Biotic Upgrades; 2nd Place, Unique Gifts & Games Store Champ

daytodave 1224

I brought this and my Red Dress Kit deck to my first store championship Saturday and took 2nd, losing in the finals to MaxX.

Basically, this is a glacier deck until I score either a Mandatory Upgrades or a Vitruvius with 1-2 tokens, and after that it's fast advance.

How you score that agenda depends on who you're up against. Anarchs can't break a Lotus Field; Shapers are often stumped by a lone Mother Goddess, and also are the most likely to let you score one while they set up; Criminals are the toughest, but can be held off with some combination of 2 ETR ice and Ash.

The beautiful thing is that once I score Mandatory Upgrades, I only care about defending R&D, and do almost nothing but click for credits and score agendas. Even Account Siphon isn't scary because I only need 2 credits to score a 3/2 from hand, and anything that I can't score the turn I draw goes on the bottom. Almost every game ended with clicking Domestic Sleepers for the win.

Daily Business Show was the non-core all star. I would stuff agendas on the bottom all day until I was ready to get them back with Jackson.

Eve is mostly in there as a tax on the runner to open a scoring window. She's definitely my favorite click 4 install after scoring Mandatory; and when she actually sticks for the 8 turns, one Eve more or less solves money problems for the game.

I think the card most missing from this deck was Crisium Grid, which would have helped enormously against Eater-Keyhole MaxX. Probably will stuff 2x of them in there somehow for next time.

This deck went 4-0 in swiss and 2-1 in elims.

3 comments
10 Feb 2015 pants on head

How do you usually score the first Mandatory Upgrades? Looking at the deck, I'm guessing IAA, next turn Biotic Labor AAAA? And if you're worried about Eater/Keyhole shenanigans, I would cut Swordsman to make room for Crisium Grid, as the grid is not really a dead card in any matchup, as every runner runs cards that trigger on successful runs, but not every runner runs solely AI breakers.

10 Feb 2015 MasterAir

Did you find the Domestic Sleepers added enough value in this list? I would think you'd be better off with ICE in those slots. I don't like playing with as little as 16 ICE. I'm not sure about Crisium Grid, though I fear MaxX. I would guess Wraparound would do similar good work against the MaxX assault, and give you more early game stoppers against everyone else. Maybe I just haven't seen MaxX in full flow yet.

10 Feb 2015 daytodave

Biotic is the normal way to score Upgrades, hence the name of the deck! That said, lately double Ash or double binary ice have started doing more work in that field.

Wraparound is a great idea, it might take a Lotus Field spot.

Swordsman and probably 1 DBS will come out for Crisium Grid for testing. I way underestimated Crisium before this tournament. Shutting off a Dirty Laundry hurts, shutting off Keyhole hurts worse.

Like I said, almost every game ended with Domestic Sleepers for the win. That doesn't mean it's necessarily a key card though, with Mandatory scored any 3/1 could have done similar work. After advancing an NAPD six times against Valencia Saturday, I'm about ready to cut NAPD and DS for 2x Gila Hands and an Eli.