Prison Ship - The Shaper Exterminator - (5th @APAC)

I’m also super excited to share the list! I’ve put a lot of work into it in the last two weeks and I’m really excited to see what innovations may come about.

On runner side: I played a modified version of @CritHitd20 Metabreaker Wu. I played 2x deep dive because it's very good with Stargate for a huge finish on DJ Sable. It was a blast to play and only dropped game one, but nothing too original you can hit me up if you want the exact list.

The Story: After playing in the Delaware CO it was pretty clear to me that we are in a runner meta. If you want to do well in tournaments you have to win corp games and “not lose” runner games. So I started looking at options. I was of the opinion at the time that Ob was mostly a gimmick. This deck may have never been built if it weren’t for a few J-net bugs that left me thinking Ob was way better than it is. Two weeks ago you could over install an asset and J-net would trigger an Ob search. This led to a deck that would install something that cost 2, rez it and over install to search for bladderwort. I crushed a few poor Jnet opponents before someone pointed out to me that I was blatantly cheating, but I was hooked. Determined to find a way to make the deck at least playable I continued testing and innovating. I went into APAC thinking I would win vs anything that wasn’t Freedom or consume loup. Though I think Freedom is fairly strong right now I wasn’t expecting a lot with all the shaper/boat hype. I was pleased to be right. I did end up running into one of the two Freedom players in the swiss and managed to win with some of the best captaining 🚢 I did all day. It was an extremely close game! My opponent played very well!

The Idea: What does this deck do? It kills runners. How does it do that? An absurd amount of value. Try to keep both players poor. The runner loses once they run out of gas money so keep up the pressure and you’ll sink that boat eventually 😉 The deck is a bit contrary to the normal corp strategy since you actively want to be poor so the bladderworts hurt. The deck has a fairly straightforward strategy, but piloting is a blast with many interesting and impactful decisions.

Combos: Ob is all about the combos!

Kill Combo: amavric came up with the fantastic Gunboat DLOW showcasing the MCA Drago BOOM! combo. This is a great kill combo and though this deck can take that route it rarely closes using BOOM!

Value Combo: This is definitely my favorite and a big part of what took the deck from only ok to top tables. Click 1 MCA (from 2 to 3 counters) > Click 2 trash MCA > Summon Drago with Ob > Click 3 Adv Drago > Click 4 Adv Drago > Tag the runner > Click 5 Trust op, reinstall MCA > Click 6 MCA > Click 7 profit! On the next turn the runner has 2 clicks and a tag and hopefully a lot of other problems. And this happens one MCA turn before the runner often thinks they need to worry!

NASX: This isn’t exactly a combo per se, but NASX is essential to allowing you to hold enough credits to rez ICE and still hit 2-3 netdamage with bladderworts. I always put at least one credit on NASX so I can switch it for any of the one-cost power cards, but I often fill it with close to as many credits as possible to stay poor and then pawn it off with Excavator once I have another one.

Replays (the good part): The best way to learn about a deck is to watch it in action! Sadly you won't find this deck played anywhere on the APAC stream. I was a bit concerned after what happened in worlds and then I misplayed and lost game one on stream here in APAC so I asked not to be streamed. So replays is all I've got for you. I definitely feel like my play in these games can be improved upon, especially game one of the cut I made 2+ major errors in the last 2 turns because I assumed there was no way I could lose.

Swiss Games: One, Two, Three, Four. ID to cut

Game 3 Vs thepatrician's Freedom is a must watch <3

Note: Waiting on consent from opponent's before posting all replays.

Cut Game one: Odol played very well, but I completely misplayed because I didn’t think I could possibly lose. Don't make this mistake friends, netrunner is never over until it's over ❤️

Cut Game Three: This is a very interesting match vs the second place lat deck. @iceprisma played extremely well! I’m of the opinion that this is a winnable, but not favorable matchup. Paricia single handedly won the game, I was not expecting to see that card in APAC and big props to @Sokka234 for building a phenomenal runner list! Na'Not'K came in clutch BTW 😂

Testing games: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 number 4 showcases a very quick win for Ob and 5 is a very impressively played win by sable.

Thoughts on cards: Influence seems pretty set to me, I don’t think it changes if you keep the same game plan.

Formicary: Is a dream card in this deck, I would play 10 if I could! It helps you stay low on credits, disrupts the runner, it costs 2, and it’s fun 😃 I love how many cards I thought were "bad" I put 3 copies of in this deck 😅 Note Formicary is hard to use on J-net. You have to set auto resolve to "never" then change that right when you need to use it to avoid giving your secrets away.

CSR Campaign: Your ideal turn is Install > Install > Install, Click MCA or Play Operation. CSR fits really well into everything this deck is trying to do and also costs 2!

Economic Warfare: This was a later inclusion, and out of all the cards in the list it’s one of the few I think could be flexed out. It fits well into the keep the runner poor and #value game plan. A very poor runner is usually a lot weaker than a 5+ credit runner (see Sure Gamble). That being said Economic Warfare often sat around un played. They did have an amusing effect on experienced players who would mumble about having to end on <4 credits and start looking for a not always advantageous way to use up money.

Ice Wall: Great gear check, if they get a breaker then it becomes a one credit trash tax, definitely still useful. Ice Wall can also be advanced to #spendthatmoney with spare clicks. This is interchangeable with Tithe if you like 3x Tithe better.

Azef Protocol: Azef seemed like the best way to use the last two agenda points since you can score it with MCA or jam it for 2 extra damage. You could definitely play 2x False Lead, but since the runner getting to 7 is the way you lose it’s a bit of a liability.

Please like, comment, subscribe, and hit me up with thoughts and questions! I would love to make deck list of the week having missed it by one 3 times now ❤️

I would like to thank NISEI for running a great tournament! All the judges and my wonderful opponents! I would also like to thank @BinkBonkle and @FireRL for helping me test before APAC and the whole ECG for all your encouragement and support ❤️