Beige Sunny (1st Pandemonium GNK, 4-0)

I was joking when I won my fourth game, "now I get to publish on nrdb, and say 'undefeated, Pandemonium GNK' or something in the title", and lo.

"Beige Sunny" because it has lots of drip cards, but also because Find the Truth is sort of like GlobalSec Security Clearance, in the inevitability it can give you.

This deck is pretty straightforward. My first concept when building it was "What if I played both Data Folding AND Rezeki? Surely that's dumb, but maybe I'll try it." I'm glad I did; it's not quite as dumb as I first surmised. There ARE awkward situations where you can't find any points, and so can't get your memory, but other times it all runs smoothly. Also, you usually don't finish your deck, so having so many drip sources just helps with drawing enough of them.

My second concept was "I should just play high-impact, low-inf splash cards, to make most efficient use of influence." Hence all the 1-inf splashes. Not sure if the quote is apocryphal, but I've taken to heart Chris Dyer's "start every deck with 3x PAD Tap" advice.

My third concept was to have lots of cheap installables, to better clear my hand for Safety draws.

If I were to do it again, I'd change at least one of the Because I Cans for a Hunting Grounds or a Stimhack, or maybe both, for one of each. I guess I overestimated the prevalence of asset decks. No One Home is also tech against HHN decks, but it's... Not that great in this Adam, because so much of my tag-clearing money comes from drips. Which means that, when HHN hits, they usually don't have to boost much. Which in turn means that No One Home often costs the corp 4 or so. At least it's cheap to get out of my hand, though.

My games:

Round 1:

First round, faced GameNet glacier. I happen to know that deck is on 3x Surveyor, 2x Fairchild3, 1x Afshar as its influence, from having played against it two days before the tournament. This game was strange. I got down 3x Rezeki, 1x RNG Key early, but couldn't find any agendas. Twice, I ran through HQ (Afshar, Fairchild3) with a Logic Bomb and clicks (forsaking Kati those turns), desperate to find agendas, thinking "surely, he has drawn at least one by now". So for ages I couldn't increase my memory. My opponent ended up scoring the 1x Explode-A-Palooza, and eventually I replaced RNG Key with Gordian and found a Degree Mill.

PAD Tap was very strong this game, making me a significant number of credits from GameNet triggers.

At some point I contested the remote and got the corp really low on money. I think I Logic Bombed one Surveyor, then bounced off the second, taking tags. Something like that. I floated the two tags for a turn, knowing he couldn't really trash my stuff. Next turn, without thinking, rather than just installing a PAD Tap, clicking Kati, and clearing tags, I ran Archives for the Truth... And I saw another 5/3 on top. R&D was just a Slot Machine and an inactive News Hound, so I KNEW I could get in... So I mulled for a while on whether to steal and float tags, or to let it go. I decided I had to steal, else it would go straight in the remote.

Thankfully, he ignored my floated tags for that one more turn. Phew. I kept running HQ occasionally, powered by my massive five drips, just desperate to find the last agenda before he could topdeck it. (Well, he was only on two points, but I knew any topdecked agenda would be inaccessible to me in that 2x Surveyor remote.) I mean, I COULD take the Truth every turn, but it was expensive on Archives. Eventually, though, I found a third 5/3 and won.

Round 2:

This was against Gagarin. I think it's some in-vogue deck, though I don't know all the details. Ian (its pilot) and Ben (the one who proposed it to him) were discussing it excitedly on Thursday. He was kind of flooded, and I could tell this, so I pressured HQ and R&D significantly. I only ate one HHN, which I was able to clear three tags from while he was poor. (I think I hadn't any points yet, or hadn't found Brain Chip, so I had to clear three even though I wanted to clear two.) It's stressful to play against asset decks with Adam, because whenever you access you lose a random number of credits to Neutralize All Threats. This game went like a lot of the Adam vs. Horizontal games, where I didn't get totally out-tempoed, and I got to play fairly aggressively. The key in a lot of Adam games, I find, is to figure out whether HQ is full of agendas, and then whether it's worth using Logic Bombs to get in. Anyway, the important thing is the corp was poor basically the whole game. I think I stole one SDS off the table.

Round 3:

I faced Ben's Sportsmetal. He told me a lesson he'd learned when facing my Adam on Thursday with that Sports, which was... That it's not very good to have Fairchild3 as your first HQ ICE, because I'm more than willing to click through for two accesses and the Truth.

Fast forward a few turns, and it seemed clear to me that HQ was full, and well, he was poor, so I ran HQ first click, and lo... Fairchild3. That was the first ICE he drew, I guess. So I clicked through it a couple of times for accesses. I forget if I had Kati this game; maybe the tension was just foregoing Safety First draws by spending my whole turn taking accesses. I didn't get that many drips this game, I don't think, but that was okay. I kept him poor, and despite being squeamish about running R&D and Archives, for fear of Drafter (I shouldn't have been so afraid), I got some good points out of HQ, and eventually found a Brain Chip. He actually fast advanced a bunch of points, like with Bass in his Tranquility server, from surprisingly few credits. I mean, he was just trying to clear HQ I guess. Oh, and this was the one game of the day where I got to use Because I Can. I used it on a naked Tranquility Home and a facedown Hyperloop. Meh. At any rate, I kept him poor basically the whole game and eventually found what I needed on R&D, paying through a Gold Farmer (that card is nuts!) and letting Drafter fire, and probably Logic Bombing through something else. PAD Tap was pretty good this game; got some money on my turn from occasional Sports triggers.

Round 4:

This and round 1 were the most interesting games. This was the most intense, I think, even though it wasn't very close. Once again, I forced him to rez enough stuff that he was fairly poor. And I managed to deduce that HQ was pretty vulnerable, not least by seeing Obokatas as the Truth. Whenever he was below 8, I would run without much fear. Oh, and I got an early turtle, and it was charged for a bit, before eventually hitting Cyberdex in the root of HQ. Which meant that the turtle would now be relegated to "breaking Border Control" duty, capped at 1 counter. That was fine.

I found relatively few drips this game, but the PAD Taps did huge work, because he was too poor to effectively trash them, and I got PAD bucks when he got Palana bucks.

I found an early Philotic on R&D via the Truth. Then I saw a couple Obokata via the Truth, or maybe I accessed one and couldn't steal it. Anyway, I knew there were two in HQ. So I kept trying to pressure. He rezzed Engram Flush, which is REALLY good, and also did MASSIVE work this game. I think that stopped me getting in once, but thankfully didn't hit any of my breakers, which I now had to pre-install, because a) I don't have backups, b) he'd hit my Simulchip with Engram, and c) he knew all my draws. So I spent a while setting up to get into HQ, while he was still poor. I think I found a Nisei in HQ during this time. So I have four points, he has two Obokata in HQ, but he has Engram Flush to deplete me of cards. Eventually he rezzes an Anansi on HQ. Later he Border Controls me on HQ.

At this point I still have one Data Folding, if I recall, but I have Brain Chip, and Kati, and my PAD Taps are lit. He ends up with a card IAA'd in his remote, which I don't end up checking. I keep hitting HQ with high max hand size, letting him Engram Flush me. After the Border Control, he put a SECOND Engram Flush on HQ. Anansi I was breaking just fine with Na'Not'K. At one point I learn that the IAA in his remote... Was a Bio Vault, which he uses on an HQ run. So I still haven't gotten a clean pair of accesses on those Obokatas. I think at one point with Engram Flush he hit 2x Rezeki; I knew I was going kind of all-in, and maybe I should just be setting up more.

At some point in all this he Celeb Gifts, finally getting off the ground moneywise (that HQ Border Control was for literally all his money when he did it; I really felt sorry for him this game). I just kept on trucking, tunnel visioning on just getting a proper HQ run. I get one, spending four cards to Engram Flushes, and... Miss.

Next turn, I figure, meh, I'll just do it again. I hit that turn, but wondered if I should have played way more conservatively. I'd been totally ignoring R&D; apparently the upgrade in its root was Ganked!, and he planned to kill me with the Tracker on R&D, hitting twice. (I guess late enough, I might have had enough cards to survive this.)

Conclusions:

So, a lot of my opponents were a little flooded, or had kind of awkward draws, which Adam is good at exploiting. I don't think this deck is very strong against horizontal decks, despite the few tech cards. Most matchups feel pretty okay, though. With a deck like this, there are so many meaningful decisions, there's so much room for player skill, and my card draws totally change how I should be playing, so it's hard to tell whether a matchup is good/bad, or I just played wrong, or I just had weird draws. There's obviously a LOT of variance, not least from the Neutralize All Threats tax. So it can be really hard to tell whether a decision was reasonable, and you just got unlucky, or whether you were gambling too much.

After playing this deck for basically a couple months with minimal changes, I still like it. I think the overall card choices are reasonably solid, and while I might change a few things around to fit in more efficient splash cards (maybe another Liberated, or more Stimhacks, or a Hunting Grounds), the core of the deck is one I'm pretty satisfied with. It's a pile of good cards, and that's just the way I like it!