[Throwback] Rewiring Returns Reinvented - 2-1 @ EMEA Team

About a week before flying out to EMEA I still hadn't found a throwback corp I was particularly happy. I knew I was playing either HB or Jinetki and had tried version of Cerebral Imaging and Industrial Genomics I was OK but not super happy with. Then while idly scrolling through HBs rotated card pool I spotted Brain Rewiring. I already knew I was playing another combo kill deck in the standard tournament so the leap to Djupstad Grid was easy, but unlike Reeducation, Brain Rewiring lets the runner draw a card. A quick search for "on score" effects led me to Vera Ivanovna Shuyskaya and the combo was complete.

The rest of the deck is about compressing clicks as much as possible for combo turns, and money and draw to find it all as quickly as possible. This is also why we're playing Sportsmetal: Go Big or Go Home. In theory there are multiple ways to fire the combo entirely from hand but on the day I never needed to and it's very difficult to hold all those cards in hand.

Quick recap of games on the day:

Game 1 vs @koga on Steve Cambridge: Master Grifter I've been a big fan of koga's Amani Sports variations recently so it was a great pleasure to sit across from him game one of the day and pull out Sportsmetal. My main memory of this game was installing 3 naked remotes over the course of a few turns, all of which were Wage Workers. When my opponent got to 5 points I turned to my teammate @davz131 and showed him a hand of 8+ cards with 2 combo pieces in it. We agreed I should gamble on an RLC and it pays off so the kill is landed. Koga's reaction to the deck is one of the highlights of the whole weekend for me.

Game 2 huge apologies to my opponent for this game for not remembering their name or deck. It was peak heat of the day and a week later my memory has completely faded. All I know is the combo happened again and just before I scored Brain Rewiring I looked at my credit pool to see only 4 credits left, had a little panic and asked how many cards in hand to see only 3. Phew! Sorry!

Game 3 vs @bridgeman on MaxX A scary (but lovely) opponent on a scary deck. I get a bit lucky when I see Maw go in the bin to MaxX trashing. The game is tense throughout. 2 rewirings are stolen from the remote just before kills, with the final one putting Bridgeman on 6 points. I still have Djupstad Grid and Vera Ivanovna Shuyskaya on the table though so we go for a hail mary Fast Break to find the last Rewiring, which I do. It gets installed, biotic, score it out, use the ability to shuffle back 2 cards and say out loud "just don't draw Steelskin". Vera triggers and... it's a Steelskin. The pros really do draw better. A really fun game to end the day on.

I really enjoyed playing throwback, especially getting to play against so many great and lovely players.

Huge shoutout to team EA Sports and especially my teammates for the day @CobraBubbles and @davz131 for keeping the spirits up.

My runner deck is here