Tennin Faustkiller, 1st place Card Kingdom Store Champ, Seat

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No Siphons, Please. Card Kingdom Store Championship 1st Plac
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afishisborn 2810

My Runner deck iss over here.

This is my first place corp at Card kingdom's 20-player Store Champipnship on 1/30/16. Tennin went 4-1 in the day, with the only loss coming in the second round of swiss. This tournament was pre-MWL legal, but this deck and my runner were post-MWL legal.

A brief strategy: Tennin is exceptional against Runners that tend to durdle, which the post-MWL meta seems full of. Your primary focus is to protect your centrals. With 19 pieces of ice, that should be easy to do. You'll note that 11 ice are barriers. This is not a gear-check deck; it's designed to be taxing. Lady fast runs out of counters, Corroder has to spend obscene credits to break Ashigaru and Wall of Thorns, and most importantly, Faust has an awful time with all of it.

Easily the weirdest card is Snowflake, but it's effectively a 1-cost Wall of Static. Add the innermost ice on a server, no runner is going to rely on a psi game after spending the tax it takes to get in. 2 cards for Faust makes it an especially good tax for just 1 credit to rez.

The first match of the day was against Kayla, a newer runner who brought Maxx and also Tennin. The initial game was rough; even with expensive, taxing ice over HQ, I was being Eater-Siphoned to death. Eventually, I managed to rez enough ice to discourage siphons, though not after giving up 3 agendas, in a trend that would be all too common among the many Maxxes I would face. Once my economy stabilized and my R&D made Keyholes prohibitively expensive, I slowly scored out behind a double Lotus-Field server and breathed relief.

Round 2 against Cspieker's Hyperdrive Chaos Theory proved much more difficult. I drew frantically for a Caprice to attempt to stave off the glory-run I could see was coming as he repeatedly Opused for 8 with Bagbiter on the table. Literally just in time, I was able to drop Caprice on HQ as the next turn he went to score the single Notoriety that would win him the game (having found 6 points the honest way). With Faust on the table and thirty cards in his grip, we played psi games until I was broke and his hand was gone. I thought I had staved off defeat, but Levvy turned the pressure right back on, and my R&D eventually yielded one last agenda.

Round 3 was against Moxwall, also running Maxx. Again, despite my best efforts, he siphoned me to death and Keyholes my R&D into oblivion. Eventually, Caprice on HQ gave me some reprieve, but once again, I had given up 3 agendas and was still struggling to stand, clicking for 3 credits only to spend them all on psi games. Slowly and agonizingly, I managed to eke out the agendas I needed to win as Keyhole after Keyhole missed the final agenda in my R&D. 50 minutes in a single game, and we were both tilted.

The final match of the swiss was against Michael's Noise. He quickly blew up my Yagura on R&D and scored a couple agendas, but I took advantage of Noise's setup time to rush out my agendas behind a single Lotus Field. Brazenly, I left my R&D open as I quickly scored out, and by turn 7, the game was won.

Tennin's final match of the day was the first match of the top 4 cut. All 3 other players were Running Maxx, and given the stressful games I had had against her earlier in the day, I decided to just do the bandaid off and face her. Thankfully, I opened into a Caprice, and by turn two had an Eli in front of a Snowflake with Caprice on HQ. I dropped event econ, built R&D into an expensive server, and secured a remote of Pup, Yagura, and Ice Wall. With Jared running broke, Pup become very problematic, and I felt safe scoring all my agendas behind what would otherwise have been a paltry server.

All in all, Tennin did work. Ice Walls routinely grew to 4-5 strength, agendas were scored earlier, and I routinely Tricked of Light off of Yaguras and Lotus Fields.

16 comments
1 Feb 2016 Simone Suka

Why tennin over RP?

1 Feb 2016 afishisborn

@Simone"Suka" most ice in this deck just ends the run, so the RP ability isn't that relevant. Tennin gives you a couple advantages over RP: stronger centrals, cheap ice that becomes taxing (Ice Wall), and a fast advance option in Trick of Light.

Of course, all this comes at the cost of a weaker remote game. I don't get to take advantage of Sundew or Mental Health Clinic for drip, so my econ is somewhat weaker.

The best thing about Tennin is that it forces the runner to either slow their board development by making expensive runs on HQ/R&D, useless runs on Archives, or give you a free advancement, worth approximately 1.5 clicks. Against runners with slow setups (Nexus Kate, Noise), you can rush out agendas behind simple ice, and with the threat of never-advance on your side, it's easier than ever to bluff out assets as agendas.

I'm not saying that this deck is better or worse than RP, just that the game plan is actually quite different.

3 Feb 2016 SecurityRake

As usual your Tennin decks are very instructive. I wonder why the Launch Campaigns though? Presumably you're putting them down in the remote when you're not scoring, but that seems a bit inflexible. Would you consider Melange?

5 Feb 2016 PaxCecilia

@SecurityRake I think Melange would be harder to use because the rest of the his economy is event based and he needs lots of ice installed. Melange would take up a whole chunk of time, whereas Launch Campaign just comes in slowly and helps him keep up with gradual costs of building servers.

5 Feb 2016 PaxCecilia

Btw @afishisborn I absolutely love your Tennin decks man. This is such a perfect adjustment of No Siphons to the current meta. Great stuff!

6 Feb 2016 afishisborn

@PaxCecilia thanks!

@SecurityRake I've tried a lot of cards in that spot, including Melange Mining Corp. and Sundew. Melange is just too easy to trash out of R&D and too click intensive even when on the table. Sundew, it turns out, takes forever to make a decent profit, time in which I could be scoring out of that server. Launch Campaign is a quicker return on your money than Sundew, slightly stronger in R&D, and only takes a single click to use.

The other card that I think is actually a serious contender for that slot is Medical Research Fundraiser. It gives the save credit return as Launch, but without the need to protect it. However, the three credits it gives to your opponent is a serious liability, and you can't bluff it out as an agenda (one thing this deck can do is never-advance like a boss, allowing you to score more easily without Caprice). Also, if you spare up some influence (The Future Perfect instead of Global Food Initiative, you could run Successful Demonstration instead. A lot of options!

My suggestion is, tinker. Find the econ that I missed. And if you do, let me know! I'm always refining my Tennin.

8 Feb 2016 SecurityRake

Went -1 Ashigaru, -1 Wall of Thorns, -1 Eli, +1 Tollbooth, +2 Crisium for the Green Lake Games tournament. Didn't drop a game in four rounds of swiss. Missed cut by one point because the last was a timed win. Pulled out of a lot of really tough situations too. Very happy with it.

8 Feb 2016 SecurityRake

OH, I also switched the Foods for TFPs and swapped a Restructure for a Successful Demo to fill out the influence. Went fine, but I'd bet there's a better slot.

13 Feb 2016 bubbathegoat

would you consider swapping your two Eli's for Markus, and adding 1x Wormhole? I find high-strength code gates to be my best protection against Faust, and the potential to combo in net damage from Assassin or WoT at least looks good on paper.

Finally, as Tennin, dropping advancement counters on unrezzed ICE doesn't broadcast anything, so there is a good potential for surprise on a low-cost rez.

In summary, I like high strength code gates against Faust, I like advancable ICE in Tennin, I think you leverage a good surprise factor with wormhole as a cheap rez, and finally, it complements your ICE suite, and it is perfect storage for Trick of Light once it is rezzed.

15 Feb 2016 SecurityRake

Wormhole is great, and with Eli's added influence it becomes much more favorable. Still, I have run Wormhole in Tennin numerous times, and to be honest, it's JUST OK. Eli or Tollbooth are usually better, due to David being such a strong counter. Even in Tennin, you definitely can't rely on having 3 counters to make it free, and even two to make it pretty darn cheap can be asking a lot against an aggressive runner, which you should be running into. Plus the deck doesn't have a whole lot in the way of punishing subs to snag with it.

Personally I would say it works very well in a more prickly Tennin. I've seen Grail Tennin decks that make it VERY DIFFICULT to run early until you have a full rig, and in the current Faust meta, that might be a really good idea to re-examine. Those decks can stack up counters very well because the runner can't afford to facecheck early on, and they also have nasty subs to steal. Something more prickly like that might be a better home for Wormhole in Tennin.

27 Feb 2016 Iron_Soul

This deck has me excited to try out Tennin, but have you considered replacing philotic with genetic resequencing? Still legal on agenda points but gives even a single scored nisei some real teeth. I've never managed to kill anyone with a philotic outside of PE, hence why I would consider the swap.

27 Feb 2016 afishisborn

@Iron_SoulThe general agenda plan for this deck is 2x two-pointers and 1x three-pointer. I actually have gotten a couple Philotic kills off this deck, especially since you can fast advance it. If a Faust player just blew their hand to get into your server (And believe me, it will eat most of their hand), you can follow up with a Trick of Light Philotic to close the game out.

Mostly, it's just a third Braintrust, which is good enough.

2 Mar 2016 tzeentchling

Thoughts on Commercialization? I suppose you'll be spending those counters elsewhere, but it could be useful if someone lets your Ice Wall just grow.

18 Jun 2016 Alphr

Took 4th place at a NZ store championship with this, undefeated in swiss, one loss in cut vs Leela

5 Aug 2016 Alphr

And a 5th Place at our regionals now also =P

5 Aug 2016 Eji1700

I've fallen in love with Yagura as of late, given it's great stats and effects, and was just wondering if you've considered mother goddess at any point? Having the option to fire a hard ETR from your yagura is nice, especially in late game where the runner is swimming in money and maybe wants to save faust cards.

Not to mention the occasional opening hand mother goddess is nice for sneaking out a few points if you get lucky.