MaxX Three-Time Store Champ Top 4 Deck

Great write-up! I came here expecting it to be full of #toptier but it was very concise, well thought out, and not derogatory to your opponents or the readers, which I definitely respect. Having played against Travis, I can say he is a strong player and clearly very consistent with this deck.

@ItJustGotRielle thanks! Who is this btw?

Just a heads up, Spinal only triggers during a run, so you're safe from SEA Source.

@botounami Ha! Very good point. I just had to walkthrough and edit this left and right, as I am on like day 5 of being on the dayquil/nyquil train from a persistent cold. I will edit above!

I like the chutzpah on this, its got a come-at-me-bro attitude that suits Maxx. Couple of questions:

1) whats a NEH FA? I'm not familiar with that abbreviation, but it sounds like a deck where this deck should respond to by operating with a different MO.

2) Against scorch decks, would you still siphon-lock and deja vu up "I've had worse" to make up for lack of plascrete? Or double-down and keep that siphon-lock tight, keep on wanton-ing your way through?

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to play against this deck at the store championship in Lafayette over the past weekend. It looks like a solid build. I was a little upset that my decks were a little more inconsistent than I would have liked, but that is why we actually sit down and play the game. -Justin

I played against this at the Lafayette store championship. It was very good. My fast-advance Titan Transnational deck had nothing but Jacksons to combat the keyhole+eater combo, and even they were just delaying the inevitable. Very solid deck!! -Janice

@CyprusChill

1.) Near Earth Hub Fast Advance. The Astroscript deck dujour. This deck can just draw into wins despite all the disruption.

2.) With the Wanton strategy, and keeping them broke, and the ability to Keyhole away Scorch and other key cards--if needed--this shouldn't be a big prob. You just have to know when you are in control of the game. But keeping a hand of five and not using your I've had Worse is key.

@Swooshfinn``@hamsterdamster Thanks, guys! It was nice meeting you! Janice, you had some very good decks!

Its good to see more maxx decks moving towards a rig. I've been on the Morning star femme, yog rig since back when OnC dropped. Too often people worry about what they're going to do when they get in, they don't worry enough about HOW they're going to get in.

The changes make it seem more difficult to just out play. Eater only decks tend to get shut out if they can't land the siphon, or get crisium'ed.

I 100% agree with 3x armitage, 3x retrun and 3x inject. That is true synergy with the ID and great on their own.

Did you find singularity as under utilized as I typically do? I slot 1 for PE decks that manage to get 2 4 advanced cards, and sometimes to blow out a heavy upgraded server, but thats about it. 1 was fine for me after testing.

@x3r0h0ur Singularity is edge case. It is very good in my Jinteki-heavy meta. I also some of this Gov Takeover shenangians from that London Champs where they play advanceable traps. Singularity helps with these matches a ton. Sure, you may never use it, just pitch it. With all the draw, it is a fine tool to have.

I would love to get this to 45 cards, but I can't seem to figure out where to make the cut. I also think 1 Vigil can be nice in case you need to rig up. They will either be on full hand, letting you draw, or intentionally stay under it, making your Wantons more brutal.

@travisrchance Gotcha, I pretty much learnt NEH FA as the AstroTrain from day one. Every tourney i've seen that limits Astro to 1 per deck, NBN never make an appearance. Funny that.

@CyprusChill

As much as I disagree with the design of APP, I don't think imposing player homebrew solutions on their cards is the solution, but that's just my two cents.

Well, I finally won a Store Champs with this, not losing a single game with MaxX. In 4 Store Champs, I was top seed 3 times, took 2nd twice, 4th once, and won yesterday. I lost a total of 3 games in 4 events (18 games)--one of which was the hand of god crapping on me when a corp player Puntive'd me when I took a three pointer (my hand was Deja, Levy, SoT, Knight, I've Had Worse with 3 cards left in deck--they hit ALL my recursion, decking me, which caused me to lose despite being on 6 points.).

This deck is absurd, absurd, absurd. I figured out how to play against NBN--simply poke and steal where possible. Build up econ, wait for them to get their bucks down, and just siphon them while alternating into Wanton and Keyhole (sorta what you do to other corps, except the hand disruption is clutch here). Kill loaded Marked Accounts also. Patience wins this game.

Anyway, that is the update.

Congrats on the win!

Corroder still worth the deck slot? I like it quite a lot in my builds as well.

Missing any of the click shenanigans of other builds? I know you aren't a fan of Joshua, but what about Amped Up? I love how that card blows monster turns wide open, but the brain damage is probably too hard to play around for now.

Also do you miss any of the cutlery stuff, or do you stand by not having any in there?

I ask because my build is pretty close to yours and I love MaxX. My store champs are Saturday and I want to have the most competitive list I can before the event.

@Myriad Answers!

1.) Corroder is your key to not losing to Wraparound. Sure, you can use Knight or D4v1d, but since I put this in the deck, I have been crushing NBN.

2.) Joshua B. is not a good card in my opinion. I feel like it is good against bad players and in situations where you are already winning. At no point have I missed it or Amped Up. I plan for surgical strikes which allow me to play the part of bully. You don't need Amped Up to accomplish this. The deck should be doing 3 things: Siphon, Keyhole, Wanton/Utopia Shard.

3.) The Cutlery is slow, expensive, and click inefficient in my experience. Know that a corp can just reinstall in the same spot and keep taxing me means it's just a tempo hit to "kill" ice.

Inject is insane. It is better than cutlery and all the extra click crap. It lets you draw into your best cards/recursion and out programs in the heap where they can be retrieval run'd and not glut up your draws.

Like I said. I have lost 3 games in 17 rounds of swiss/3 Top 4 and 1 Top 8--finishing second twice, fourth once, and winning in the last one, not losing a game with MaxX. This list is bonkers.

QUICK UPDATE HERE: I won another store champs with this, with a record thus far of: Two 1st place Two 2nd place One 3rd place

I also won our league Top 8 event, losing no games. In all of the Store Champs, which was over 30 rounds, I lost with Maxx 4 times total--the last time to turn 3 triple Traffic Accident :)

This deck is insane. I have logged 216 games on Jinteki.net and, no joke, have lost 4 times period. One of these losses was turn 2 double Scorch after I Siphon'd. I def feel confident saying this is the best runner deck I have ever played.

I tried this list tonight and it was as nuts as you say. I like that it has a fast-paced rushed feel with lots of room for complex decisions and pilot skill. On the topic of pilot skill, I had a few questions.

-How do you handle tags? I found that I rarely wanted to clear tags after siphoning and just keep pressuring them, but it made Same Old Thing, Armitage Codebusting, and the shards harder to use. What's your tag policy? -Can you give some advice on when to SoT vs. Deja Vu? There are times where you have both in hand and want to recur a siphon and I find it challenging to decide which is a better move. -How do you decide when to fire the hades shard? Wantoning left and right puts a lot of unknown cards into archives and some games might only present one chance to use the shard. Thoughts? -How careful are you about avoiding discards? It's easy to pitch redundant programs, but how do you handle your grip getting full of draw effects in a situation where you will struggle to install/use what you've drawn?

@DarlingSensei Tags are irrelevant. You shouldn't be just tossing down SoT; these should be laid and used for ambush purposes. Play Armitage and click it 3 times as needed.

As far as when to use certain cards, that's hard to say dependent on the game. Timing windows are everything for this deck, so I am seeing what you are saying. I never drop any of the resources unless I plan to use them insta.

Glad you like the deck.

Hey, Im having a big problem vs. next ices, what do you do there? the tax is too big in HQ and RD that you cant keep the pace up

@Windave you have to focus your runs in such a way that they cannot rez them en masse. For example, focus on their hand first: siphon and Wanton. Get them broke and then keyhole the hell out of them. If they try and reinforce on their deck, shift back to the hand. Hit remotes and make then spend $ to rez. This is how I play HB. It is not a great match, admittedly, but trying to pinpoint when and where to attack will mean they cannot get all the next stuff rezzed. And even then, it's just Silver that is annoying--if they have an assload of NEXT stuff.

Another question, how can you deal with the massive amount of jacksons? If keyhole and wanton are expensive enough and they have jackson and shuffle some agendas from archives, you have to start all over again and the expensive runs makes you go so slow while the corp scores in a remote... do you find yourself running the jacksons the moment you see them right?

@Windave similar answer as last time, timing. You poke. You don't put three agendas in the archives and then let a Jackson put them back in. Surgical strikes.

Jackson is an autokill. If you hit one with Keyhole, put it in the archives every time--depends on game state, but 8/10 that is the right play. Sure, Jackson is annoying, but put the corp on wasting one to save a single agenda and your life will be much easier.