Dummybat (Dummy Box DLR MaxX) - 3-0 Cambridge GNK winner

Look, I know: who the fuck brings DLR to a GNK? Several people were going full try-hard for Nationals practice, so I thought I'd join in. In my defense, we had Hydra AgInf, Despy Whizz, and Moons there too. Sorry.

Not many surprises with the card choices, I think. Vamp is CI tech because I found I'd be losing games to them while I had 40+ credits and they did not give a single solitary shit that I'd Siphoned them a bunch of times. Stimhack is for remote pressure with your breakers in the bin. The one I've Had Worse is a tech card for Psychic Field and similar nonsense. The Hacktivist doesn't feel very high impact and is only really good for clearing Scarcity (losing Employee Strike for Dummy Box sucks).

I underestimated how obnoxious Dummy Box was going to be in this shell. I am bad at evaluating cards.

Q: how do you beat Moons with this?

A: mulligan for Scrubbers, and if you don't have them by turn 3 at the very latest you try to land a blind Siphon, whiff, concede and move on with your life. Blacklist is also horrible against this deck.

Q: how do you beat turn 1 or 2 Scarcity with this?

A: you don't

Tournament report:

Game 1: Win vs PE

I faceplanted a Snare! poking R&D early, but fuck it, you're MaxX and that's four credits you don't have to Siphon away later. This was a Ben Musahi/PriSec-style PE, but I assumed there'd be a one of Scorch in there somewhere so played around it. Siphon, Vamp, mill a bunch of cards, eventually mill out with 3 cards in hand, no cards in stack and Levy used. There was also a scored House of Knives, so it was getting a bit hairy.

Game 2: Win vs AgInfusion

This is Hoyland/Hydra style AgInf, with some tweaks. We'd played this matchup in the pub the day before for Nats testing purposes and I won that, but while constantly terrified of Blacklist. That was a mill win, this was agenda points. Cortex Lock on HQ early was rough - I had MkUltra available but there was a Caprice behind it, so that closed off Siphons (I'd normally eat the net damage, but I had all three Deja Vus in hand). Got quite lucky with a Mad Dash into Archives early-ish to score two GFIs, so then it was time to hunker down and protect the DLR engine until I could poke enough cards into Archives for the win. I milled a Jackson and a bunch of economy in one turn, apparently, which didn't hurt.

I think Friends into Tech Startup or Blacklist ruins you here, because they've got lots of money to trash your stuff. Thankfully Dummy Box is extremely rude.

Game 3: Win vs Spark

Ollie was 4-0 going into this match, so I took it slow and steady while trying to figure out the plan. Pulled the Astro from R&D turn one - better lucky than good. Trashed Jeeves and asset economy, kept him poor by forcing rezzes and Siphoning, but I'd seen Exchange of Information and Closed Accounts so was clearing tags as I went. Found two more Beales from centrals, kept the money down as much as I could, and was about to go tag me for the mill win when I tried a cheeky mill, mill, check archives and snuck the last agenda.