This Deck Still has Shop in the Title (FFGC Reg 1st Place)

Venue: Fantasy Flight Games Center on 5/21/2016. 42 players.

Decks: Ken Tenma: Express Elevator to Hell: Party Edition, New Angeles Sol: This Deck Still has Shop in the Title.

Swiss standings: 8th place. 13 points. 6-3-1. Tenma 3-2, Sol 4-1

Round 1: Noise, lose 3-7. ETF, win 4-2 (time).

Round 2: Foundry, win 7-4 (next ice gets to be a problem). Nasir, win 7-0.

Round 3: Noise, win 7-4. Sync, win 7-5.

Round 4: Noise, win 7-5. Sol, lose 6-7 (to a fantastic topdecked Psychographics after time was called, epic game).

Round 5: Whizzard win 7-0. NEH lose 4-2 (Traffic/Scorch/Scorch through Plascrete).

Top Cut:

Win 7-0 vs ETF. Siphon lock.

Win 7-0 vs Palana. Siphon lock.

Win 7-6 vs Leela. Taxed out faeries with double sentries on all centrals.

Win 7-6 vs ETF. Fired ABT hit 3 agendas early without Jax. He came close to winning thanks to upgrade spam stopping Siphon lock, and 3-2s but I dug RnD for the 4th agenda.

The gestation of the deck:

Like my Ken Tenma deck, I played an earlier version of this deck this season, before trying something else out and being disappointed with the new contender’s performance (Palana in this case). Sol didn’t receive as extensive of a readjustment as Tenma did, but relevant changes were made.

This deck is FA with a glacier twist. Situation depending you can push agendas normally or FA with Grid/Astro. Scoring at least 1 behind ice is usually necessary for a quick game. Ice makes SanSan Grids really taxing to trash. News Hound is so good, you guys.

Deck taxes the crap out of Faust, with a plethora of big ice and multiple subroutines. Targeted Marketing either makes a lot of money or keeps them from playing key pieces of their rig in a timely manner, and both options work for you. Anarchs are especially vulnerable to TM, with how cookie-cutter a lot of the lists look. (Faust, Wyldside, Chrono, etc). Just name Siphon vs Crim. You’ll always regret naming something else. Shaper can be harder to call. SMC is an option. Chameleon is hilarious. Personal Workshop decks cry every time.

Card choices:

Caduceus: Let’s get the weird stuff out of the way. I’ve been playing a bit of Gagarin, but I didn’t feel comfortable with how drawn out the Whizzard match was every game. I was thinking about how often I was thrilled for early Caduceus. When I was trying to figure out what deck to play (the night before, again), I thought back to my Sol build, which had 4 influence I had never settled on. I decided to slap two Caduceus into the list and head to Jinteki. I was not disappointed. Happy to see Caduceus every time. Best turn 1 ice in the deck by far. 3 cards for Faust, or they give you money to save a card, which I feel like is almost always the wrong call with this deck. Amazing tempo.

Improved Tracers: No Breaking News. 1 Tracers. I know. This was one of the last changes I made, after noticing the deck incidentally ran 11 tracers (12 in the final version) and that the +1 strength had IMMENSE implications vs Faust. Archangel, Viper, Ichi, and the 3 News Hounds all require an extra card after scoring this. Caduceus gets boosted out of Mimic range. It messes with Atman. Boosted traces are highly relevant for Caduceus and Resistor and Ichi. The deck is already rife with D4V1D targets, so more isn’t a real draw back, and enables baiting D4 counter prior to Assassin rezzes. Tutorable with Fast Track, also. I only scored it once on the day, against Nasir with an eventual Toolbox. This was relevant. Really relevant. Breaking News was almost always treated like a blank 2/1 anyways so I wasn't to sad to see it go (trashing Wyldside doesn't feel that important here, as the ice is so taxing to Faust I'd rather have them have to decide on a taxing run or to just pitch 2 end of turn).

Resistor: I wanted something to punish tag floating a little, with the News Hounds.

Viper: This used to be a Swordsman. More Faust hate felt redundant. Viper did more work on the day than Swordsman would have.

Global Foods Initiative: I think I scored this only twice. It is not really any more awkward than a 4/2 would be, and reduces density, so even if it sits in my hand a few games I still feel like it’s the right call here. You can occasionally push one out really early which is huge.

Honestly, the rest of the deck is pretty standard. FA things. Glacier things. Anarch hate.