Whoolizard - Eindhoven Regionals 1st place (Swiss 1st)

Deck played in the Eindhove Regionals where I took 1st. Didn't drop a single game (7-0), so naturally extremely satisfied with it's performance.

I decided to take a break from my normal reg-ass Maxx since my name isn't Dan D'Argenio and I do fear chronos project and blacklist. In fact both cards had kicked me in the teeth several times on the previous regionals, so I was looking for a new runner. The whizzard list developed by Steven Wooley and popularized by spags was a godsend, and in testing it quickly showed to be really solid. The econ, draw and breaker package is just so good, and whizzard his ability has never been more relevant with all the RP, HB and NEH decks floating around.

Sadly the tournament only allowed cards up to Breaker Bay, so I couldn't play NRE. We also noticed in testing that Whizzard is very susceptible to getting rushed, so most of the tweaks I did where with the goal of speeding him up. Lastly I wanted some tech against butchershop which is just everywhere, and 3 IHW really doesn't cut it.

Therefore I made the following main changes:

• -2 symmetrical visage, + 2 inject: the visages always felt like the weakest link in the deck, since between drawing a card to getting your cred, loading kati and developing your board state there just isn't enough time to pressure an opponent who plays correctly and tries to rush you. The injects get you to your econ, IHW vs butchershop and with the help of clone chip allows you to install your breakers on the fly. It does have the drawback of putting more pressure on your clone chips which you generally want to keep to recur your parasites, but I find this to be mostly only relevant vs RP where you have a bit more time to setup.

• -2 NRE, +1 SMC: as mentioned chrome city wasn't legal, so I originally put in a 2nd atman as per the original Wooley list. I decided last minute to play SMC instead, once again to improve the early game consistency. I also found that you don't have the MU to sport 2 atman with a full rig.

• Utopia shard: since I had 1 influence left, I opted for the shard instead of 3rd career fair. Butchershop is just too hard otherwise, since they can get rich with just operation econ alone, and grind out your IHW with their plethora of kill cards. Shard is also insane in nearly every matchup, allowing a pseudo-legwork just by running archives.

• -1 Liberated, +1 stimhack: I just love stimhack from playing Maxx, and 3 Liberated was sometimes just too much. It also goes well together with SMC for the atman4 out of nowhere.

• -1 Datasucker, +1 Nerve agent: I thought the deck lacked HQ pressure since it doesn't play Imp, so I opted for Nerve agent instead. This was definitely the wrong call, I never installed it and played a ton of RP where the 3rd sucker would have been vastly superior.

Short report of the day, my memory is a bit blurry but luckily Krystian from Teamworkcast recorded most of the games so hopefully they land on Youtube soon!

• Round 1 vs Mark playing NBN: MN. He can only muster a pop-up in front of R&D, I have econ and Medium in hand. Game is over quickly after.

• Round 2 vs Krystian playing RP. He gifts early, showing me grails. Great, now I have to basically find all my breakers before I can make a run. I do manage to find and install them except for Yog which I keep in hand, meanwhile I have to let a Nisei go. Soon after he installs another agenda in the remote, I drop the Yog with sucker support and bust his remote. From then on I basically have his remote locked, I think I win on medium dig afterwards?

• Round 3 vs Jeroen playing RP. He keeps an iffy hand and has to leave R&D open on his first turn. Once again I have econ and medium in hand, and I score an early Nisei. Meanwhile I can keep his asset econ in check by being Whizzard, but he plays a ton of celebrity gifts and get's rich anyway. This allows him to shore up centrals and build a scoring remote, luckily he only manages an NAPD. I manage to steal the Nisei he installs afterwards, but this leaves me very poor as I dont have a good economy going yet. I manage to get a few accesses on R&D before it get's too taxing, play psi game on TFP but lose. R&D get's too taxing, I miss the TFP in his hand a few times which leaves me poor and he manages to score it out. By then we are already playing for a very long time and his deck starts running out, R&D is too taxing so I keep running HQ where I know there is at least 1 TFP, probably 2. I keep missing it on HQ access, he IAA what turned out to be Hades shard, I can make 1 more access on HQ with 2 creds remaining. We both bid 0, so I barely get the win. Fucking psi games man.

• Round 4 vs Ronzacapa playing Butchershop. We know each other's deck very well since we drove up together and play each other weekly, so he knows to try and rush me. He installs astro behind wraparound, like a real lucksack I have the david in hand to go steal it. He midseasons me after, I have 2 IHW in hand so I go broke and take 3 tags, which I clear over multiple turns. Meanwhile solidifies his remote with enigma, however I have a yog in the bin from an earlier inject which I clone chip. My david has run out however, so he installs a beale in it. I lucksack again by drawing the corroder, and get up to 4 points. I predictably get midseasoned for a ton once more, by then I have 3 IHW in hand so I just go tag me. He doesn't seem to be doing much else from that point, so I correctly guess he is flooded. I take some shots at HQ but keep seeing scorched, afterwards he told me he always had at least 3 agendas in hand. I make a random run on archives after he overdraws and see a beale; he is definitely flooded. I finally get the last 2 points from his hand before he finds Jackson.

• Round 5 vs Steve playing RP. I get rushed behind lotus, however I have hotel going which draws me into SMC and Stimhack in hand for atman 4. He tries to push another agenda behind lotus, so I am ready to go get my atman however the last 2 cards from hotel contain the atman. I am too poor to install it and run, so instead I intentionally lose it to pup on a central. Stimhack + clone chip to install, and I fetch the other Nisei from remote. Meanwhile I can keep his asset econ in check, he gets remote locked and I medium to finish it off.

I finish swiss in top seed, my round 1 opponent in elims is Jeroen from round 3. Since I know his RP and believe Whizzard has a good matchup, I decide to run first. Frankly I hardly remember anything from this game, except it's a classic whizz beatdown where I keep him poor and get my rig and econ going.

After winning my elims 2 I get to the finals, where I once again have to play Jeroen his RP. Third time today, what are the odds. Early game I see enigma HQ. Next turn he gifts and shows Hades. I install Yog on my turn and go get it. Risky play by the opponent, but he had a strong remote and could have probably scored it if I didn't have the yog. I can keep his econ in check despite giraffe, and I start parasiting his R&D ice. I start Medium dig, takes a while but eventually score Nisei. He installs susan which slows me down as I dont have david, but a slow parasite + atman 4 allows some accesses when susan is on strength 4 however medium dig whiffs. Next turn I blow up the susan with help of some sucker counters, medium dig some more and finally see the Nisei for the win.

Since I played 5 RP, the deck predictably did very well. The tweaks I did to speed it up definitely paid off, since I got set up much faster and hardly had to give up early points to my opponents. I didn't really miss the NREs, which while super efficient just roll over to power shutdown which I believe will become one of the hottest cards in the new meta.

Thanks to spags and Wooley for building the deck, it's just very solid and so much fun to play.