UNDEFEATED SHAPER (BEST DECK???) (CO WINNER!!!)

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Whiteblade111 3051

I played this deck in a 20 person CO in Seattle. I went undefeated with the deck.

So why Shaper? I did a video on Ysengrin's channel about the meta and we spent about 15 minutes just absolutely dunking on Shaper. I realized I hadn't done any serious testing of Shaper, and my thoughts were based on earlier testing we did at the begining of the format, just after the boat ban. Then there was a comment on the video basically complaining about our discussion of shaper.

For some reason this got to me a bit, and I realized I needed to do more work. Koga had published a list that was using Wasteland and other pawnshop tools. I thought the shell was fine, and cut a ton of the bad cards for good cards. I also played Shaper because I thought it'd be hilarious to beat up the Americans with Shaper. The idea that Seattle might be the only meta this CO season that lost to Shaper is very enticing.

Some notes on how to play:

All the oldheads in the room will recognize this as standard control shaper. You want to install cards, make few runs and build up an economic lead. It's fine to let the corporation get up to game point, you just need to enter control mode after that. Reaver isn't mandatory, it's fine to tutor for it if you want to, but the deck has a lot of in built draw. We play a fairly standard suite of tech cards including Pinhole and Clot. Stoneship is a nice draw 3 with Reaver or stops kill combos. Beyond the tech cards we're playing standard shaper tools. The DZMZ's are concessions to memory. Nearly half this deck is programs. Conduit is our multiaccess. In fast matchups, a lot of the skill is finding spots to pressure the remote, then pivoting to a conduit dig. Conduit won me many games. Breakers are best in slot and low inf. Most breaking happens with Engolo early, or turbine'd regular breakers late game.

What I played:

Round 1: Alex

Alex was playing the Laura Azmari deck with kill. I wasn't worried about dying, I was worried about being rushed out. I got cryptocrashed twice. They made a push and I finally started running. I disabled their remote and then kept them in an economic lock. Once the breakers were installed the cost of doing the remote was fairly low. Once the remote was under control I pivoted to conduit on RnD and won.

Round 2: Charlie

Charlie was playing a fast advance Outfit I had seen him play before. I knew it was safe to let him get atlas counters, as I drew several early simulchips and an SMC I had clot on demand. Eventually Charlie pushed an Atlas with two counters, going to 3 points, and down to two credits. I have a Pantograph trigger.

I pause.

Time to be sick. I install a conduit off of Pantograph and run RnD 4 times, stealing two hostiles and a reg capture. I get three more Pantograph triggers and the game is over from there.

Round 3: ID

Round 4: ID (Isn't double sided swiss just wonderful?)

Cut game one: Joe

I choose to run my Lat into his Azmari. Joe is my friend from Vancouver and a very good Netrunner player. I knew he was playing Reeducation Neurospike kill. His trick was to get a keegan lane in the remote and then use Jua/Ping to hunt breakers and protect the agenda. We play a bit of back and forth, but my stoneships save me from the first reeducation score. I run RnD a bunch with conduit and hit air. Joe pushes again, and we have 25 minutes left in the round. I'm not proud of this, but I tanked for 15 minutes on what to do. I haven't handled a boardstate that complex in years, and I totally lost the plot and froze up. Eventually I figured out the right line, but I'd burned so much time we ended up playing to a tie on time, and I won on higher seed. I don't know why I froze up so bad, I'll need to reflect on that.

Grand Finals game one: Viktor

Viktor and Abraham are the two Seattle players I fear most, so playing Viktor in grands when I needed to claw back two was not ideal. Honestly, my Lat chopped up the Outfit. Misdirection and Clot with Engolo are just too much for the deck to handle. I then proceeded to play an absolute grinder of an Acme game versus Viktor in the reset to win the event.

Should you play this deck?

Is Shaper good? I don't think it's bad per se. It's definitely a meta call right now because many decks are completely disrespecting misdirection and clot. I think it struggles into Laura Azmari and PE to some extent. I don't think it's stronger than Hoshiko, but if you like interesting meta calls it's worth a spin. Joe played this deck on the day as well and really struggled with it, which is also worth noting.

My song of choice to listen to on repeat on the day was Anthems by Charli XCX.

Thank you to all the Seattle people for welcoming us, it was lovely visiting the city. Shout out to Joe for driving and the Vancouver meta for being awesome generally. What a lovely day.

25 comments
21 May 2023 anarchomushroom

My song of choice to listen to on repeat on the day was Anthems by Charli XCX.

good deck, better song choice

21 May 2023 maninthemoon

Thanks so much for coming down and helping make the tournament happen! Congrats the co was aptly named 😄👏

21 May 2023 cranked

there are no good shaper writeups

My song of choice to listen to on repeat on the day was Anthems by Charli XCX.

there is one good shaper writeup

21 May 2023 koga

This is lit, I should definitely shitpost more often

21 May 2023 FireRL (aka xFWx FIREBIRD)

Well done on your Victory @Whiteblade111! "Only meta this CO to lose to Shaper" hurts 😜. Our best Shaper players have in fact gotten soft and/or down on Shaper enough for us to all get too soft. Lesson to be learned by all - fair warning!

Curious though regarding the DSS comment: undefeated players could play as low as 4 games (in 4-round DSS) vs how many games minimum normally in a SSS (in a comparable-amount-of-time 6-round SSS)?

I'm thinking the 6 rounds of SSS took roughly the same amount of time as the 4 rounds of DSS, so if the answer is 4-5 it seems pretty comparable between the two. PLUS, for those not IDing, there are plenty of players at least 241ing, if not playing out the max, so I'd also point out that the majority of players are playing 7 to 8 games compared to the maximum of 6 that SSS allows. Not debating one over the other, just analyzing! Thoughts?

21 May 2023 Whiteblade111

Yeah fam, I feel like anyone who plays a bunch of tournaments knows that DSS is total ass. Bring on the SSS revolution.

21 May 2023 maninthemoon

@Whiteblade111 I was discussing SSS vs DSS with Brandon a few weeks ago and he got me pretty convinced DSS was the way :) I think SSS can be a real problem when one side (Runner cough) is significantly favored over another.

22 May 2023 Swiftie

Call me Ishmael…

Surely your exaggerating for write up effect. I wouldn’t make even Rotage wait 15 min in a cut game (not that I’ve been in one for a while), especially if I was the higher seed.

22 May 2023 jan tuno

charli!!

22 May 2023 YsengrinSC

@maninthemoon side balance has basically no impact on Single Sided Swiss. I think Brandon is just wrong on this one issue XD

It’s actually better because it enforces players play both sides equally which DSS doesn’t actually do in practice.

22 May 2023 coldlava

@maninthemoon SSS forces you to even out both sides so I don't see one side being favored as an issue. Doing re-pairing after 1 game instead of 2 also prevents round 1 sweeps due to random pairings having as large an effect. You get paired up to the "correct elo" too fast. As far as time, the one we played on Saturday had players arrive late and I don't think we started until maybe 1pm and we finished 6 rounds at 515.

22 May 2023 Sindarin

@maninthemoondon't let the one time bug of playing the same opponent 3 times spoil SSS for you :p

22 May 2023 maninthemoon

@YsengrinSC @coldlava I know there are a lot of great points for SSS. I honestly think SSS is a great format, but I don't think it's perfect and I wish there were some solutions to the problems I've encountered. (I'm not counting being paired vs the same player 3 times)

Most of my thoughts come from Canadian Nats 2022 and a tournament I ran using SSS. At Can Nats there were player/s who rolled the favored side in the second to last round and were able to ID to the Cut. This isn't significantly different from 241s, but the players didn't "make a choice".

To be clear Brandon didn't really care about side favor, he was more concerned about top players not getting paired in order to keep side balance even. I haven't experienced that problem personally.

My last complaint with SSS is games going to time. In my experience significantly less games go to time in DSS vs SSS. It's funny because it seems like you should be able to play out two 35 minute games easier than two games in 65 minutes. But when you have two games played one of the four decks is likely to be a rush deck of some type and even if both games would be long you are extremely likely to finish at least the first one. I consider my self a fast and efficient player, but time has felt like a factor in almost every SSS game I've played and rarely been an issue in DSS games.

Another downside I've heard from a few local players is about the actually the number of games they get to play at mid/lower tables. The SSS tournaments can easily be shorter, but with more round pairings and last turn timed finishes you get 25% less games for slightly less over all time. I don't think this has to be a consideration for designing a competitive format, but it does matter to me as a TO when I want my participants to have a good day playing netrunner.

I think SSS is a great option and I wouldn't mid at all if worlds 2023 was SSS, but I am yet to be convinced that it's the perfect format that fixes all our problems. I'd love to hear if/how you disagree.

25 May 2023 secondskin

I tanked for 15 minutes on what to do.

Ag players will eat you alive for this slow play ;)

19 Jun 2023 Khavrion

THANKS TO ME, NO LONGER UNDEFEATED!

19 Jun 2023 Khavrion

Meaning, I used this deck and lost

8 Nov 2023 sarausa

Shaper has some flexible abilities, allowing you to tailor your deck to fit the current meta. For example, if you see a lot of players using activation-based decks, you can add more presser cards to your deck. Suika game

9 Jan 2024 lewishamilton

I piloted this deck in a 20-person CO event in Seattle and emerged undefeated. The choice of Shaper might seem unconventional, especially considering a critical analysis of the meta on Ysengrin's channel where we extensively critiqued Shaper. My prior thoughts were primarily derived from early format testing post-boat ban.

However, a shift in perspective occurred after receiving a comment on the video, expressing dissatisfaction with our discussion on Shaper. This prompted me to reassess my stance and acknowledge the lack of serious testing on Shaper in my part. retro bowl college

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