Go Bird or Go Home

This was the deck I built for the Charity Gift 2016 ID Auction tournament, which along with my corp Architects of Tomorrow took me to a creditable 4th place. 3-1-1 on the day, losing to Blue Sun and getting a lucky timed tie with a Foundry deck (who would probably have gone on to win if there had been enough time).

The deck is pretty much an Andromeda deck which I repurposed on finding I had won this ID in the auction. The shorter deck almost makes up for losing the starting hand size, as at least the Temujins and Account Siphons come out quicker. Having to drop the Dirty Laundry, however, makes the CtM match up a real pain, as you just can’t get out of the gates quick enough. If possible, I would recommend taking this to tournaments where you know you only have a 1/31 chance of encountering the King in Yellow.

The other change from the Andy deck was a greater reliance on the birds, cos I figured if not now then when? Despite the punishing install cost, with data sucker support they can be a not awful and low-inf crim breaking suite. The corroder was a last minute add, swapped for a Breach and a Rumour Mill to cut my deck down to 40 cards, but I didn’t end up using it much at all on the day. If this deck is working as it should, it’s making enough money to cope with a slightly inefficient fracter.

Peregrine may actually be genuinely good, as a lot of common codegates are either strength <2 or strength 5, with datasuckers taking care of the awkward exceptions. It’s also won me a fair few games against NBN when I could get them low on credits and then derez a tollbooth on R&D which I could hammer for the win. Whilst it’s fair to say the derez ability on the birds hasn’t set the world on fire, using it at just the right moments can be match winning. Don’t, however, bankrupt yourself to hard derez a curtain wall which Blue Sun can just oversight AI next turn. It won’t go well for you (speaking from experience).

Emerging with least credit from the birds, however, is Golden, which just doesn’t break any of the most commonly encountered sentries for even close to cheap enough. I think the deck would probably be significantly improved by swapping this for a one of Mongoose.

En Passant was a late add, but I would probably swap back to Forged Activation Orders as the derez ability is too unreliable to get it off when you most need it. FAO has the advantage of allowing for early pressure, and it’s generally only worth spending the money to derez when the corp has made themselves low on funds anyway.