The Universal - Colorado Regionals 1st Place

"This is the next century/Where the universal's free..."

This was the runner I took to 1st place at Colorado Regionals. It went 3-1 in the Swiss, beating AgInfusion, 2 Engineering the Future (one NEXT glacier, one Ultraviolet FA) and losing to GRNDL rush/kill. It went 2-0 in the break, beating Tennin Institute shell game/FA twice.

The Colorado meta is notoriously strange, with many players playing their pet decks, an abundance of HB glacier and kill decks, and very little Mooncoats. What better chance, then, to break out Hayley once again and grind up some glaciers to chill my Diet Coke. Credit to bakunin75 and Circadia for the original concept; I just spiced it up with my pet cards.

To wit: I don't like Professional Contacts. Shaper decks already have trouble staying relevant in the early game, and ProCon puts a dent in your tempo with a sledghammer even if you can get it on turn 1, which is not a given.

I myself prefer Quality Time/Diesel draw plus Aesop's Pawnshop. Between those, you can often generate a large pile of free or very cheap resources, which you play simultaneously with Hayley, and then promptly sell off. If you think about it, two 0-costing resources, played together, cost you one click (plus the fraction of a click to draw them with your six draw operations plus Beths) and over time will net you 6 credits. Each Daily Casts is also worth 6 when you sell the last iteration to Aesop. That, in conjunction with the monstrous Sifrsite loop, and the power of Artist Colony, mean you have more than enough money to trash a piece of corp ice every turn, with multiple Levys to keep them coming again and again.

As a result, the deck feels a lot closer to my old standard, Hayley Blackmail (RIP). Apply enough pressure to your opponent's ice and money, and soon neither will pose any threat to your ability to lock up R&D and clog HQ with agendas.

This deck isn't foolproof; on top of the fact that you sometimes have to install programs other than Parasite with your Clone Chips to continue forward in a run, the fact you can only destroy one ice per turn, can't contest assets well, and have a limited number of effective Parasites means that you have to sometimes be aggressive to prevent your opponent from setting the pace of the game. (Another argument for Quality Time, as it makes it easier to just draw your Sifr for those matchups where your opponent isn't scoring quickly.) You also have to be careful choosing which ice to blow up. But as most glacier decks seem to be swinging toward event economy, it's entirely feasible to bankrupt them if you blow up ice strategically.

Ark Lockdown on Parasite is obviously a huge drag, and if you're expecting a lot of it I'd recommend making room for a second Atman to cope, perhaps by cutting one Sacrificial Construct. (A Datasucker might then be a nice addition.) But the thin rig of Chameleon + Cyber-Cypher + Atman + Sifr can function in a pinch, so I opted to take the risk.

The Moon matchup is undoubtedly bad; keep them held up with Clot, try to guess where they never-advance their agendas, get Critical of Smartfabrics, and attack aggressively before they can reach critical mass. Or, better yet, just play Aeneas Andy or Maw Whiz, if you're anticipating it.