Blue Kate (Core+Ashes) 2nd in Berlin

For our single Core + Ashes tournament, I (obviously) had to pick a runner. I didn't really want to play the obvious choice and go with Hoshiko, mainly because I've been playing with her a lot in Standard. The Shaper card pool looks like a pile of cards with no money, and I didn't want to dive into that problem. Plus, I really think Lat is boring, and I wanted to play with a new ID. I've tinkered with Az before, and although he's no where near as value driven as his Mom, Kate, I'm still drawn to that 1c discount.

Seeing as the ID is already discount oriented, I decided why not add extra potential value with Cyberfeeders (something I've added to almost every Az deck I've made, since it's one of the few hardware that can actually give value), and a Mystic Maemi, since we have a lot of great events, with many of them providing econ.

I decided to go the Aesop's route, and although there's not tons of things to sell, there's more than it looks like. There's always Daily Casts to sell, but you can also sell Flip Switches, Q-loops (once you have another to install) Earthrise Hotels (once they've drawn you 4 cards -- effectively 1c for 4 cards... that sounds kinda like Inject!). I've sold Cyberfeeder to get enough money to make a run I wouldn't have been able to. I really like selling The Class Act once I draw into a second copy; it installs for 3c with the Az discount, and you sell it for 3c, effectively making it a card that draws 4, letting you filter cards for several turns before refunding itself. There was a turn where I started on 0 credits, so the corp installed a Beale in their 4 ICE deep remote. By click 3, I had 10 credits, and Stimhacked the remote, installing Boomerang from hand with Masterwork, drawing a card, using Makler to break a Gold Farmer, gaining me 1 real credit from the Stimhack money.

Looking back, I should have played 1 Aesop's and 1 Hostage so I could use the extra Inf on a Corroder. 5 is too much to pay for a console with bad boost/break numbers. Also only 3 breakers is greedy AF, and I recognize this. Boomerangs and Inside Jobs help a TON while setting up, and I never had an issue getting in when I needed to. ...except when I forgot to Stimhack the remote I meant to, and instead just ran it with 3c, faceplanting into Archer. I meant to Stimhack, but I didn't want to ask for a takeback, since he already gave away the ICE information, and sacced a Cyberdex Sandbox to do it.

Anyhow, the list is super fun. It almost makes me wonder if there isn't a reasonable Az list out there in the competitive scene, waiting to be built. I think the real issue is that, whatever list that might be, it's probably still better in 419 =P