No breaks for musicians - 2-1 & 2 draw - Startup World 2022

Diogene 4173

Most of my points for the World Startup 2022 tournament came from this deck. Only one loss! This is a modified version of a previous deck.

This deck is so much fun. Virtuoso is really good. If I was going for the Deep Dive Sable, then Pennyshaver could be better. Otherwise, it always felt as if the corp was on the back foot against this.

The easiest way to defend is to put the agenda behind 2 or 3 ices as soon as it comes in hand, since this runner will get access to HQ at nearly every turn. Slow corps, who have a minimalist agenda suite (6 or 7 agendas), have an advantage against this deck.

The modification of the deck was the inclusion of Fencer Fueno and Scrubber (and removal of one Dirty Laundry and Mystic Maemi). This helped me trash assets and upgrade without becoming very poor.

After the event, I think the only change I would do to this deck is to replace the Dirty Laundry by Daily Casts.

This deck is particularly good in Startup, because there is no Anansi that can be problematic. In standard, Anansi would be a hard counter to this deck.

Thank you very much for the organizers and judges, who made the event run smoothly. It was even more intense for them than for the players. Congratulation, you are the one who made this competition happen.

Thanks for the amazing games with all my competitors. Winning felt great and losing felt good. This is how it should be.

Cheers!

2 comments
11 Oct 2022 napalm900

Absolutely fantastic you took this to worlds! Any memorable moments from your games you'd like to share? Did Tranq do some good work for you?

11 Oct 2022 Diogene

@napalm900 Tranquilizer was great against Weyland, because Weyland use expensive ices (Colossus, Pharos) which make it unlikely to be rezzed again, and it becomes a target for SDS Drone Deployment steal. Emergency Shutdown is more immediate, but Tranquilizer almost force the trashing of the ice, since it would be rezzed for only a turn. It is better, if possible, to use Tranquilizer on centrals ices, since a surprise rez become less likely when we have Backstitching (making the rez completely ineffective).

I had two memorable moments. The first was winning against PD (special mention to Oneromancer who is a fantastic person), pounding it left and right, completely disrupting the game plan of the corp, who had to rez too many ice for economy of the deck. And against PE, because the player had never encountered Virtuoso and was astounded by its power.

The fun part about this deck is that players never felt cheated againt it, but rather amused by the archetype. While all will acknowledge Inside Job for its power, I think the underrated champion card is Tread Lightly. For 1 and one influence, the card is a beast and can really punish the corp. It is even worse when used with Endurance. That card should be used more accross most decks.

Cheers!