Ampère ça gère ! - Undefeated @French Nationals (3-0)

Stux 214

Why Ampère ?

Let's say you're an average player playing a few games here and there, never netdecking nor looking at the meta, and the Nationals happen to be in your town. What do you bring ?

In my case the answer was obvious : the biggest trash pile I could. That's basically the genesis of this deck. It runs pretty well for what it is, but I would have never expected to make it unscathed through the rounds (didn't make it to top cut because I lost all my runner games).

The wins

I think the games here deserved a bit of storytelling.

  • The first game : Runner has 6 points and Orca installed. R&D is protected by a rezzed Anansi and there is an unknown upgrade in the root. Runner installs Eru Ayase-Pessoa and runs open archives with 1 cred and 3 cards in hand. They didn't find the winning agenda, then accessed the upgrade, which turned to be Ganked!, and encountered Anansi. With only 3 cards in hand and no way to break it, they got flatlined.

  • Second game : Runner struggled a lot to find their econ and most of my servers stayed uncontested for a while. At some point they run HQ with only 2 cards in hand and got Snare!'d.

  • Last game was my favorite given how close it was : Sabotage Esâ with their full breaker (Laamb + Begemot and 4 cores) meant they could pass any ice I'd put their way. Econ wise I'm not that bad, but they already stole an agenda, and now they run and steal another 3 pointer, ending their turn with 3 cards in hand. Lucky mandatory draw and I make them pay : Punitive Counterstrike got rid of their hands (lucky for me, no Steelskin Scarring), Angelique Garza Correa delivered the killing blow. As someone later told me I should have played them in reverse order : Angelica first (less chance to get Steelskin, and then punitive).

"Luck is when preparation meets opportunity". Sure I was lucky in this, but I had the tools to kill and credits to pay for them.

The Deck

This deck is a killer glacier, and I need to add a disclaimer here : this is a slooooow deck. I was lucky to end my round quickly, but most of the games I played outside the tournament lasted for more than an hour, sometimes nearly 2h.

The Agendas

Agendas are all the annoying to score™ I could get my hands on. Taking damage, removing cards from the board, taking tags or losing click and credits, you get something when they're stolen coz you don't plan to score them anyway.

The killing

You always need more than one card to win (unless runner is very careless), but you have a few options. Most straightforward is Public Trail + Hypoxia + End of the Line. You only have one Gaslight to tutor so most of the time you'll need to draw them which takes time. Hypoxia should be scored as soon as you have the opportunity tho, as taking a core will make runner easier to kill subsequently, and you have Angelique Garza Correa to combo with ETL.

The other combo is based on Punitive Counterstrike. As soon as you draw it, runner stealing agendas becomes your wincon. If you're early in the game, you cound even let them steal 2 agendas on purpose just to trigger punitive.

Clearinghouse is to force a runner that's a bit too careful to run, and Urtica Cipher is the opposite.

Where to play your Snare! require you to analyse runners behavior. If they run all your remotes, just install it. If not, might be better to keep it in hand for when they'll check HQ.

Icing up

It takes time to draw the needed cards to kill, fortunately this deck is good at surviving. Early on you want to ice up one remote with an eco asset, and then your centrals. In the lategame you'll want one remote with bick bois ices (Anansi, Cloud Eater and Týr) + une cheap ice ontop (to prevent "First ice encountered" effects - Thimblerig is a good candidate), one more remote with taxing ices, and the rest on centrals. Anansi can also be good on R&D. Special mention to Endless EULA : It's main purpose is to kill a breakerless Bankhar. Icing up more than 2 remotes might put you in jeopardy and I advise against it.

Asset spam

What to put in the remotes depends on what you have, but my rule of thumb goes like this : good eco (Charlotte Caçador, Janaína “JK” Dumont Kindelán) goes into scoring server, other eco goes into taxing server, trash eco (Marilyn Campaign, Nanoetching Matrix) goes into unprotected server. Then when rich enough you install an agenda or a trap in the scoring server and you let runner impale themselves while trying to pass Tyr and Cloud Eater.

Your plan might differ if you draw an early Hostile Architecture tho, as you should put THAT into the scoring server instead.

Clyde Van Rite is my favorite card, as no one expected it and it's such an annoyance, especially if protected by Hostile Architecture. If it's not, just put it in the taxing server, as runner will want to trash it at some point.

Summup

So that's it ! Bring a stupid corp, ice up, make the runner run and lose money, keep them poor, earn truckton of money, and when the time is right, pounce for the kill.

But most importantly : this deck is fun to play, and what's even funnier is to look at the face of the opponent trying to figure out what the hell is this fuckery

15 comments
26 Aug 2024 Council

I was very delighted when Davz told me about this deck. Excellent showing, what an idea

26 Aug 2024 nervousnightjar

That was the most fun match I had there! 10/10, would love to lose against it again

26 Aug 2024 lazy

Splendid

26 Aug 2024 davz131

Best and sickest deck. 10/10 would turn one, click one run naked Snare! after being told not to again

26 Aug 2024 Laoil

I lost against this deck but I had fun anyway. 11/10 would love to lose again but do a better job than @nervousnightjar at it

26 Aug 2024 Styxeries

It was very fun to watch ! Love the flair of the deck.

26 Aug 2024 Rainbow_Monkey

Step 2: learn how to run

26 Aug 2024 ayyyliens

I give this deck a 'trash the top card from the stack'/10

26 Aug 2024 trucy

Holy shit I need to try it. I'm convinced that the cornerstone of a good Ampère deck is the agenda suite, and you seem to have nailed it. Bien joué !

26 Aug 2024 ryanbantwins

This becoming an undefeatable endboss for so many players after the swiss rounds was just amazing to watch. Every time I looked, another poor soul died to this deck. Congrats!

26 Aug 2024 AlPi

The france nats legendary legend, such a cool deck

26 Aug 2024 wind0

It's incredible, I hate it!

26 Aug 2024 Metal

That deck was the secret boss of the event

27 Aug 2024 Ayah

I miss the 2 hours long games man...

29 Aug 2024 chouxflower

Love Ampère, I think it's secretly a good ID. Glad to see it do well. May have to try out this list