[Eternal] Unlimited power! - 2nd @eternal 2023 august

Rezzing and derezzing bloops to my heart's content

This is the deck I brought to the first 2023 Eternal tournament, accompanied with a fairly standard blue Whizzard list.

Points

Cerebral Imaging: Infinite Frontiers 2
Jackson Howard 2
Violet Level Clearance 1
2 to spare cos fuck it, who needs them?

The Deck

The idea behind the deck is to perform a fairly niche combo that results in gaining infinite credits, then use this ludicrous amount of money to lock the runner out of our servers and score out.

The combo looks something like this:

• Build a server with at least 2 Bloops.
• Have 1 other harmonic ice installed somewhere.
• Install in the root of the server Surat City Grid, Vovô Ozetti and Cybersand Harvester; ideally with the help of Shipment from MirrorMorph to compress all of that in 1 click.
• Rez all 3 cards starting with Surat and using its triggers to rez the harmonic ice and the one of the bloops.
• Keep rezzing bloops using each other as derez fodder, paying 0 credit for the rez cost and netting 2 on the harvester.
• Crack the harvester after reaching 10^12000000000 credits. number may vary, this is just a favorite of mine

Now that our credit total exceeds the number of credits made legitimately in the history of the game, we can install Sandburg (or tutor a copy of it with Executive Boot Camp) to make all our ice infinitely strong, put down a couple of cheap gearcheck and score behind that.

The rest of the deck is there to support the main strategy: Violet Level Clearance and Ultraviolet Clearance provide the necessary draws as well as keep credits and handsize up, Hedge Fund is mediocre but helps in case we can't find other transactions.
Enhanced Login Protocol is necessary to deal with the runners currents, some of which nullify our strategy and other that are just a nightmare for CI. Other options in this slot could be Scarcity of Resources, since we have the points, but I don't find it that much better since we're usually playing currents in reaction to the runner playing theirs, so most of the value of an early scarcity is lost.
The agendas suite is tailored to keep agenda density as low as possible. the deck is on the slow side, soProject Vacheron didn't look very appealing to me.
The ice suite is just a bunch of cheap gearcheck, with the exception of Wave that doubles as a harmonic as well as being able to tutor for Bloop.
It's worth mentioning that Echo is by far our best ice, since if you can keep one rezzed during the combo (we're free to do so if it's installed in the same server as the 2 bloops, thanks to Surat) it will get an infinite amount of power counters, instantly solving some of the tech cards that would help deal with Sandburg. Loki can also copy said echo for an additional copy.

How to deal with this

There are many ways to play around our credit total:
Avoid dealing with ice strength with cards like Boomerang, Kongamato/Gbahali or Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga. Our only out here is setting up echoes with a large number of EtR subrutines.
Sifr alone can deal with 1 piece of ice a turn, but combined with Parasite even echo isn't safe. This is the trickiest combination of cards to play around, luckily it comes with a point cost for the runner.
Rumor Mill shuts down Sandburg and Employee Strike cripples CI's ability to hide agendas and key combo pieces.

Poistion in the meta

CI is uniquely positioned in the meta in my opinion, because it can provide threats from multiple angle that make it hard for the runner to prepare and play around, whether it's by fast advancing at lightning speed, killing the runner or attempt to lock out the game with infinite money or this monstrosity.

I decided to play this list to show it off, but also because most of the relevant tech is underplayed, due to the corp meta being filled with asset grinder decks and kill combos.

Results

The deck went 2-1 on the day, performing more or less as I expected; with a couple of blowouts on both sides and a closely fought battle in the last round.

Round 1 vs PSK/percomis on control Hayley: L
An early employee strike slows me down, I find my current shortly after but struggle to put together the combo pieces. The second employee hits the table the turn before I find my last piece, but at this point I already found 5 of my 7 agendas and no Jackson Howard. I boldly discard 9 points in a desperate attempt at keeping the combo alive and bluff my way out of a bad start, but a click 1 run on archives closes the game.

Round 2 vs NBkelly on Hayley/"Geist": W
The runner is happy sitting back and building up their unkillable setup with Spy Cameras to check RnD for days. I combo off on turn 5 and rez Sandburng on turn 6. The runner concedes right after that, being completely locked out with out tech cards. Funnily enough the game ended with a total of 0 runs made.

Round 3 vs mildesorte10 on whizzard: W
My start is a little subpar, but I find the right pieces of ice to slow down runs on HQ and an early medium. I perform the combo on turn 5 and rez Sandburg on turn 7, but my opponent has shown Rumor Mill earlier in the game, so I have to be careful. I build a scoring remote and start pushing agendas, mildesorte uses banhkar to poke in HQ a few times, but in doing so critically looses the second copy of his current. The last copy of rumor mill is the very bottom card of the stack, despite that the runner heroically manages to draw into it and plays it to trash the Sandburg, only to be a few credits short from contesting my winning agendas.

Conclusion

Huge thank you to the OP team for organizing a few small eternal tournaments every year and psk and nbkelly in particular for jumping in on the day and making us well rounded 8 players.

Eternal is very fun and I hope decks like this can show it to more people. Hope to see many of you playing this crazy format at worlds later this year!

P.S.

1. Shoutout to koga for being the first one to point out the combo to me. Funnily enough the combo could be performed before TAI released, using Akitaro Watanabe and either Traffic Analyzer (if the runner has link <2) or Indian Union Stock Exchange (outside of HB). Vovo made the influence cost much lower and Cybersand Harvester is more consistent and can be tutored with EBT.

2. If you can, please take the time to watch my combo turn on stream. The reaction from the commentators is heartwarming to say the least.
   I must have watched it at least 10 times by now and it still makes me smile every time without fail.