Armored Glacier (15th/58 at Reading Regional 2017)

Is Weyland back ?!?! (and no Gagarin doesn't count)

Maybe

This is the list that i took to Reading regional and ended up at a very surprising 15th place (what i consider my best performance to date). The deck was fairly solid, going 3:3 (not amazing but nothing to be sniffed at) with some very close losses and a fair few intrigued opponents.

Also this is by no means optimal and I would love suggestions in the comments below.

Some key cards:

Armored Servers: This agenda is like a slightly worse but far more interesting Nisei Mk 2, but put it in titan... it can get out of hand quickly. The inspiration for this deck and my favorate terminal directive card.

Archer: A great heavyweight, a fantastic tax on HQ, not a bad Ice to rush behind and an aboslutely incredible synergy with armoured servers (especialy when you can pop 2 tokens in the same run).

Off the Grid,Crisium Grid: You are realisticly only going to get 1 archer rezzed in a game; make it count by forcing them to run through it multiple times, made even sweeter by your 'fake nisei tokens'.

Excalibur: Essentialy a gearcheck for AI, and if you can't deal with it my Off the Grid just got a whole lot better.....

The rest of the cards are just a supporting econ package and some nice multi-sub ice, which aim to be fairly taxing but cheap enough to be used as gear-checks if wanted. Scarcity and dedication ceremony, were just spare slots, that should probably be better used.

So, onto the tournament report:

Round 1: (split > 1:1) loss vs power tap Andromeda: This was the game that went the worst all day, props to my opponent. A fairly classic story of not closing out the game quick enough against the monstrous engine that is power tap Andy. All i can say here is that i should have rushed harder

Round 2: (sweep > 3:1) win vs Fisk: I will be the first to admit that this isn't the most impressive feat, but I enjoyed this game very much due to the complete change of pace and exceptionally entertaining deck that my opponent was running (their first turn netted them 4 points with a Fisk investment > run R&D forcing a draw and installing &popping Eden shard > information sifting through the lone Mausolus on HQ) I established a pretty secure off the grid remote after scoring an early atlas behind a Hortum.

Round 3: (sweep > 5:1) win vs prepaid Kate: I was unsure how this would go seeing as prepaid Kate often has quite good glacier and rush match ups. However it seems that the fact that Shapers like to install all of their cards means that Armored servers becomes particularly punishing. An early archer rez on HQ (sacrificing an Armored servers just after popping it's remaining token) led to a large loss of tempo in cards and credits (no program trashes though) in which i set up my Off the grid server and scored out (friends it back onto the board when they eventually did manage to take it down).

Round 4: (split > 6:2) win vs spicy temmy-J whizz: This game was streamed and should be on Neoreading grid sometime in the near future. I was concerned that this game wouldn't go very well, especially when a few turns in an Apocalypse landed out of the blue. It devolved into an intense rush match and a pretty close finish in which I managed to set up an off the grid pre-rezzing it to score a global food a turn later, meanwhile getting medium dug fairly intensely. A good turnaround for a game I expected to lose, though it was a lot closer than I would of liked.

Round 5: (got swept > 6:4) loss vs Andromeda: This was vs a fairly standard Andy list (if Inversificator is considered standard). I managed to score an Armored servers fairly early (though a strike was up so I sadly only got 1 token).We both got to 5 points via quite prolonged rushy game-play. There were some great moments surrounding an early pol-op install and the ensuing bait to get it out of the way. Despite the game going on for a long time and Andy being down to 3 cards, I didn't manage to find a good moment to use the token and lost on R&D single accesses (Mausolus sniped medium fairly early with net damage) whilst setting up my win. Another great game, lots of moments where we were both doing great and some great Inversificator plays by my opponent.

Round 6: (split > 7:5) loss vs Andromeda: Almost like there is a theme here..... However this game was pretty close, I had established a good board presence and had my scoring plan pretty set out in stone, however I over-extended on HQ and R&D became my opponent's out, prompting them to medium dig me for the win whilst I had the winning GFI on the table :'(.

Thanks for taking a look and let me know your thoughts.