Reading (UK) Random ID Jank Tournament, 3rd Place, corp

This tournament was a random ID tournament but with the emphasis being on “creative” cough janky cough builds. This meant that there were two ways to get points. The first was the classic way – winning games. Each player could also vote for one runner deck and one corporation deck after round 4 with each vote counting for half a point towards an eventual score total.

I spent a lot of time struggling to find my feet with this identity and deciding what to do with it. There are obviously some standard responses; Midseason pshychobeales, grail Ice with Midway station grid, or just fast advancing using your small deck size to find that combo.

But jank was demanded. I toyed with a few things; Snoop + Targetted Marketing, Plan Bs to half fast advance, things that were similar to what I came with, and my consistent favourite was Matrix Analyser.

Matrix Analyser is awesome, I don’t understand entirely why it doesn’t see more play. It combines absolutely beautifully with traps so long as you can keep your money high enough. They run something that is double advanced and you spend a credit to add another counter to it; all of a sudden Junebug has added 2 more net damage, Cerebral Overwriter has added 1 more brain damage, Ghost Branch 1 more tag, Plan B just enabled a 3/2 to score, Aggressive Secretary is clearing near enough an entire rig. And then you put 2 or three of them in a row and attacking a trap becomes frightening. If they do chicken out halfway through and have guessed wrong, they have just helped advance your agenda.

And of course, you can play BEALE OR NO BEALE.

Once you establish that it is pure shell game nonsense you need only some basic Ice to try and hold them out of R&D, and possibly HQ, to make them HAVE to play your game. Then DBS and Jackson to help control the draw, a load of economy, Underway Grid to avoid Drive By/Infiltration party poopers, and Crisium just because I felt like Account Siphon or Keyhole or something like that would ruin my day

The deck won twice on the day out of 5 rounds, with my third place largely coming from people liking my decks. I did miss out on one win when a passer by happened to notice my 10 advanced card and wonder how many advancement tokens it took to win with just a single Beale. Its 13.

It has also been fun online and at some casual nights, where I have pulled off the Beale win.

I think Matrix Analyser + traps may become part of a proper deck at some point; perhaps it won't be me that pulls it off!