Regular sized reg Hoshiko - 2nd @ Nottingham CO

Nemamiah 4138

Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, I'll always be forever grateful to the people who come up with and publish the first shells of very strong decks in new metas. There's a skill to being able to spot those (though in this case it wasn't hard) and tweak them, but it's a very different strength than making the lists in the first place.

Anyway, this is obviously a refinement of the She/Hershiko list that the QtM group came up with and put up great results at APAC. Check that original list for details of how the deck works and why it's good; I'll just talk about the changes that we made here, in the hope of giving some insight in to how we go through that tuning process.

Cut down to 45 - I simply prefer to have a better chance to draw my best cards instead of adding more cards that help me find them when I draw those instead of the best cards. If you're finding consistency issues then those cards can be swapped back in for other slots, but this was never a concern in testing games.

Less tech cards - After a lacksidasical and distracted week of testing we felt that runners are significantly up on corps as long as you understand the play patterns, how they might beat you and what the weaknesses are (primarily it's that big pile of face down cards that has real 5/3s in it). Hoshiko has rock solid fundamentals that are enough to leverage that advantage, and none of the emergent corps demand an answer beyond that, so we can trim tech cards and look to increase consistency instead. Wheels, Devil Charm and Labor Rights got cut, but we would probably go even further than this with the next iteration. While on the subject, we swapped Pinhole Threading for No Free Lunch because the latter is more broadly useful at the moment and is never a totally dead draw.

More econ - Cutting the search and tech cards gets you slots for Daily Casts. Having credits is good and reinforces those fundamentals we just talked about.

Add Bankhar - It's probably the best runner card in the game at the moment, and you don't need to deck build round it at all.

That left us with this list, which feels extremely smooth and consistent to play in to essentially every corp.

Changes to think about - You probably don't need the Miss Bones or No Free Lunch; taking those out lets you play a third Hermes or second Wake Implant, and add the third Bhankar. All of those cards are hugely impactful. The single remaining Moshing and the second Buzzsaw are the most questionable slots, should you find that something is missing or identify a compelling replacement, but both are fine in the deck.

Obligatory thank you section - Matt for running the tournament, the Dice Cup store staff for not getting grumpy when I kept forgetting to ask for milk in my coffee, The Process extended friends and family for being the most delightful group to spend time with either online or in person, QtM for single-handedly solving the runner meta in a week, NSG for releasing a set that has really sparked my enthusiasm, you for reading this far.

3 comments
13 Aug 2023 jan tuno

<3<3<3

13 Aug 2023 crowphie

c:

16 Aug 2023 Watzlav

Lackadaisical

Always learning something new from the Process.