Best Meta of all Time - 1st and Undefeated @Intercontinental

Intercontinental Championship! What an epic tournament! I only snuck in by the skin of my teeth 😅 I took 6th at Cascadia, but @enkoder couldn't make it this year and my brother @Santa who took 5th place had already qualified by winning APAC. I was very motivated going in to make @enkoder proud of who got the hand-me-down invite.

I expected the decks at interconts to be a combination of the lists that did best at EMEA and the lists people used to get their high placements at continentals.

Corp side I was expecting Unband style HB - QtM AgInfusion - And any lists that had top four-ed a continentals.

Though a lot of the decks had slight innovations I was pretty much right. The only list that would have caught me off guard was @Santa's Treeline Pharos Outfit innovation, but since I got to help him build the list I knew what I was getting in for.

With all that in mind I set out to build a deck that could deal with Brân - Skunk + Void - Gearchecks - Assets, just hoping all my experience playing vs @Santa's Outfit/s would be enough to beat his monster of a deck.

Ever since Cascadia I have been convinced that Arissana's Conduit + Aeneas Informant Combo was the strongest win con currently available in standard. But after playing with different variations of the deck for a week or so I started asking myself "what was Arissana really bringing to the list?" and "Wouldn't this be better in Hoshiko?" I was also really impressed with the setup speed and power level of @Bridgeman Strike Fund + Price Hoshiko list. I tried my list with Moshing and The Price, but since I had so many important pieces I wasn't reliably able to play those cards safely. Patchwork ended up being the perfect solution to everything the deck was trying to do and once I stumbled onto that everything else fell into place. The finishing touch was unintentionally added by @whiteblade111 when he handily beat be with BathOb while staying at my place Friday night. After that crushing defeat I changed up the breakers and headed to bed.

Want Clot for Cascadia, answer play Hoshiko.

Want Conduit + Aeneas wincon for interconts. . . play Hoshiko.

You can win tournaments these days with any type of runner deck you want as long as it's Hoshiko 😉

- - - So the decks nuts and bolts🔧⚙️ - - -

If you haven't yet gathered all the information you need to play this list from everything above I'll try and elaborate some on the nuance (not so much of that) here.

Install the good cards > Trash anything noncritical to patchwork > pressure the wherever the corp is weakest > Focus on drawing aggressively > once you are fully set up transition to the conduit > 🏆

Labor Rights: Use it however you need. Trash it for Patchwork money (just not the 3rd one). Use it late game for extra gas. Play it mid game to shuffle back Steelskin Scarring to increase deck speed.

Chisel + Devil Charm: Chisel can come back with Labor Rights, but Devil Charm doesn't. Try to be more carful/cautious about using the charms over the chisels, but obviously they are strongest together.

The Breakers are the most efficient reasonable options in the game as long as they can actually break the ice 🤷‍♂️ (looking at you Buzzsaw), but just trash anything that's difficult to break (looking at you Brân). Ice Carver is also surprisingly helpful for certain matchups.

Bahia Bands and Hannah "Wheels" Pilintra what fun Cards!

You can find the intercontinentals stream here! There is an interview at the end of the stream where I answer some questions like "why En Passant??!?". NSG did a fantastic Job with this event, do check it out!

- - - Meta Love Letter ❤️ - - -

As the title suggests I'm extremely pleased with this meta. I think the dev/design team pulled off the ice thaw and Icebreaker power shift extremely well with the rotation of flashpoint. I have never felt like there was this much possibility in the card pool. So many decks are viable on both sides and there are so many things I have yet to even start testing. I know I put a lot of Jokes about Hoshiko above but please take them as jest. The only thing I could possibly criticize about this wonderful meta is Hoshiko's current and unfortunate ability to be seemingly the best at everything. That being said She is not broken, wildly overpowered, or even much stronger then the other IDs or factions, she is just extremely flexible and consistent. Those qualities are very helpful when creating good decks especially in a new and turbulent meta. It makes a lot of sense that with so much change in the card pool people are sticking to the familiar and consistent Hoshiko, but I hope her recent dominance won't discourage people from continuing to experiment with the other IDs and factions. She is definitely not the only viable runner. And, though I would love to increase runner diversity, this meta is already so much better than the one we had after Continentals season 2022. I would hate for any "philosophical based Hoshiko ban trying to improve runner diversity" to disrupt this very quickly evolving, currently corp favored meta.

This deck is a blast!! Please play it! Tell me what you think!! Hit me up with any questions in the comments or on Discord.

- - - The Games - - -

Round Two Vs @Watzlav - Dicey close game that almost ended as a timed tie.

Round four Vs @ Bridgeman - Difficult but well executed game by Bridgman with tough decisions on both sides. It's hard to score behind ice that gets destroyed.

Round six Vs @Sokka234 - I got very strong draw and Sokka played the hell out of a bad situation, but it's rough when you start turn 3 with:



Round Seven: Vs @Santa (Broski) - As entertaining as the game was for the audience and stream it was a truly sad game. Charlie's draw was worse then I've ever seen it. . . and we have played a lot of outfit games, the two of us 😉 His deck is extremely strong and was a very innovative adaptation on the BDO archetype he has been working on for so long. I was honestly sad to see it put up no fight. I certainly don't feel anywhere as favored as that match made me look. Sometimes one player draws all the nuts and doesn't share. Feels bad to knock out a teammate that way. Check out the streamed game here!

- - - Thanks Everyone - - -

It was an honor playing with such a talented group of players! Thanks to all of you who showed up, brought your all and put on such a wonderful show!
Huge thanks to NSG for running and streaming such a great event, and creating such an amazing set of new cards! Wow, so well done, thank you!
Big shoutout to my team! You all make this game so much more rewarding, valuable, and inspiring to play. Thank you all for your constant support and dedication to our goals!
Special shoutout to @whiteblade111 for somehow managing to improve both my decks without even trying. I guess I've just learned to listen when good players start spouting facts 🙃 It was so great to have you stay.
Thanks @BinkBonkle and @Wentagon for helping with the memes.

Lunch after interconts:
Me - "So how would you beat the deck Eric?"
Eric - "Probably Ice all 3 centrals ASAP"
Me - "Oh yeah that could work. . ."

LMAO 😂😭