[HOL5] Weyland-Tennin Advancement Collection

Hack O' Lantern V is an event that'll continue to haunt my dreams for, like, at least a week. The Costume Party format let me reach back into the nightmare archives to raise rotated identities from the dead -- as long as they painted themselves a different faction.

Costume Inspiration

This time, Tennin Institute popped a massive Weyland sign on its roof, and went all in on the sometimes silly suspense of tons of advancement counters being picked up and delivered to launch a massive Project Atlas from hand with the help of some Biotic friends.

This was heavily inspired by (read: "nearly copied from") Ionfox's Built to Last deck seen at Worlds 2024 just last weekend. I mean, just you watch them "do the thing" and tell me you're not into it!

Changes and Influence

With a minimum of 45 cards, and a nod to the missing econ without the BtL ID, we included NGO Front to try for some additional econ and make use of the remote we Priority Constructed.

All the influence is the same at 3x Biotic Labor and 3x Spin Doctor. Draw into the combo pieces, spin back any early unwanted agendas, and of course have the combo pieces in the deck.

Did we do the thing?

This deck went 1-2-0 in the tournament. Tennin's ID ability fired a grand total of twice in 4 games. That's right -- my match against Crystal's Green Chiseled Abs Costume (Shaper Mercury) that we played a 2nd game just for fun in the same round. Runners be runnin' in this horror show, and I just didn't have much to punish them for doing so.

The 1 win came down to time, and boy was it a squeaker. Big shout out to GoggleChild for their incredibly gracious writeup of the R6 match. We "do the thing" and get an Atlas with just enough counters to pull off the last few combos. An extremely lucky top-decked Atlas gets the win in the final turn after the time call.

Also, huge shoutout to the everyone else who'd long since finished their final matches for their patience as I agonized over those last few Atlas counters.

Closing Thoughts

This was my second tournament-style event, and it was the first I didn't 100% netdeck. Making slots adjustments up until about an hour before registration made this a little more special.

The Austin meta is full of people that make this game fun and interesting. But most importantly, they're incredibly welcoming! I'm already looking forward to next year's Costume Party.