Dirtbag 419 - 1st + 2nd @ Dice & Donuts Memorial SC

leachrode 1235

Ban List 20.06

This is a very small iteration on the NYC store champ 419 deck, swapping the Corporate Grants for three Tapwrm and dropping the No One Home for a second Boomerang. On reflection keeping the No One Home and dropping the stimhack instead would probably have worked out better given that none of us who were on this list played it more than once and a lot of people were trying to Ronin, Viral Weaponisation or Sea Source me but oh well.

In the slightly uncertain corp meta at the moment 419 feels ridiculously strong and this Mining Accident version absolutely buries the both the RP builds that prey on other runners that are around as well as having a immensely powerful late game against glaciery corps off the back of the extremely potent breaker suite (apart from Makler which is simply fine and ideally never gets installed) and Hunting Grounds blanking multiple ice and getting rid of the Aumakua downside against IP Block.

Tapwrm is the new piece here so I'll put some brief thoughts, it doesn't immediately shine when watching games because it doesn't function how it used to in shaper decks with Sac Con, you aren't going to be gaining 4 or 5 credits a turn off it in almost any game (and the ones where you are are likely matchups where money just isn't the factor and you just need to draw boomerangs). What it does instead is either waste a lot of the corp's time purging, which feels very powerful in the early game while you're getting drip econ from Rezekis, drawing into your incredible late game rig as well as Doofs and tech cards, or encourage the corp to try and play relatively poor for a while to play around it, especially if they're on an asset deck or a rushier Weyland deck. If they do that the Tapwrm doesn't make you any money but it does allow you to absolutely force them into the dirt with Diversions and Mining Accidents because they don't have the economy behind it to support them.

All in all I believe this exact 45 cards went 15-2 for the 3 people who were running it and carried myself and chris into the cut then into the final alongside a slightly dodgier corp and if I was playing an event tomorrow I can't think of many reasons to play anything else aside from that mooted stimhack>no one home change.

Thanks to all my opponents for a lot of fun matches and to Graham for running another very enjoyable online SC :)

5 comments
22 Jun 2020 adquen

My initial thought about Tapwrm in 419 decks like that was that people would just let you get a few credits off it and then it dies anyway a few turns later anyway when they have to purge Aumakua. Which doesn't sound like overwhelming value. But from your description that doesn't seem the way people handled it. So everybody just purged early or tried to play around Tapwrm?

22 Jun 2020 leachrode

@adquen So some people did do that, but in that case it's just a 0 cost rezeki that you get to have for a while and which occasionally gives you more than 1 credit, which isn't amazingly powerful but given how immensely strong your late game here is once you have your rig set up and have acquired some bad pub it's a handy bridging mechanism. My feeling is mostly that the corp has 2 options to deal with it and neither of them is really great for them, + choosing the wrong one could be absolutely ruinous

23 Jun 2020 ValkyriezGaming

hi @leachrode I copied the deck and dropped the stimhack for a no one home. I didn't know what to do with the extra inf, so I also dropped a Deuces Wild and grabbed a Corroder in for Makler.

Look, I'll be honest. I was terrible with it in my one game so far against a CTM deck. What would you do with the spare inf and what's your basic strategy against CTM? No One Home and Citadel Sanctuary saved me, but I just felt too poor to trash key assets and gold farmers on centrals became expensive for doof etc. I probably should have installed a TTW and just ran twice and clicked for creds twice each turn.

23 Jun 2020 leachrode

@ValkyriezGaming Honestly I'd just leave the spare inf and play with 14, Corroder is pretty good but with the power of Aumakua and Boomerang I find I very rarely actually install Makler so the upgrade doesn't seem massively worth losing a Deuces to me.

Against CTM you ideally want to get on top of their econ early then land a couple of mining accidents. If you can get over the early game hurdle and have rezeki + a bad pub + a good base of economy and a citadel sanctuary down they should be seriously sweating about how they're actually going to beat you barring some dodgy trashes. That is a touch harder without dirty laundries in this list (and actually without the stimhack to stim an asset and pay off the ctm trace) but you do have access to bravado into whatever their hq ice is + gamble + pad taps to cover you in the early game and cit sanc to smooth out the mid game.

As some general tips for playing against CtM,

  • prioritise your trashes carefully in the early game with a very high priority placed on economy to make landing mining accidents possible, I'm not sure how much CTM you've played but on the other side of the table, facing down a runner with rezeki and multiple bad pub is pretty much a crisis point. If you don't see them early then you may have to play more conservatively but burst econ + accidents should absolutely be what you're mulliganing for
  • don't be super afraid of floating a tag early if you have to, remember that usually their only punishment is 1 eoi, 1 closed and 1 psycho. With a gamble, you can kill a bankers and float the tag then click for some credits and be pretty much immune to hard hitting unless they have specifically closed as well, clearing can set you up to just eat the hhn (which they probably have 3 of so are more likely to see)
  • if possible, use the deuces to clear a tag and gain a credit after a crucial trash early, it'll slow you down on the draw but dealing with their id in a tempo-positive way should put you a long way ahead
  • if things are going badly for you in the mid game (the board is just out of control, you can't get clear of 10 credits and they're starting to score out), consider whether it's worth just going tag me. Often they only have 1 resistor these days, and if you pivot to tag me you immediately don't have to worry about playing around hhn, ar enhanced or killing all their board which can be very economically liberating. You do have to worry about eoi then, and even more so about psychographics, but an aumakua + a couple of rezekis and a bad pub will get you a very very long way in a game when you suddenly don't really care about their id, their scored agendas or some of their ice. From the CTM point of view it can be really quite scary to feel like you're a mile ahead in a game, then suddenly the runner goes tag me, kills your team sponsorships, all your ice is blank and suddenly the only relevant card in your whole deck is a psychographics you buried with DBS 3 turns ago, while you can't now do anything with the beales you're drawing. It's definitely not your plan A but it's strongly worth considering
24 Jun 2020 ValkyriezGaming

@leachrode M8, thankyou for the write up. That's very much appreciated. I've read it a few times, now I need to sink it in and apply. Dropping the 3rd deuces didn't feel good, but based on some other feedback on my playstyle ive put it back in. I'm trying to squeeze DL in aswell to keep the tempo up and get ahead economically.

Thanks again :)