Spirit Crusher (6th @ APAC CC 2024)

The premise

Having (as it turned out) correctly identified the strongest runner decks which would most likely show up at the APAC Continental Championship - Turbine Hosh and Tree Ari, both of which are on the slower side of setting up the rig, I wanted to bring something quick, jammy and not reliant on assets. Precision Design fit the bill the best.

Contrary to the latest trends, I'm not some PD gigabrain who's had hundreds or thousands reps on this deck. In fact, I've barely played any standard PD prior to the tournament, and none in a competitive fashion, because I always found the deck too boring for my taste. I believe I played under 10 practice games with this list before submitting the registration form (or, should I say, re-submitting, because I last minute switched from an entirely different corp dreading the lack of practice on PD). I'm not proud of this but it feels relevant to the conversation.

Having some Sports and Asa experience certainly helped, but outside of knowing the meta Runner lists, most of my lines on the day came from watching my opponents play this deck against me over the years. I've lost against PD countless times to impossible remote jams, miracle Seamless topdecks and R&D holding against multiaccess digs as if there's no tomorrow. How hard could it be to replicate such a spirit-crushing experience?

Turns out, not impossible.

The list

The deck initially started out as the @Sokka/TFP list from his latest stream. I'm a big believer in 2x Anoetic since a SkunkVoided remote is the single thing this deck is best at (okay, maybe one of two things, looking at you 🅱️eamless).
Having 0 Mavirus seemed wrong into an Aumakua-Entangler meta, so one of the BCs had to go. I tested the list with the TAI-B classic of DRM first, but it wasn't pulling enough weight, so in went the 3rd Spin.
I shuffled some ice around, swapped a Vovô for Greasing per @bking's suggestion in order to have more Drafter targets on T1 (thanks, Brandon!) and called it a day.

The performance

6 wins, 1 loss feels like an absurd result for an event of this caliber, almost akin to hacking the meta, this time however the hack was in plain sight all this time. Some of those games certainly came down to luck, but most of the time the PD just felt like a steamroller on crack. I won games where I was agenda flooded, agenda screwed, Seamless flooded and Seamless screwed. The only game I lost was a beautiful match against @Wikignometry who obviously knew the shell, the lines both as and against it and had a nicely positioned Runner. Even that game would be winnable with a slightly faster PD draw.
PD good. Winning not boring.

Replays:
Round 1 vs dudeydude on Hoshiko
Round 3 vs Wikignometry on Boring Lat
Round 5 vs Agasha on Jeitinho Sable
Round 8 vs Jai on Tree Ari
Round 10 vs profwacko on Reg Sable
Cut Losers 1/16th vs Toron on Turbine Hosh
Cut Losers 1/8th vs ManintheMoon on Sebastião

The hugs and kisses

Shout-outs to:
- The King for helping out with the card choices
- sebastiank for some last minute cut practice and discussion
- the TAI Breakers in general for helping test this deck, cooking up that sick Ari list (Lisan al-Jaib's writeup coming soon) and just being an awesome bunch
- muh homeboy Amarum for some of the best local jams, also for winning a damn interconts invite??? the dawg's cooking with gas
- deck playlist courtesy of rubenpieters

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