Make My Day (2nd place, MBH SC)

Make My Day is all about making your opponent sweat while they stare down the barrel of your oily hand cannon. It is a control deck that sinks its teeth in early and never let's go.

At the 2016/02/06 Store Championship at Mox Boarding House, Bellevue, WA, this deck finished first seed in swiss at 3-1 and 2nd place in the top 8 bracket at 2-1.

Deck Theory

This deck is designed to do one thing well: disrupt your opponent and make them use brain cycles to play around you instead of playing their own game. Above all else, when going to a tournament I value decks that burnout my opponents. It helps gain an edge in individual games but also puts additional fatigue on opponents I may see later in the cut.

Opponents have to start the game playing around usual Val tactics like Blackmail, Siphon, and Keyhole. Fighting all three is a losing strategy. If they suspect this is a DLR Val, they may try to focus on econ, but this is a trap with the extra focus on Siphon recursion and additional Vamps. I tend to let Adonis and Sundew make them money and lull the corp into security before taking it all away in big, tempo-reversing turns.

The big question is: why the bad pub approach? In this choke deck, Vigil typically nets me 5-10 draws a game. For 2, I can't pass that up. I don't even use the extra memory. Protesters puts extra squeeze on combo decks trying to hold cards and empowers Vigil even more. Heaping on extra bad pub with Journalism is typically safe after a Siphon turn when they likely just took 3. And then the free money for Keyhole runs and Vamps keeps me afloat in a deck with light econ. There's a sort of flywheel effect that takes hold until the game concludes.

Pilot Advice

I recommend going tag-me in all but the most heinous butcher matchups.

Save the Wanton for mid-to-late assaults on combo decks.

Parasites are primarily for Swordsman (yes, you will lose your first Eater), Turing, and Tollbooth.

If you haven't drawn into 2 Siphons (either naturally or via recursion), sometimes it is best to let the corp score early as it drains their econ while you dig. Even if they only have 5 to take, you want to have the threat to follow up with a second one immediately. Obviously this is not recommend if you suspect Astro or Nisei are trying to get scored.

Telegraphing Blackmails and Siphons with heavy Inject play is highly encouraged. All part of the plan to make 'em sweat.

Card Choices

Order & Chaos bad pub suite (Vigil, Investigative Journalism, Itinerant Protesters). I liked the idea of a Siphon/Blackmail recursion Val, but never really liked the premise of Wireless DLR. Vigil and Protestors seemed like a good fit for a choke deck, so I tried them out and had a lot of fun with it. Certainly no one is teching for this in a tournament.

Frame Job is a tech choice in a meta where there is enough News Team and Shi.Kyu. It also acts as a bad pub booster if I find an early 1-ptr like 15 Minutes. Most games this is not used. It's a remnant from pre-MWL when the deck included Fan Site. Would probably cut this for a Plascrete Carapace going forward.

Quest Completed is handy against glaciers that put all their defense into a scoring remote. Mostly HB and some Weyland. Eater with bad pub makes it pretty cheap to use and corps rarely see it coming.

Tournament Report

Round 1 bye. Boooo.

Round 2 vs Kenny (NEH). Kenny was playing a Fastro NEH and rode the Astro train while I made some Keyhole pokes and dug for Siphons. No luck.

Round 3 vs Kyle (RP). RP is a favorable match-up for this deck as it wants to go to a longer game and can't disrupt Itinerant Protesters much. Bad pub is also a force multiplier when having to run 2-3 servers in a turn. Kyle put up a good fight but was unable to gain a foothold.

Round 4 vs ??? (NEH). One of the Boise boys who came to town. I don't remember much about this game. I probably played a lot of Account Siphon and Keyhole :|

Round 5 vs Zach (RP). Zach mulliganed into an ugly hand and started the game ICE-less. This led to a click 1 Siphon, click 2 Jackson trash, click 3 Keyhole install, click 4 Keyhole run. The table didn't improve much beyond that for a medium length game, but I commend Zach for battling out that awful start and very nearly recovering towards the end.

Finished swiss in first seed at 16 prestige.

Top 8, round 1 vs Noah (NEH). My favorite game of the tournament. Noah's Glass Shop is a vicious animal that requires you to interact with it outside your comfort zone. Wraparounds-a-plenty, Siphon defense with unrezzed SanSans, and 24/7-Traffic-Scorch threat made this a nightmare to play against. Simply keeping NEH broke is untenable with the moves that can be made even at 0. I lucked into two early I've Had Worse and started going tag-me to assault R&D. Noah's first attempt to blow me up hit both. From then on, I had to carefully manage clicks and Déjà Vu to replenish I've Had Worse in my grip. Down to ten cards in R&D, Noah made a play to recycle meat damage with his last Jackson, but I was able to Keyhole out the last points I needed to close it. Super tense.

Top 8, round 3 vs Zach (RP). We meet again. Zach gets a normal start this time but doesn't quite have the defense in front of HQ to blunt Siphons. I break econ while Keyhole-ing until R&D gets low. Zach makes a play to score a Future Perfect before time is called, but there are plenty of points in Archives by the time I find a Blackmail to score them. At one point, he asked "how many Siphons have you played?" and I smiled as I showed him a single copy on top of many Same Old Thing and Déjà Vu.

Top 8, finals vs Noah (NEH). Noah had already beaten my corp in the finals, so this is the final game. I felt OK going into it knowing I won the last meetup, but of all the corps I'd seen that day, this was the last I wanted to play again. Noah leaves R&D open on turn 1 and I pull an Astro and a Beale off the top. Feelin' real good. Noah then scores back to back Breaking News and my heart sank. I knew then I had to play with maximum caution or lose the game. On turn 3, I'm not exactly looking at a lot of I've Had Worse in grip with a 50-card deck. I do everything I can to avoid tags and keep my hand bluffed protection while Siphoning and managing remotes. After what I felt was a sufficient amount of Noah drawing, I went in with a Wanton Destruction, looking to wipe kill cards. I only hit a single Traffic. Derp. Noah soon makes an attempt on my life with 24/7 but his first Scorch hits an I've Had Worse. I survive a little bit longer but could never justify going all out with three last Keyhole runs through a Data Raven and hoping that the last unrezzed card on the board was not a Jackson. Noah gets a Beale through with a SanSan and closes it out with another 24/7 assault.

Summary

I've been playing this deck since December 2015 and would recommend it to others. The deck is incomplete and has room for improvement. I have not yet been thinking about Mumbad cycle.

I recommend swapping the Frame Job for a Plascrete if you have a heavy Scorch meta. I would also recommend finding room for a Corroder to combat heavy Wraparound use, but you can win without it. One Datasucker could probably take the place of a Gambit or Day Job.

It feels dirty to spam Siphon, but next to DLR Val, she is basically a saint. Had DLR Val been more affected by errata or MWL, I'd think this could replace it.