HARTbinger - 2nd Online GNK

This deck came 2nd in an Online GNK tournament. I found it to be a nice and flexible deck, but currently untuned to the new meta. This won against Earth Station, CtM and Sportsmetal deck, and losing against a Scarcity of Resources Azmari.

This deck doesn't do anytning new or exciting compared to previous Hayley decks, but I wanted to share this as it gave me a good run.

Programs

I tried to keep the rig as ‘light’ on cost as possible to help vs the rush decks with Takobi helping out with the lifting on the slower corp decks. For the Earth Station and Sportsmetal matchups, Takobi was very impactful, particularly with the common low strength ice (Border Control etc) which really starts eating into Surveyors later. In terms of ICE breakers, I favoured Ika due to the scaling for the big sentries and cheap install cost, plus I feel more relaxed about it being trashed with Harmony AR Therapy in this deck.

Clot and Misdirection are the standard Hayley tech. Stargate is a big win condition vs a lot of common corp decks. Pelangi simply didn’t see any use and may be replaced in the future. In theory, it should help out vs quicker corp decks.

Hardware

Simulchip is mainly to allow for some nice recursion of Harbinger or Self Modifying Code during stimhack runs. Clearly it is great vs program trashing cards, but this deck doesn’t aim to cycle ice Euler.

Supercorridor is a card I’m not 100% happy in the deck, however it did reliably fire during the matchups (and I was told more if I paid more attention to it). It is a great enabler for running Stargate and from my limited experience of how often it fires, it allows a cheap 2 MU console, with the added bonus at being more robust vs a double 5/3 Punitive Counterstrike.

I didn’t install Buffer Drive once (but didn’t come up again grindy decks either).

Resources

The very standard Aesop / Professional Contacts / Beth / Daily Cast resources. I didn’t go for Paule Café as this seem to require too much support for me to build the deck around. The tech cards are flexible for Citadel (never installed) / Political Operative (slotted for 6 agenda Azmari and Cayambe grid running decks) / Hunting Grounds (never installed). Depending on your meta, these can be pretty flexible. I feel like Political Operative is a must have with the current corp decks.

Events

Diesel really helps accelerate the deck when you need your engine bits, or looking for key cards when money isn’t your limiting factor (i.e. lots of money but not a lot of rig!). Notoriety won me a single game, and I think would be key vs some common matchups (Azmari being the obvious one). This is a card I will be keeping, as a lot of corp decks are build around stealing 3 / 4 agendas while they score one less. Harmony AR Therapy could go down to a single copy, but I LOVE this card. It allows for recursion of Aesop fuel (Harbinger / Simulchip / Daily Casts).

Improvements

I really enjoyed this deck and found it matched my playstyle nicely. Atman was a wasted card on hindsight and a carry over from the ‘pre-rotation’ meta.

The biggest improvement I would like to do is introducing copies of System Seizure. The Turn 1 Scarcity of Resources matchup is horrendous to deal with and this would really improve the matchup, while being a nice combination card using Takobi for the more glacier type decks.

The 2nd improvement I would do is introducing some anti-asset tech, which is sadly lacking with Paricia rotated.