Requiem for a Museum - Worlds 2018 10th Place

‘What a joke. I just wanted to play a nice CtM game, against normal cards, then that unfolds.’ –nemamiah

‘Same Old Thing Stimhack the Lady Liberty … I consider myself a fashionable man, and it’s not fashionable to be the second person today to lose to it curving out.’ –seamus

‘Oh. I did not expect that.’ –many JNET casuals after getting BOOM!’d

The road to playing a yellow kill deck at Worlds 2018 was long, and filled with luck. Starting with training for Worlds 2017, I tried various yellow dex: CTM Boom prior to Worlds 2017, NEH Bio-Ethics (inspired by @scd) through the fall and winter, MOH NEH during the 2018 Store Champ season, and its final run at Gencon18 and the FFG Regional. The deck was highly tuned by myself and a number in our group, and felt ready for Worlds. Then, the MWL dropped, and the early word of a Museum ban, out of nowhere, was confirmed. I was pretty bummed out, and was hunting around for a Worlds Corp, trying everything from IG49 speed combo to Azmari Punitive to Sportsmetal rush. They were all fine, but didn’t sing like the MOHNEH did.

Then, I ran across a new smurf on JNET one game. There were plenty of new ones in the wild recently: gmail, shithead, Empedocles, and more. The one I played was typeurl. Now, when you face a smurf, you can quickly find out if it’s a really good player behind it by their early play. Having lost very fast to this user with Zealous Judge out of CTM, I was instantly awestruck with the possibility of playing kill out of yellow again. Breaking down the Influence, I found it to be not only possible, but quite easy to fit in 6 cards from Weyland to meet the requirements to play Consulting Visit. A 21-3 record later, and I had found my Worlds Corp.

I can quickly go over the deck by type:

Agendas:

The suite is very similar to the MOHNEH build, using SSL as the 5/3 to help fuel HHNs. ARES is still the king of a deck wanting to stick tags, and I cut the 15Min and Fly for another slot. Hacktivist is one of the major enemies of the deck, so having 6 agendas one can never advance is a handy tool to have.

Assets:

These are very similar to a number of CTM dex, but are expanded. I noticed that typeurl was on Mumba Temple as the restricted card. This was exciting and new to me, and I found it basically replaces Hedge Fund while allowing one to spam remotes earlier more easily. The more bluffs one can plant early, the better. SIU and the Judge are more kill enablers, putting the Runner into a prison lock up. SIU is like having a SEA Source one can install, and can fire with no run restrictions. Judge is usually rezzed during the lock up, either when a Shaper goes for Misdirection (one of the top enemies of the deck), or any other Runner has just cleared their third tag. Put it on an MVT, and/or behind a Raven, and the :verysweatg: emoji comes into play immediately. (:verysweatg: emoji sold separately).

Let it be shown here that DBS is one of the best cards in the deck. Even with Zero/CV gone, one wants to keep a clean HQ, and nothing does it better. Smart players will trash it if they find a window, but it usually involves a Stimhack. If the DBS cooks most of the game, R&D becomes thicker, but that central should be heavily protected anyhow.

The Bootcamp was a great addition to the deck. It foils Indexing runs, and can fetch the Lady Liberty if you can’t find it. Speaking of, feel free to fire her up early, especially before a Rashida crack. Having a big Asset to rez out from a Diversion of Funds, but to also be able to fast advance an ARES that cannot be Clot’d is really good. Would play 11/10 times again.

Upgrades:

Nothing to note here. 3x MVT is a must.

Operations:

The lack of INF and deckslots afforded by MOHNEH meant that the toolbox of Ops had to go. I distilled it down to the core ones I felt the deck needed after much testing, abandoning non-kill/lock related ones such as Psychographics or Exchange of Information. The last cut was a Best Defense for the 3rd Preemptive (thanks @cranked), which was clutch. Knowing early Preemptives could be fired with no remorse led to a reestablishment of trashed assets back into the game, and removed the Preemptive from clogging up HQ. Also, they were critical in one of the main strats of the build: Value HHN.

I love HHN unhealthily, and uncleanly. Being able to fire 3-10+ is pretty clutch. Since the MOH was banned, we felt that 3x Preemptive was the closest one could come to replicating that feeling. A number of Runners will try to build The Turning Wheel counters, take probing runs, etc. They should be punished, and HHN is your counter. Firing value HHN for 9-14 credits, depending on your pool, is a great way to keep them honest. You can always click for credits, or install more money. Outside of Magnum Opus, or massive drip, they will eventually run out. HHN fires will drain that more quickly, slowing them down to reload. Then, just recycle them.

The Consulting Visit are nice, but I went to 2 for space. Without the toolbox of options, their viability was limited. I consider them extra BOOM!, HHN, or Closed, mainly.

ICE:

Going to 49 cards meant losing some slots somewhere. I took the @jdeng strat of when one is in doubt, cut ICE. Ended up where I did, and perhaps could change it. I found the UK kids on MaxX with TTW was an issue, as there wasn’t enough punishing ICE to prevent them from farming. Even if there were, the Val with their BP can easily farm, as well. Really just need to try and race these dex. I generally find that ICE on R&D and the scoring remote are key, and to work from there.

Enemies:

A number were listed above. TTW is probably the worst enemy, as once they realize they have to go tagme, they will last ditch go for a deep dig somewhere, and perhaps win. I really wish I had a consistent way to kill that card outside of SIU. Heavy link is also an issue, but I didn’t see any of that, really. The other major killer is Hacktivist. MOHNEH was able to get around that with a single Scarcity. The only out here was to deal with it, or score out a spammed out ARES or Beale.

Changes:

The ICE could be modified to taste, for sure. I would love to get either a single Scarcity or Targeted Marketing in to combat Employee Strike or Hacktivist, especially the latter. The Preemps and Visits are pseudo versions of extra copies of the current, allowing you to replay it more easily than you’d think.

I told myself I wanted to play the final FFG Worlds with dex I enjoyed. I really couldn’t think of anything better than a kill deck and an Apocalypse deck. Both were derived from British sources, and I was happy to represent the players behind them, as they could not attend Worlds this year. I wasn’t the only Apoc deck in the cut, but I believe I was the only one repping meat (not neat) damage.

Thanx to typeurl (aka @lpoulter) for the inspiration. What a fantastic idea! Also, shouts to teammates jdeng and cranked. The former was always there with a deep desire to play yellow kill, and the latter was a huge MOHNEH fan, and repped this at Worlds, as well. Also, shouts to @ajar, who rocked Judge to the T16 at Worlds17, and rocked it again this year in this.

I would pontificate more on the Worlds18 experience, but, keep an eye on stimhack.com for my report about that instead.