Calibrating...TUCANA! (16th & 30th @ EMEA 2023)

AI generated calibrating tucana + impressions from my fellow NWE players

Influence of TAI

Ob Superheavy Logistics: Extract. Export. Excel. has been my favorite corp ID for quite some time, so i was very excited to try out the new toys that came with the release of the automata initiative, especially Slash and Burn Agriculture and Tucana looked very promising to me.

First let's take a look at Tucana:

• it get's fetched via Obs ability through Mavirus or Calibration Testing in the turn you score to fetch an ICE and install it rezzed, which seems very valuable in the times of Hermes. The big payoff on top is that you can get a Border Control which then can get you another Mavirus or Calibration Testing when you pop it to give you kind of a loop.

• even if you just put an agenda on top it is good value even if the runner makes it into the remote since you still get to fetch the ice that you need.

• with only one Stavka in the deck you can still relieably threaten the Hafrún combo (blanking the sentry breaker while encountering Stavka) if you need to, since we have 3 Mavirus to fetch the Hafrún not relying on the trashing ability of Stavka

Second Slash and Burn Agriculture:

• The expend ability on this agenda is basically the 4th and 5th copy of Audacity in the deck with some big upsides and some minor downsides. One big upside is that you can use it in addition to Audacity. So if you really want to get some value you can preinstall a Spin Doctor and a Calibration Testing (or get it with a popped Border Control). Then you install a Project Atlas on top, rez and trash the Calibration Testing to put a counter on the Project Atlas and fetch a Tucana with Obs ability. Then expend Slash and Burn Agriculture on the Project Atlas and finish the turn by Audacity. This results in a score with 2 Atlas tokens, the ability to fetch any ICE to protect weak servers and the Slash and Burn Agriculture safe in Archives, because of the Spin Doctor.

• Taking up an agenda spot, but not being an agenda you actually want to score is an upside and a downside. The upside is that if you have this and another agenda in HQ, you can actually score one using the other. The downside is that you have agendas that you don't want to score.

• Being able to fetch a Spin Doctor on score (for example if you score an Azef Protocol and trash an Ice Wall) makes the downside of putting an agenda faceup in archives a lot less problematic.

Interesting card choices:

• Calibration Testing: To pay 6 Influence is a lot but I love the card in the archetype. It fits perfectly in the Ob chain of Border Control into Calibration Testing into Tucana + score into Border Control. In addition, it gives you a way of protecting your scores by putting a Calibration Testing down instead of the agenda to test the waters.

• Triple Sandstone: This is just the most expensive to break 3 cost ICE that does not cost influence. We also have Magnet and Afshar for specific purposes like protecting HQ or getting rid of trojans but Sandstone is our main taxing piece of ICE. It convienently gets purged to it's original strength by our triple Mavirus.

• Triple Ice Wall: It is surprising what this little piece of inconspicuous ICE does for the deck. It protects Rashida Jaheem early, it get's Extracted or Azef Protocoled into Spin Doctor in the right situation and even can be advanced to get out of Aumakua range with a Mavirus in the bin. It's not the best late, but it is always fodder for an Extract or protects against Hippo.

• Whitespace: This is sadly the best 2 cost ICE that is able to end the run. I would prefer something with more than 0 strength, but here we are. Wraparound might be a good choice instead or in addition, if we find the influence because it deals pretty good with Slap Vandal and Aumakua. With triple Mavirus i wasnt to worried about Aumakua though.

• Regolith Mining License: This is actually a pretty smart include that a lot of Ob Superheavy Logistics: Extract. Export. Excel. decks play nowadays, since it can trigger Ob by itself, get's you out of a money hole if necessary, can be fetched with Mavirus in times of need and does not block the remote for too long. I really liked it, but don't be to greedy with it, sometimes it's just okay to let it go before it's empty by overinstalling it.

• Winchester: I found this to be better than Afshar being 4 strength with 3 relevant subs. Even Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga doesn't like to run through this too much. Sometimes the subs fire and you kill a console or a breaker which is pretty nice and if you have the extra funds it can also combo with Hafrún.

Possible Changes

• I had one Vovô Ozetti in the list before swapping it out to have the Hafrún Stavka combo in here. I think at least 1 cost upgrade could improve the list quite a bit since you can only fetch an Ice Wall as it is right now if you trash a 2 cost card. Malapert Data Vault is probably best.

• I would like to have more multiple sub ICE in the deck but i am not the biggest fan of Envelopment because it is so expensive and eventually runs out of subs. It also awkwardly interacts with Border Control when the "trash this ICE" sub fires, since you fired your Ob trigger already and if you trash Border Control afterwards, you dont get to fetch anything again. Maybe it is time for Battlement, but that just dies to Cleaver.

Last but not least i want to give a shoutout to @percomis and @lostgeek who played the deck in the tournament and did really well with it. I also want to mention that building decks, playing and spectating netrunner is so much more fun than it was for a long time, so huge shoutout also to NSG who did an amazing job with the recent set and in general at keeping the game alive. Naturally i want to shoutout the whole of NWE for being the awesome group of friends that it is. YOU ARE AWESOME!

lostgeek:

"The decks I tend to like to play are those that are porous and solid at the same time. You are often giving away accesses in spots where you know they will not hurt you, while keeping the important servers well defended with temporary solutions. Sandstone often is very expensive for Runners to break and forces them to either go broke while contesting your scores (and likely triggering a Tucana while doing so) or allow you to score out. And then in the late game you often demolish your scoring remote to keep centrals safe enough to fast advance the last points you need."

percomis:

"This deck is like playing Shaper but corp. Lot of extremely cool tricks you can pull off to score agendas and keep out runners. My experience during the weekend was that you have a remote that is quite potent early on but falls apart quickly and after the first 1-2 agendas you purely FA things out, which the deck is extremely well built to do. The games I lost were usually from not protecting centrals early and losing a couple of points on free accesses and not finding an agenda to win with late game. Couple of cool tricks you can do:

• If the runner runs into a Border Control last click, you can fetch a Calibration testing and score next turn.

• If you use Slash and Burn to fast advance an Azef, you can trash an Ice Wall to fetch a Spin Doctor and get rid of the Slash and Burn from Archives. You can always use a Mavirus (or even a Calibration testing) to get a Hafrun even after Stavka was already rezzed to get the combo (and it's very potent against Criminals).

• Do not forget you can advance Ice Walls! Often you have a Mavirus in the bin, but Aumakua can still get up to 1 counter though and then threaten your centrals. Strength 2 is a different matter. I kept forgetting this and it would have been handy in some games."