jaicanan't (The King's Feb AMT-Winning List, et al)

Preamble

I probably failed this deck.

There, now that I'm done feeling sorry for myself...

Pedigree

the king (and his oracle for the day utati) took first place at the Feb '24 AMT, going undefeated with this list alongside his Liberated Account mulch variant, which you can find here.

The list itself is derived from the Ob I took to 3-1 and 29th at CBI '24 (which packed -Magnet -Drafter +Manegarm Skunkworks +Formicary). Credit is also due to sebastiank for semi-independently arriving at the same list I did, and knocking my team out of Fite Club '24 with it!

Premise

In the dying weeks of 2023, the question on most peoples' minds going into the New Year Showdown and CBI had to have been, 'how do you consistently beat Audrey Loup'? The CBI top cut showed us a variety of answers to that question from the world's top players, ranging from Glacier Azmari to multiple Urban Renewal Ob variations, among others.

Well, I can't speak for those decks, and my form and gameplay leading up to the event was certainly not up to standard (and regrettably so, I would certainly have loved to show this deck off on stream), but the following sentence was my thesis statement when considering how to approach the problem:

"A Mavirus fire fetching Manegarm Skunkworks is a sufficiently strong combination to secure a remote versus all but the most built up of Virus Anarch boards."

Now, this statement is demonstrably untrue, especially with list knowledge and a sufficiently skilled Runner pilot, but there are enough tricks in the deck to compensate for that fact, and this deck is flexible enough to give its pilot a bewildering number of combinations and options for triggering the ID to push through those agendas.

Prestige

Mav>Skunk is the deck's marquee trick, but it's hardly a new one, and Obheads like Ysengrin and bblum have been exploring that avenue, among others (check out Ysengrin's Youtube channel for some excellent Rush Ob content!)

The Thimblerig-Border Control combination is perhaps slightly less well known, but definitely something that you won't forget if you've seen it once, whether if it's been done to you or if you saw it on stream somewhere. (For those unaware, BC can be popped wherever you are on the server, so Thimblerig can swap it in on a previously BC-less server to get a surprise ETR and Ob fire. There, now you're all caught up!)

Mav>Tucana is also a known combination; what it does in this deck - or, more accurately, what this deck does for it - is that Oaktown Renovation can be pushed with an IAA in econ-tight scenarios, and the subsequent AA the turn after usually puts you to enough credits to click 3 install+fire Mav>Tucana to reinforce your board without absolutely tanking your credit total like other Rush Ob variants are sometimes wont to do. Oaktown is a heckin' amazing card y'all, I don't know how else I can say this, you just have to try it for yourself.

Last and certainly not least, possibly the most contentious cards in the deck: Tatu-Bola and Formicary, both cards that have been in and out of various Ob builds over the months since TAI release. Tatu specifically I find to be especially useful to fetch as a first Tucana fire; it comes down for free even as a 2nd ice on a server, which helps a LOT when planning credit-perfect lines, and is an excellent psychological deterrent when you've dropped to low credit totals after an agenda push. Imagine if Tucana read 'when you score an agenda from this server, gain 4c'...

'But Jai,' I hear you cry, 'what about Formicary? It's not a good Tucana OR Ob target, and only being 1x you won't ever see it enough to consistently pull off the Skunk/Formi combination, and in a rush deck you rarely have the time to spend the click to install it anyway...'

Very valid points! In general, Mav>Skunk alongside the usual Ob suspects like Envelopment/Sandstone etc. are enough to keep out all but the most determined runners. But if it comes to it and you need a little more gas in the tank, Malaperting for Formicary is a perfectly fine play if you have a remote already set up or you're under Clot lock and fetching Audacity isn't an option. As for the time taken to install it...

It is, as they say, a helluva trick.

Postscript

It's not a secret that my CBI performance was a massive disappointment to myself for various reasons, and the month since then has been a valuable lesson in refocusing and recentering myself, to get my head back in the game for RWR and Continentals.

With that in mind, there are a few (a lot of) people who deserve specific shoutouts!

• TAIB: the best testing group a guy like me could ask for
• QtM: the best rivals a guy like me could ask for
• the king, Jinsei: happy new year, bozos
• KyraWNY, jan tuno: stay hydrated, boy
• Jinsei (again), Ion_Fox, TamiJo: casting is hard, you help me keep the spark alive

see y'all at RWR release

SHAABR friendos

Jai out