Will Stinson's "Meta Call" 2-1 ChiLo City Grudge Match 2018

So, we had our annual unofficial tournament here in Louisville, KY. Unfortunately, attendance was not as great as it has been in the past. Regardless, fun was had and I actually did quite well, placing 1st amongst us 8.

The night before, I was scrambling to come up with a Corp deck, staying up late, playing on Jinteki.net a couple of other deck ideas I had. I almost settled with an NBN Punitive Counterstrike deck I had been working on for awhile, and I even tried out a The Foundry: Refining the Process build (the ID being my favorite HB ID), but then settled back into this deck I have been playing for a couple of months online. It's not the greatest deck by any means, but has been fun and is full of answers.

The premise of this deck is simple-call the meta! OG Weyland has been most constantly played ID over the years, despite not being terribly interesting or unique. But what is lacks there it makes up in versatility. And with more and more things out to punish lots of assets, going heavy on the Operation Economy engine again is perfect. And this deck is also just about playing powerful cards in general. Here is a brief overview of my card choices.

Agendas

Project Atlas, Hostile Takeover, and Oaktown Renovation are obvious includes for most Weyland decks and need pretty much no explanation.
Due to lack of influence and use of another restricted card, I could not use Global Food Initiative and instead settled on High-Risk Investment. Out of Weyland's current 5/3 options, I felt like it was the best choice and most versatile. It can also work well with Hard-Hitting News if it ever lines up that way. The most unique inclusion is the singleton Meteor Mining. I only drew it once during the tournament and when I scored it, I just made money instead of dealing damage. It's inclusion if there as a sort of back-up if HHN works out and if not, you get your money back. If you do lose it, it's just a two point loss. I have gotten one kill with it, but it would be the first agenda to swap out.

Assets

Not many of these since I do not plan on going wide. Reversed Accounts is pretty straightforward as way to control the runner's econ as well as a way to bluff an agenda (something this deck loves to do). Jeeves Model Bioroids is just good, simple as that. With a Jeeves out, I can utilize a sort of "never advance" strategy. He also gives me extra clicks to boost tempo, whether I treat him as a Gila Hands Arcology or install a stack of cards, a four click turn as Corp is always nice. And if the need to purge virus counters comes up, I do not lose a turn.

Upgrades

I do not even need to explain Bryan Stinson. He is one of the most powerful cards in the game. And if you can keep the Runner spending money, he just keeps adding value. During the tournament, I had one turn where I went from 2 credits to 20 credits off of archived Hedge Funds. That is just insanity. Will-o'-the-Wisp is one of my favorite upgrades and what I feel is an often overlooked card. In a meta full of heap breakers and Aumakua, it provides one of the best answers. Since trashing heap breakers often gets you know where (other than a small economy swing), Will-o'-the-Wisp turns them off and can then provide a large scoring window. Unfortunately, it's trash cost is very low and the runner can get it out of the way if found before installed.

Operations

I'm not going to explain the choice of transaction operations as they are very standard. The rest of the operation are purely meta call cards. With the prevalence of heap breakers, Ark Lockdown is almost a auto include in a lot of Corp decks. Hunter Seeker is just good at removing problematic cards and Scarcity of Resources punishes basically every runner in the game currently due to the reliance on resources for economy and other tricks. Despite not having BOOM! (which I really want in the deck and I'm sure I could make room now), Hard-Hitting News is just an insane card and scares every runner who doesn't know your deck. Everyone always spend the clicks and credits removing tags when it lands, expecting you to have Boom as well as protecting their resources. And if they drop Misdirection, I don't concern myself with it then.

ICE

So, my philosophy on ICE in this deck is "stop the runner" and if they must get through, make it expensive. The ICE suite isn't perfect, I'll admit, but it's worked overall. The barrier selection is there to firstly, get their Fracter into play, and then make sure it is expensive when they are running through. As a result of Paperclip being what it is (and overly efficient), Battlement and Seidr Adaptive Barrier are there to make them at least spend money. Ice Wall is for early protection and Tithonium is a "just in case" ICE. These 5 code gates are just good. Enigma is a fantastic early game ICE that is not cheap to brake with Black Orchestra, and costs at minimum two to break for the best Decoders. I originally was running three but swapped one last minute for Macrophage. Hortum is just one of the best Code Gates in the game AND is one of the best answers to Aumakua. Unfortunately, I only drew one Hortum in all three games at the tournament. Now, my sentry choice is an odd one. I would have liked one or two more sentries, but Owl does what it needs to do. It forces the runner to drop a killer and if they run with non-killer heap breakers not worrying about losing them, Owl is a decent tempo loss as the now have to redraw it and reinstall it, losing time and money.

So, that covers the card selection. It's definitely not perfect, but has been generally successful in attempting to accomplish countering the general runner meta. I will do a quick overview of the 3 games at ChiLo as well.

Round 1 vs. Smoke

An second turn Hard-Hitting News basically ended this runner game, even though it took me much longer to close it out than it should of. He didn't immediately clear all of his tags so I was able to trash a Daily Cast with 6 credits on it. I also got an early Scarcity of Resources, which is also continued to cripple his economy. I believe he only scored one agenda for two points that game. My resource denial mixed with Hunter Seeker and Ark Lockdown kept him from getting into my servers regularly.

Round 2 vs. Silhoutte

Oh, how my Aumakua plans almost worked but didn't here. The runner was utilizing some major econ cards with Liberated Accounts, Career Fairs, and the like. He was able to keep his momentum and money up, so I had some issues dealing with the board. I took a gamble that cost me the game, as we were both at 5 points. I did notice that if I would have had an early Hortum to advance, I would have easily been able to finish it out since I Hunter Seeker'd his only Code Gate breaker. I definitely want to make space for the third Hortum.

Round 3 vs. Sunny

This was a super close game that honestly, I probably should have lost. His Sunny was the super draw Event version with 3 each of Deuces Wild, Build Script, and Process Automation, and used Overmind as a backup, which got him into an early Oaktown Renovation I tried to rush out due to a weak opening hand of no economy and utility cards I didn't need yet. I did get an early Hard-Hitting News to land since he was playing quite aggressively. This allowed me to get back into the game. I ended up building a super scoring server with two Seidr Adaptive Barrier, an Owl, a Hortum, and the early Ice Wall I dropped because I kept drawing early agendas and had to find a place to store them. Fortunately, I was able to keep him running and spending his money, despite him making a ton of it from his drip economy cards. So, despite struggling with economy most of the game, I had a fortunate turn with Mr.Bryan Stinson himself, getting my money back up with a Green Level Clearance and an IPO. How they ever though Mr. Stinson was a balanced card I'll never know. After an unbelievably bad luck R&D Deep Data Mining + Turning Wheel dig for 8 cards, finding only one Agenda, I had to find a way to finish this out. Despite Hunting and Seeking his Sherman, he had another one to back it up quickly. At some point in the game, to slow down his runs, I advance my ICE walls to two, which makes breaking them with Sherman 4 credits, and that adds up very quickly. So, on my second to last turn, I double advance and add a piece of ICE to my scoring server. The runner thought I as trying to bait him into running since I had done it before and that server had become incredibly expensive. He poked HQ instead on this last turn, probably expecting more agendas there after his enormous R&D dig. Fortunately he decided to not run the scoring remote, thinking it was only a two point agenda. And that is when my investments in things that are of high-risk paid off.

It was a crazy day for games, with everyone have swings of luck. I'd really like to improve this deck, as it is a deck of answers. I'll just have to see what the future releases hold for it. The deck slots have gotten really tight since I am trying to have answers for so many different runner strategies. But, being able to perform relatively well (at the tournament and online) with a classic-style Corp deck definitely makes me happy. Maybe next time I'll try my crazy Punitive Counterstrike Making New's deck "Code-Name: Vanity" and play with even higher risks.