Alice En Passant - 3rd place, Malaysia Nats2017 @ CnH

Alice En Passant - 3rd place, Malaysia Nats2017 @ CnH

So 3 days before the tournament, I decided to come up with something to play and ended up deciding to go with Alice because I have not actually built a deck or played this ID. I came up with a crude deck list, sleeved them up and played some games with Mestika and Vicky (who were graciously willing to travel all the way to meet up and play face-to-face games with me. Thanks guys!)

The original list was based on playing with Apocalypse but the results of those games were kinda underwhelming (tested against Tennin FA, Beyoken's CI and Gagarin Asset Spam) but it had some nice interactions that I wanted to play more around namely En Passant so I built this deck based on that idea. Note: I didn't have the/ chance to play this deck until the tournament so it may not have the right numbers.

Right off the bat, Alice's ability forces the corp to protect their archives. Having Maw and Bhagat allows me to pressure RnD and HQ. En Passant + DDoS/Spear Phishing makes it so that the corp has a difficult time protecting their servers.

Tournament report:

Went 2-2 for this deck in Swiss.

Round 1 vs. Jemison Astronautics = Win

Round 2 vs. Cerebral Imaging = Loss

Round 3 vs. Tennin Institute = Win

Round 4 vs. Palana Foods = Loss

Loss my last 2 games in the top cut as well against CI and CI.

Round 1 against Haq (Jemison) - I managed to install Maw and Bhagat and started the pressure early. Multiple DDoS and En Passants did what they were intended to do and cleared the way for me to pressure HQ and RnD. Eventually, the Corp couldn't keep their key cards due to the trashing from Maw and Alice's ability and I managed to steal enough points for the win.

Round 2 against JJ from KK (CI) - Bhagat decided to go on a trip to the Bahamas so I wasn't able to locate him even with all the card draws. Two of my Employee Strikes were effectively overwritten by "Clones Are Not People" and another Employee Strike through Same Old Thing was dealt with by the Corp using Biotic Labor scoring Project Vitruvius. Spear Phishing provided me some accesses but they were not impactful enough on the gameplan of CI. The game ended with the Corp having only 1-2 cards left in RnD. So so close..

Round 3 against Zaid (Tennin) - En Passant made short work of Tennin's advancable ice and Employee Strike gave me some breathing room to not have to run every turn. An early Turning Wheel allowed me to have a soft lock on RnD for the most part of the game and allowed me to check if the Corp was drawing problematic ice.

Round 4 against Jeff of the North (Palana Foods) - I managed to get Bhagat and Maw out early and got some trashes. En Passant cleared the way for RnD and everything was going fine until I made the mistake of stealing Obokata Protocol too soon and then got hit by double Punitive Counterstrike. This was one matchup I wasn't prepared against as I didn't know how the Corp deck plays so I'll chalk this up to my inexperience.

Top Cut Upper Bracket against Andre (CI) - I was able to keep RnD open with En Passant. No DDoS/Spear Phishing as I wanted the Corp to rez the ice but since he didn't so I trashed it away. Some accesses to HQ (Paperclip > Vanilla) let me steal a couple of agendas but that wasn't enough to stop the Corp from going off and flatline me. An early Maw would probably have been great in this matchup but the game was already over before I ever drew any.

Top Cut Lower Bracket against HQ (CI) - This match was over so quick, there wasn't much I could have done. All I remember was MCA Austerity Policy into Load Testing into HHN then BOOM! Everything went dark and silent.

Final Thoughts: Having faced 3 CI decks of different flavors, the matchup doesn't feel great. It sorely depends on getting Maw and Bhagat out early to break up the Corp's key cards. The Turning Wheel is superb as it gives a steady way to keep the pressure on. DDoS and En Passant really pulled their weight for me and I expect to see it more often in the future. Salsette Slums doesn't seem to be required as much nowadays since Friends in High Places is banned. Same Old Thing just feels a little too slow and not needed in most games.

If I were to play this again, I'd probably make the following changes:

-1 Spear Phishing

-1 Salsette Slums

-2 Same Old Thing

+1 Legwork

+1 Maw

+1 Bhagat

+1 Turning Wheel