Neutralize All Corps (1st, Strefa MTG SC, Warsaw, Poland)

romanoSoprano 266

Finished #1 at the SC mentioned in the title and #2 in another SC the day before (Grajfer, Toruń). Undefeated in double eliminations at both.

Also:

  • I've won the latest edition of SHL at Jinteki.net with an earlier version of this list.

  • friend of mine took down an SC (and went undefeated as runner) @Paladin's Place, Darmstadt, Germany with very similar list / same inf spread

  • my gf, who is a casual player, played basically the same list and finished 4th at the SC in Warsaw


Draw power and singletons:

  1. I never enjoyed losing games thx to shitty draws.
  2. Killing your Wyldside doesn't help them much. And e3/vamp/peddler actually make fairly good use of that bad pub - thanks.
  3. This deck allows you to be very aggressive right out of the gate. If people claim their Gagarins or NEHs can win the asset-game even vs Whizzards, then it ain't this Whizzard they're talking about.

Being able to rely on something else than just pancakes allowed me to keep the threat up and win a very interesting game where I went tag-me vs Turnpike (corp's 1x turnpike just went online after I stole palooza click #3 and re-visited RnD with just d4). Instead of clearing it, I rushed to accumulate those 5 tags ASAP. So when the resistor got there, knifed was ready. Archangel to the rescue! ... got spooned. Swordsman? That's actually like breaking it with faust without needing one (although eventually parasited). Unstoppable, digging with medium all the time.


Influence spread

e3:

  • incredible synergy with your rig

  • simply wrecks Blue Sun (which was supposed to be our bane)

  • allows us to skip Mimic (which also saves memory and enables me to make better use of the few viruses that I do have compared to the lists that run twice as many and end up discarding their own parasites. What's more, we can have corroder in that slot and laugh at all those wraparounds while digging DEEP.)

  • owns Little Engine

  • loves bioroids

NAT:

  • As if Vamp wasn't real enough, this doubles the threat we pose to HQ.

  • If they improve their HQ defences then it's that much easier to own them with Medium. win/win

  • Whizz basically eliminates it's 'downside' - if you can even call it that.

  • That's HQI + a better Modded in a single slot.

  • Well, if you do happen to run into IG then just don't install it :)


Some other meta calls / questions that may arise:

no Plascrete: IHW + this list wins most if not all money races + shop being less popular and more importantly absent at the 'final tables'

Forked went out because:

  • I don't plan to break Swordsman but rather eat it

  • architect

  • lack of sentries in the Bullshit NEH list

Yea, I ended up missing it a lot vs THREE Sync decks I played over the weekend. Still - won all of those games :p

7 comments
16 Mar 2016 Inermis

"Being able to rely on something else than just pancakes allowed me to keep the threat up and win a very interesting game where I went tag-me vs Turnpike (corp's 1x turnpike just went online after I stole palooza click #3 and re-visited RnD with just d4)"

That was weirdest game ever I had played NEH vs Whizz. Instead being happy that you don't have Wyldcakes, I was desperaty looking for something to replace ICE on RD to stop Medium digs. But every time you drew into a solution.

17 Mar 2016 apo

Nice list!

Couple of thoughts about more interesting card choices:

  • Vamp - I would play this only if expecting CI combo deck. Otherwise not flexible enough I think (good luck with Vamping Palana to auto-win PSI games).
  • NAT - Great pick. Lack of HQ pressure is a slight weakness of the original Dumblefork lists, gets fixed here. A little surprised you didn't add 1x Deja Vu to cover for the lost Clone Chip.
  • Street Peddler - Is this worth it, especially when you are not maxed out on Inject yet? When I was playing Peddler in Dumblefork variations, I felt the need for 2nd SoT to cover for lost cutlery. Then I converted to Inject and never looked back again.
  • Corroder - In the field of Bullshit NEHs very reasonable tech card, although for me D4v1d usually was enough. Maybe you could drop Knifed if running Corroder?

Regarding quantities:

  • I really like the return to 3x Faust land. No point in risking a breakerless draw like mine vs your NEH in swiss at Grajfer.
  • Don't like a single Clone Chip, still not sure if NAT (which i love) justifies its loss. And if it does, 1x Deja Vu really wants to be here.
  • Not sure about a single Turntable. I feel the critical mass of anti-NEH cards is needed. Maybe having NAT and Corroder you are contibuting to this mass and its fine.
  • Not sure about a single Medium. Same reasoning as above.
  • How are we fighting Architect again? Dataucker + Faust + E3 right? Since E3 and Datasucker are both 1-ofs now I can imagine potential consistency problems.

Thoughts?

17 Mar 2016 Zakalwe

Only one choice stood out to me, I know Neutralize All Threats is 0 but it costs 3 influence! What about HQ Interface instead and that frees up 1 influence for another parasite or career fair? Also Neutralize All Threats doesn't synergise with Career Fair or Street Peddler but HQ Interface does work with Street Peddler.

Now I get that it's Whizzard: Master Gamer and you'll be trashing everything anyway 90% of the time, but there are some cases (such as traps or really expensive assets like Sealed Vault or even a Marked Accounts (that is still in HQ where it might be better not to trash them.

17 Mar 2016 romanoSoprano

Thanks for your comments guys.

@Zakalwe

I think we need to reconsider what Career Fair really does for us. It's (just) a 3 credit discount, which occupies another card slot though. What's more, you need to have a proper target for it available, else you only hold a 'coupon'. How I look at NAT is: you get an HQI with career fair (modded in fact, which is valued even higher in terms of influence) already built into it, plus the street peddler discount. Since there is tough competition for each card slot in this deck - as you can see from the points @apo brought up - I believe it's a great deal we're getting here. Aside from just theory and deckbuilding, it also works great in practice, as it helps you take advantage of even smaller windows of opportunity. "The inches we need are everywhere around us" :)

As to meeting expensive assets - we shall keep in mind NAT works for the first encounter with a trashable card, which means we've got our Whizz credits available. If we were any other runner, I probably wouldn't go with NAT. But playing Whizz I'm surely trashing those Marked Accounts anyway, so that those agendas got nowhere to hide :) While the downside might be real for Adam (and he still copes!), for Whizzard it's laughable.

17 Mar 2016 romanoSoprano

@apo

Regarding Street Peddler - it's a constant battle. Inject vs Peddler, Programs vs Events, Cutlery vs Parasites, Cards vs Credits - lots of synergies and anti-synergies at the same time ;d

I think we could go with -2 peddlers +1 deja vu +1 inject (or datasucker) for example. My girlfriend was actually running a slightly less crazy list (= without peddlers), and I think those were the exact changes we made there. The reason I didn't max out on Inject was the limitation of 1 CC and next copies of inject being a blank if I for example trashed 2 Fausts right away ;d Street Peddler also comes with it's own issues as it might lock up 3 events, so yea, you might be right we don't really need it.

Regarding Corroder and cutlery - I like keeping Knifed around if there is even a hint of Blue Sun in the current meta. You would be totally right to assume that Corroder doesn't see play too often. Then again, when it's needed, it seals games. It was quite relevant in a total of 4 games over 3 SCs. In other games it probably allowed me to contest some rushed Wraparound remotes from time to time as well. Not impressive, I agree. But when you know your match-ups and only make use of it when it counts, rather than installing it for the sake of a nice looking rig, I think it pulls it's weight. I would probably get another copy of Knifed if I was to drop it. Having any of the 'normal' breakers around also limits the number of possibilities for the corp to build a server with Swordsman where you can't get in without Faust.

Regarding Turntable - I think people were really fine using either Clot or Turntable vs NEH. I think that having both, even though just in small quantities, makes this match-up very reasonable.

Vamp - well, let me assure you it's a keeper :) It being a hard counter vs CI is just a bonus. We've got an impressive late-game and this greatly improves our chances of getting there and taking advantage of it, making up for the couple of turns in which we missed Faust or pancakes or w/e. Also, while Palana might indeed be out of reach (unless they get some imperfect draw), it sure works as Caprice counter vs ETF. In future packs we're getting quite a few cards, which do nothing more than buy the runner 1-3 turns of play. Namely: - Political Graffiti - The Black File - The Price of Freedom

and well - they got nothing on Vamp ;d

18 Mar 2016 RFX

I might have missed something, but how do you deal with Swordsman without Mimic? The only answer I see in your deck is insta-parasite, but since you only have one clone chip, chances are low that this will work consistently. Or is the plan to just let Swordsman fire, install another copy of Faust, and kill swordsman with parasite?

18 Mar 2016 apo

@RFX Installing Mimic preemtively kills your tempo too much. So yeah, YOLO. Or in this case you only live three times.