changed my plan if you didn't sy it :p. Sometimes it's just hard to forget that you can also score agendas.

27 Jun 2016 ryanbantwins

Fair enough. It kinda backfired tho, because I don't think I would have changed my plan if you didn't sy it :p. Sometimes it's just easy to forget that you can also score agendas.

28 Jun 2016 Maƫlig

Ugh that was a nightmare to play against (but in a good way ;) ). How about a 1x foxfire to deal with the turning wheel? (only half joking)

28 Jun 2016 ryanbantwins

If even the judge was laughing that just watching one of my games was giving him cancer, yeah I guess it must be a nightmare from the other side :p

Foxfire was considered, but EBC deals with au revoir farming. And otherwhise I always try to get my assassins on the outside so they can't just bounce. I think I would rather have a third assassin. Most of the times you can find them with your Heritage triggers vs TTW. And even if they just start farming on etr, just rushing the ronin has helped so far.

1 Jul 2016 MrMint

Each time I think I found a way to reliably win against this deck, I discover a line of play to counter it. How do you reliably win against this deck ? :D

3 Jul 2016 ryanbantwins

Just play it yourself against players who are better than yourself. Oh wait, that's what I did and so far it hasn't give me an easy counterplay.

I've seen many takes on the "counterplay" vs gagarin. Some players go hail mary, supersafe, try to deny econ or only focusses on MCH. None of those ever felt more than a speed bump. In my opinion playing vs Gagarin is like playing vs CI. Early game I bleed accesses and yes you need some luck to get an early agenda. When I start spamming my remotes it becomes difficult because you need to choose between trying to slow me down (you can't really stop it) and getting a few extra accesses. Very important is that you know when you have to stop running (just like against CI). Prepare for a big turn with multiple runs and hope you steal the last agendas you need. Some cards might buy you extra turns of running like plascrete.

Also if you don't bring something like faerie, parasite or shrike (maybe mongoose) you're screwed and should go back to the drawing board.

6 Jul 2016 MrMint

Thanks for your insight !