Cheese Titan (1st/2nd/6th out of 24 at NYC SC)

Cheese Titan (1st/2nd/6th out of 24 at NYC SC)

We played this deck because (1) Shapers are bad, (2) there is no corp wincon that we could find consistently beats both Apoc Anarch + reg 419 besides fast advance. Overall, this seems to have been a good meta call for this tournament. Collectively, the deck went 17-2 across the four of us that played it. Both groenkaaf and I were undefeated with it on the day.

The original idea to test Titan came from Whiteblade, and we refined the rest of the list around a field that we predicted would be majority reg 419 with Stargate Anarchs next most prevalent.

Card Choices

The agenda suite and FA package is pretty standard and merits no discussion. However, the ice suite and econ package is what takes this list from ~50% against 419 to ~75%.

This list has a lot of money for a Titan deck. 3 Too Big to Fail, 3 Hedge Fund, 2 IPO. You may be tempted to cut some of this money. Have fun clicking for credits against 419!

You also need this money because you are playing real ice. In initial drafts of this list with the more traditional gearcheck ice suite we discovered that 419 just ran roughshod over you as soon as it found a turtle. Our answer to this was to increase the ratio of high strength ice, especially destroyers. Blowing up an Aumakua can open up 1-3 turns of run relief. 1-3 turns of no pressure is a lot of lost accesses, and will win you the game. The runner playing around high strength destroyers is just as good for you.

You may think 3 Trebuchet is too many Trebuchet, because it is :-) We waffled a bit on the right number of Trebuchet, Archer and Tithonium. We ended up on 3 Trebuchet because we overestimated how much Stargate Anarch there would be, and (1) didn't want to be playing Tithonium against Paperclip, (2) really needed to see a destroyer early to not lose to Stargate lock, (3) didn't want to be in a situation where we were sacking multiple Hostile Takeover to rez ice.

The final fun card in the singleton Scapenet. This card blows up The Turning Wheel. If the runner is single accessing all game, they are extremely unlikely to get enough accesses to win before you do. TTW changes this math to be very bad for you. The Mausolus is also for TTW decks, forcing them to clear the tag which is horrible tempo or lose the TTW. Also, it technically blows up Simulchip, but if people are playing Shaper, just play CtM.

I wish there were more Corp wincons in this very runner-favored environment, but I sure can't find them. If discovered, please send my way :-)