Proprietary Education (5th NZ Nationals, 2nd in Swiss, 6-1)

This is the corp that I piloted for NZ Nationals this weekend.

First of all, special thanks to @ion_fox for helping me shape this deck by watching me test it, testing against me, and giving me 2 very solid cards to include that won me several games.

Also thanks to all the AUNZ crew who made nationals great this year.

This Azmari played 5 rounds of swiss and did not drop a single game, usually scoring out 7-3 or 7-0 (even a 9-0); the closest anyone got on day one was @miek 7-6. On day 2, it won once and lost once due to a big misplay on my part and good reading by opponent @miek to see that opportunity to capitalise on it.

Day 1:

Round 1 - Luke (@inactivist) my Geist managed to beat his Titan (of the only two wins it managed). game 2: Turns out News Hounds on every central with a current is extremely rude. Luke binned his Paperclip early, and Azmari managed to setup Jua > Wraparound for the remote and score out. "I kept trying to run to see your other wraps" but i didn't even bother installing them.

streamed Round 2 - Ryan (@rjorb) my Geist managed to just barely lose to Titan when Ryan had the exact amount of credits, cards in hand, and atlas tokens for the winning combo turn when I was on 5 points and about to Legwork HQ next turn. Azmari managed to stall his Geist out for a while with Paperclip in the bin and Jua > Wraparound in the remote, but then he installed a Maxwell James. He couldn't get past Jua in any meaningful way, but he could derez the wrap and keep trucking. On my last scoring turn, he installed a Dean Lister and a turtle. Fearing the Interdiction, I rezzed the Navi Mumbai City Grid, so he was no longer able to contest the remote, and I scored out next turn.

Round 3 - Dave L. Geist again managed to just barely lose to Titan with the corp on exactly the number of credits, cards, and tokens necessary to score out when me on 5 points and just about to combo out. I could have played this better, but it's all good. 3 Titans in a row, but luckily no more after that. My Azmari just built a really taxing remote for his Omar and managed to rush out relatively quickly with Reversed Accounts draining just under 28 credits (I slightly overadvanced once). News Hound gave a lot of tags, and he was happy to keep them for Obelus and Jarogniew Mercs for his BAM combo runs. He ran HQ a lot, but I never let any agendas pile up for him to steal.

Round 4 - Sunny and Palana. Geist had a tough matchup, stealing an SSL Endorsement early and giving the corp a lot of early tempo. They also punitived me and could have closed it out right then but didn't have the second one, so I got really lucky. They scored a Bacterial Programming soon after then jammed something in the remote. With 3 cards in hand, a turtle, Dean Lister, 2 Sports Hoppers, and a Mad Dash, I managed to get past the 2 sub Komainu, break everything else, pop the Sports Hoppers, and steal the Obokata for the win right as things were about to get dire. 2nd and only win for Geist. Sunny is Azmari's toughest matchup by far, but I managed to get some early Archangel rezzes that managed to hit Professional Contacts (at least 3 times that I can remember), and she lost a lot of tempo reinstalling. I managed to tax so much that Secrurity Nexus was never installed. By the time I had 2 agendas scored, she was able to contest the remote for a long time. Thankfully, I had plenty of NGO Fronts, lots of lost credits from Reversed Accounts, and a Mumbad Virtual Tour to tax her down. My pentultimate turn was advance twice a Degree Mill I installed the previous turn and install a Fairchild 3.0 on the massive tower of ice. Passed turn, and time was called. I only had 8 credits, so not enough to score out and rez the FC3. Sunny got some credits and installed Striker again, which gave me a buck from Death and Taxes. She still didn't have enough credits to get in and passed turn. Last turn, managed to score out on exactly 3 credits and win 9-0.

streamed Round 5 - @miek wanted to ID with me, but we decided to play anyway (and ended up splitting). My Geist game was a disaster that we won't speak of, but Azmari managed to Reversed Accounts for a lot of credits, setup Jua > Wraparound, and score out. @miek managed to snag 6 points, the last agenda just before I scored out, and it was closest anyone got all day.

Day 2 Round 1 - vs Craig. Craig was running Nero and Palana, and I figured the latter would be my better matchup. Geist got Scarcity'd hard and lost right as I got to setup and stabilise. #sad

Round 2 - Sean (@blindidiotgod) Azmari managed to tax out his Val enough while he was anxiously awaiting the Hard-Hitting News and scaring him from running or taking News Hound tags.

Round 3 - @miek again. The game went similar to our matchup the previous day. I let him take an early SSL Endorsement at the cost of going through a Fairchild 3.0 and twice because of Red Herrings. HQ never really had anything except a Degree Mill early. He saw it with Find the Truth, but when I scored an SSL Endorsement of my own, he realised the Degree Mill was still in hand. He ran many many times and kept visiting the same Navi Mumbai City Grid. 'yep, it's still there' I managed to get an Echo Chamber, but I couldn't find any more agendas. I found a Fast Track and dug for a Degree Mill and jammed in the remote. His Inject hit 2 Paperclips, so I was feeling confident that he could not contest the Jua > Wraparound remote. This is where my fatigue had caught up with me though; I did not pay attention to his turtle at 4 counters and Datasucker at roughly 3 billion. Had I purged first, I would have won. Great play by @miek to capitalise on that mistake. I managed to make him shuffle 2 cards away, but I went roughly 6 or 7 turns or corp draw, draw, draw, something just digging for another agenda. When I finally had an agenda in the remote, he top-decked an SSL Endorsement for the win. After the game, he pointed out that Navi Mumbai City Grid would have saved me as well, so even more evidence of my braindeadness.

And that cut me out, but I managed 5th overall against a lot of really great players. Very happy with the result, had great fun at the weekend, and now very exhausted both physically and mentally.

--

Deck Write-up

The basic idea of this deck is to score 2 agendas and one Echo Chamber for 7 points. That's it. Install some ice, play some currents, make a metric ton of cash selling useless degrees to poor schmucks who hope for a better future.

-

The agenda suite: I was originally really disappointed with Degree Mill when it was finally spoiled. '2 cards? Runner chooses? Why?' Turns out, I was totally wrong because with ice like Archangel and Jua, the first couple of turns of the game, and quite a few runners, 2 cards is actually quite a lot and in some cases is the difference between scoring or not. SSL Endorsement is an amazing agenda to see early. Just put it behind some ice even if you can't rez it or advance it yet. If the runner steals it, you'll get a lot of early tempo that will help propel you to the midgame, and if you can even go broke rezzing ice to tax them as much as possible doing so and still get paid. The last part of the agenda suite is Echo Chamber. I really like this card. When it was first spoiled, visions filled my head of installing it in a remote late game when I'm on six points and the runner either ignores it, and I score out, or they go broke trying to get to end of the remote and giving me a scoring window. Turns out that's not really what happens, but it's great in a deck full of 5/3s and nothing else, because you have 21 points, and the runner only has 18. Your path to winning is either 3 agendas (same as the runner), or 2 agendas and this thing. Always try to score one early. If you install something unadvanced in a remote early, runners will generally leave it alone.

-

The ice: you'll notice a lack of barriers. The idea here is get a Wraparound early and throw it in your remote. The other two can just be thrown in the bin to be honest. Don't give your opponent a chance to hit one and a window to install Paperclip until after you've installed a Jua in front of it. Once they hit the on encounter effect, they can't install Paperclip. It's good for the Val matchup when they're thrown in the heap after an Inject or for basically every other runner ever who draws up and just tosses it away willingly. For Aumakua, they need a lot of virus counters to deal with it. This combo helped me win basically every game.

Don't bother trying to get Jua to stop Black Orchestra because 1: it really sucks to use it to break any of the ice in the deck and 2: it's all mostly taxing stuff anyway. Don't hold back and just rez it. The Enigma is there to deal with one of your toughest matchups: Sunny. Archangel can still be taxing for Sunny to deal with early and can get you some nice bounces. I played a Sunny and was able to bounce Professional Contacts about 3 times and Striker once.

Jua is a great card. If you can find it early, one can be good to ensure that the runner can't steal Degree Mill mill (by the fact that if they don't have enough installed cards for you to bounce, they likely don't have enough to steal the mill). But it's not something you should lean on early, so I eventually cut this down to 2 for the Jua > Wraparound remote. News Hound is an epic piece of ice in this meta with the current current war (heh). It's also the only card in this entire deck that says "tag," and that was a huge part of why it did so well. A lot of people tried to play around Hard-Hitting News, and it's just not something I care about. Like I said, this deck is just about playing currents and scoring agendas.

-

The assets and upgrades: NGO Front and Reversed Accounts play a similar role by bluffing an agenda. They're really great if they bluff a run and usually fine if they don't. Mumbad Virtual Tour helps this by forcing the runner to pay 5 to trash it. If a runner is just having their way with your remote, it's a great thing to jam in there, but its best use is generally a deterrent to running HQ or R&D when you're building a remote.

-

The operations: Hedge Fund, is the only real econ here. You'll lean hard on SSL Endorsement, your ID ability, and your currents. Biased Reporting is a good way to deal with a Hayley or Geist who's winning the current war and able to install a lot of resources, a Wu with a massive pile of programs, or anyone else who wants to install a lot of things and manages to get past your currents. It was originally IPO, but I often found that if I'm at 8 credits to play this, I don't really care about having that much more money. But if I'm at 2, being able to play Biased Reporting is very nice.

-

The currents: I think everyone is on 3x Scarcity of Resources and has been pretty much as soon as this ID was playable. I often found that this was not enough to contest the current war, especially with so many runners having 3 Employee Strikes and Same Old Things. I had considered using more currents, but I wasn't as much of a #madlad. It wasn't until I saw @eric_c's Canadian Nationals list with 2x Death and Taxes that I considered using it, and it was amazing. In some games, it earned me at least 20 or 30 credits. It's an absolutely stellar current and makes News Hound almost 100% having that end the run

-

The recursion and consistency: I have a nice rounded out suite of 1 Fast Track, 1 Preemptive Action, and 1 Special Report, and I don't think I would change any of these cards. They were used not every game, but when they were, they were amazing. A lot of games you have massive scoring opportunities, but with 6 agendas in 44 cards, you can sometimes go many turns without hitting anything. If you find yourself flooded or just need to see some extra pieces, Special Report is very appreciated.

-

The unicorn: Fairchild 3.0 is the only viable restricted card for this list (imo). I tried Global Food Initiative (completely irrelevant 99% of the time), Hunter Seeker (the window to use it is really small), and Whampoa Reclamation (completely unnecessary). FC3 replaces the Tollbooths that were in the original list, and the tax is so much better.

-

The spice: this deck has a few tech cards that actually made a huge difference, namely Navi Mumbai City Grid and Best Defense. Navi Mumbai City Grid is there for all the pirate Hayley, Geist shenanigans, and Datasucker (when I remember that it's a paid ability). Best Defense was mainly for any 0-cost thing or potentially higher if the runner decides to float tags from News Hound. Hits Off-Campus Apartment, Inti, RNG Key, Find the Truth, and I'll keep it in the deck for Rogue Trading, because I'm sure that will be annoying. I originally had Cyberdex Virus Suite and took it out because Wraparound is so good against turtle. I think it would have saved me against @miek, and I'll definitely consider it when Freedom releases.

-

This is a great deck. If you love grinding away your opponent's hard-earned saving and giving them worthless pieces of paper in return, try it out.