Spombo Wombo (4th at SC Aachen)

I played this deck at the Store Championship at Level 9000 in Aachen. It went 4-1, beating Adam, Geist, Valencia and Leela, losing to another Leela. The highlights of the day were scoring all three Research Grant off the table at once versus Cluster Fox on turn 4 and a ridiculous combo turn versus JackMade, where I played four Fast Breaks to draw 24 cards, 2 Game Changers to gain 12 clicks and combo'd out against Leela. The deck is pretty strong and it was great fun to play a combo deck again.

Possible changes:

• Drop the Best Defense for one more Ice. The Best Defense is a good counterplay against Artist Colony and Data Dealer, but those cards are not incredibly common right now, so it's most likely better to just include one more Ice instead (Vanilla seems good in that slot, the third Gatekeeper is also an option).

• Swap out the Research Grant. This was an idea by JackMade who played a very similar deck at the event (and who is in general much more experienced than I am with this deck). You could include two more Chronos Project and a Gila Hands Arcology (or all three Gila Hands), but I am not entirely sure about this change. The Research Grant can combo nicely with Team Sponsorship before the combo starts (install the second one with the Sponsorship, then use the 'when scored'-ability of the first to score the second one) and is a good way to kickstart the combo (like Domestic Sleepers), because it doesn't require as much effort to score the second one, but you still get triggers off of Sportsmetal and Team Sponsorships.

• Cut Rashida, add Red Level Clearance. Red Level Clearance is not as good as a Rashida fire when setting up, but it can work really well during the combo, clicklessly installing something as the base mode and offering a lot of flexibility (maybe you just need one more credit, or you need to dig for missing pieces, etc.). Also, Rashida is vulnerable, both on the table as well as in R&D, so Red Level Clearance seems definitely worth a try.

• Cut a Game Changer for one more Ice. A change JackMade already did in his list, but one that I am not convinced of. I like having the possibilities of either firing a Game Changer before the combo (most likely to get a Vitruvius out of circulation) and also the more certain access to two Game Changers during the combo turn. I guess this mostly depends on your preference in regards to aggression and faster combos compared to more stability and security. Since I like to live dangerously while JackMade is boring, we made different calls here.