Allrounder Los (1st place at Euros Cache Refresh)

This deck, based on Need vs. Greed by Brototurret, took me to first place in the Cache Refresh side event (55 competitors) at the Euros in Birmingham, going 4-1. For Corp, I played this deck.

Since I spent my time in the lead-up to Euros testing and refining my decks for the main event (and I didn't want to bring all my cards with me) I just picked a deck I thought seemed fun, swapped the Rosetta 2.0 for the third copies of Build Script and Same Old Thing (since Earth's Scion was not yet legal) and rolled with it. Those changes were fine, but I think Rosetta is pretty good too, so you should try both versions, I think.

The deck is very strong (probably even stronger if you do not forget every second or third Los trigger), having solid plans for the early, mid and late game. You want to begin pressuring your opponent with your strong run events, while setting up with money and draw. Sometimes that's enough to win the game, but if not you can rely on The Gauntlet for multi-access and Magnum Opus for money to close out the game. HQ pressure in general is really strong in this format, because without Jackson there is no good and safe way to get Agendas out of there.

The Games

Quick remark: This was a Swiss tournament with Cache Refresh decks, basically. There was no bidding for sides, both players played both decks in every match.

Round 1 vs Michele (Architects of Tomorrow) - Loss: Michele was playing a really fun deck. In the beginning it just seemed like a normal midrange Rush/Glacier-hybrid, but he got me good when I ran into his HQ, and completely unsuspectingly faceplanted a Snare with only one card in hand. Afterwards he told me, that his deck had something above 20 ICE to drive Smoke nuts and spent all its influence on Snares, Neural EMPs and Neural Katanas. A wacky deck, but really cool.

Round 2 vs Rufus (Controlling the Message) - Win: Rufus was playing a classic CtM deck with a combination of Assets, tag punishment and Fast Advance elements mixed in. I got a starting hand with Aaron Marrón and an early Magnum Opus down. That was enough to pressure him early, but he managed to sneak an Astro through and reach 5 points with Breaking Newses and 15 Minutes. The game was really close, because I managed to grab the Net Quarantine from his HQ twice (both times accessing 3 out of 5 cards), while he was ready to Fast Advance them next turn with his Astro token and a Biotic I knew he had in hand. A lucky win where things went my way.

Round 3 vs Jacek (Sol) - Win: Jacek was playing a Sol kill deck. He also scored an early Astro and installed a card facedown behind an ICE. I Inside Jobbed my way in, which was crucial since it was indeed a Breaking News, which he could have used to kill me the next round. From there it went downhill for him, because he couldn't find his second Breaking News and his ICE was quite taxing, but no problem for an Opus-fueled economy with Marrón to back it up and counter some tag-subroutines.

Round 4 vs Toby (Cerebral Imaging) - Win: Toby was playing a Succesful Field Test/Bryan Stinson CI build, which looked really cool. I got an early Mammon to go through his Enigma on HQ, grabbing an Elective Upgrades on my first access. Soon, he played another Enigma on HQ, but that couldn't keep me out. I grabbed another Agenda, but dropped below 6. He used the window to Stinson himself to incredible amounts of money (his turn was install Stinson -> Ultraviolet Clearance -> IPO, netting him 4 cards, an install and 21 Credits). On his next turn he Fast Advanced a Successful Field Test, triple ICEing R&D and putting the third ICE on HQ. The next turn I Inside Jobbed his HQ, pulling the winning Agenda. While I was lucky against Rufus, this game was absurd. I had 5 accesses and got three Agendas, just ridiculous.

Round 5 vs Gijs (SYNC) - Win: Gijs was playing a SYNC kill deck. There were two very crucial moments in this game. The first was, when I used Deuces Wild to remove three tags after Hard-Hitting News, entkomming the Boom. The second was, when he purged my Tapwrm and threw two GFIs into his Archives to Preemptive them back into R&D next turn. I don't know whether I would have checked it under normal circumstances, but since I had the second Tapwrm in hand, I ran it, stole both of them and went up to 6 points, which basicallly won me the game there and then.

In the end, I wasn't expecting to win the tournament even after the last round, since @Jackmade and @Krystman were also on 7-1 before the round, they also split and they were paired with each other, while I was downpaired with Gijs (6-2 at that moment). But as it seemed, my former opponents did well enough in the last round, to lift me to the first place on tie breakers (as one of 4 people who went 8-2).

This deck is great. It is really strong, flexible and has a good plan for each stage of the game. Show those Smokes why the format was named after a criminal card!