Aesops Hayley, Now With Even Worse 3 Inf. Minifaction Card (

Guess what; this deck is still good. I really like the Levy Peace Tapwrm decks that Worlds showed me, but there are still reasons to explore Aesops, including that you can run 3 clicks a turn and still be a smug rich Shaper. I took everything I learned from my Worlds experience, shaved away the unneeded cards, and added some fun new tricks. Here were my main changes from my original list:

1: The Cyber-Cypher was not needed. It's good savings but this deck makes roughly infinity dollars once it gets rolling and minimizing breakers was helpful with smoothing draws.

2: Heartbeat was funny but honestly DaVinci plus smart play wins the Rewiring matchup most of the time. I added Spoofing at the last minute because I chickened out and I got Rewired through it in my only loss of the day with the deck anyways. :P Cut the Spoofing, improve deck consistency, and be brave.

3: Feedback Filter, however, is valuable until PU stops being so spooky. This deck can afford to use it pretty regularly and it's currently worth the slot, having won me two games against PE and Tennin. These decks and Miraju also encouraged me to add a Maker's Eye to close games alongside TTW.

4: I cut card draw since DaVinci really does allow you to be a turn or so slower against Rewiring, which is what they were there for initially.

5: Okay...let's talk inf. I cut Trope and Heartbeat, which gave me 6 inf to play with. I knew two were going to Harbingers, which are awesome Aesops sells and works amazingly with Brahman. It's a great add that I think makes a lot of sense...

...fine. Neutralize All Threats is my big change and despite regularly getting laughed out of the room in testing I'm convinced it's worth every point. It's a 0 cost HQI you can install off a Hayley trigger with a "downside" that doesn't actually exist since I personally trash almost everything I can afford to access lategame. The savings made by it are WELL worth the "negative" text, and I strongly believe it's better than HQI even at the extra inf point by merit of economic advantage. It, alongside Turning Wheel, allows you to get a bunch of recursion on the cheap with Rip Deal, as HQ is rarely heavily iced against a Shaper with such strong remote game. Lost your Clot and Sac Cons? Just Rip Deal 'em all back. Lost a breaker or FF to damage? Install Brahman and take yer lumps to get the card back. In testing it did some good things, but at the event the meta was too fast and I played really cleanly (for me) so I did not need it. I wish it had been Stimhack #3 or Hunting Grounds.

This deck has great game against Moons despite having 0 Lakshmi tech thanks to the amazing volume of econ and the Paricias/Clot, and it's still good against the rest of the field, having strong matchups against Bankers CtM, Jinteki damage decks, Rewiring, and any form of rush deck. If you're really scared, however, cut the Neutralize for Imp and Beth for Scavenge.

Play this deck so that when your opponent plays TarMar and they name Brahman you know that even if you're gonna lose this specific game, you've won something much, much greater. Thanks so much to the entire Stimhack crew for hosting a VERY well-run event and to all my opponents for some incredibly fun matches.