Melbourne Regionals Top 8 - Matthew Leong Corp

Dangerous deck. Scary to play against.

I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to NBN, so: How do you reliably tag the runner for scorched to be a worthwhile inclusion here? I mean I see Breaknig News/SanSan as a proactive one, but other than that I don't get how TGTBT and Bernice that only give one tag, will ever do the job, if you're holding on to scorcheds (as they can easily get rid of the tag if they didn't run last-click).

Can someone please enlighten me here?

I feel Scorched is there just as a safety play. Playing against NBN means you're aware of the tagging situation, so you'll never risk running without something to pay for tags/prevent meat damage. The runner will think you have SEA Source in the deck, so they will play as if you do, wasting time and credits building up Plascrete/removing tags quickly. Meanwhile you can save a card or two to make the deck draw a bit more reliable. And if you manage to get the Scorched chance then lucky you!

That's what I'm getting from it anyway. Fear of the known fast advance builds.

I made the deck, so I'll try to explain what the idea is. I know it looks strange, I brought it to 3 store championships, the Chronos Protocol, and Regionals and it only lost 1 game (and I was agenda flooded).

-----The point of the deck-----

In terms of pro-active tagging, yeah there is only Breaking News. Occasionally games are won this way, but it not the point of the deck. The point is that either I win from agendas, or you over-extend and I kill you. My experience shows that Runners pretty much just can't avoid both.

My plan is to win from scoring agendas. Good ice, decent economy, SanSan, and the ludicrous power of Astroscript are all amazing for this. (Beale working as a 5/3 when I need it to can be great too, potential points in the deck only for me and not the runner). Winning through agendas is made a lot easier by the runner fearing tags (and if they don't fear tags, I tend to flatline them, as 7% of my deck is Scorched Earth).

-----Tags-----

Yes, the runner can "simply" pay 2 credits to shake the tag, but it is not always that easy.

There are two main reasons that TGTBT and Bernice are strong.

1. They tag AFTER the runner spent credits going through ice. If they can't deal with it they might just die, if they can then they lose clicks and credits.

2. If the runner doesn't run them, cool, you either score a point or still have Bernice installed!

This does not do these cards justice, as there are plenty more reasons they help win games, but I feel these two reasons are at the core of their strength.

I see. Thanks a lot for taking the time to give this in-depth explanation. Sounds scary indeed! Cool deck :)

After playing it a few times now, I would like to ask, what's the reason for only 2 Sansan and not 3? And in what situations or matchups do you use the closed accoutns for?

A few reasons I only have 2 SanSan (other than keeping to 44 card slots): I tend to barely be able to afford SanSan a lot of the time, so having 3 might be a bit much. I can recurr with Jacksons. The Scorched Earth threat is a separate win condition to the agenda/FA/Astrotrain so I don't need to focus all my card slots on winning with Agendas.

Closed Accounts is used as it normally would be. Good for when the runner has a lot of credits, or for a clutch turn where you play it an install an important agenda. I guess I can also use it to deter runs on Bernice (or the threat of Bernice) since they have trouble removing the tag with zero credits in their pool.

@Salindurthas are you still using this deck?