HB:ETF, 2nd Place Meeplemart Store Championships (25 people)

I think HB has been on the slide down in both participation and results at tournaments so I decided to post my deck from today's store championship to give some hope to my fellow bioroid lovers ( wait ... that didn't come out right).

The deck's a basic HB:FA shell. I was guessing I would see endless Eater, Keyhole, Siphons so throw in some of the obvious tech cards -- crisium and wrap-around. On top of that I just wanted to tax the keyhole runs as much as possible. Generally that worked as I played 4 games where Keyhole was dropped and I think I was keyholed maybe 4 or 5 times in total. Ultimately I was going for taxing servers -- 2-3 ice on R&D, 2-3 on HQ, 2 on a San-San/Adonis remote, and maybe 1 on archives or an eve remote. As long as each run cost 4+ and 2-clicks I was satisfied (often it was much more by mid-game).

Card Choices: Agendas: Pretty standard for HB:FA. Domestic Sleepers is an option, but don't think they're worth the deck space, even if splash archers (unless you're doing the awesomely fun Sleeping in the Toybox deck). The Chronos Project would probably be better as a second gila (some games, I think I Gila'ed 6+ times for sure) but, well, I hate Noise and it could be devastating to MaXX as well.

Money Cards: Adonis, Eve, Hedge, Restructure. I was wary about the Eves as runners are pretty rich now-a-days and they will often trash Adonis/Eve after you rez it and without at least the Adonis money, some of the bigger ice (Heimdall, Tollbooth, Sherlock would be hard to rez). However, as HB, it would almost always be a net-gain over the runner if they trashed it so decided to go for it and usually could setup the 1-ice eve server to just make it too costly to trash. I was siphoned 7 times on the day and the drip economy definitely saved me (in 1 game when from 2 credits up 9 at start of turn after a siphon). The restructure did not turn out so well, it often sat in my hand for 3+ turns as I tried to get to the money to play it. Maybe an unsuccessful or peak efficiency be better. Green level maybe but blue level probably not as I sat at 5 cards in hand alot as I built ( and got killed by Vigil in the final game :)

FA Stuff: Very standard except for only 2 san-sans. Something had to go for the crisiums, wraps, and tollbooth so that was it. Threw in 1 Ash to help protect one if I did get it. In the end actually didn't see many and only scored 2 agendas off of them out of 6 games, Biotic'ed a heck alot of agendas. Went to the dark side with NEH in last tournament so I kinda forgot how HB:FA was really slow ironically (well this type is) and you sit with agendas/biotics in hand for awhile till you can score them while still having a bit of fun money left.

Ice: You can probably tell this started as HB:ST deck. Now that one was ridiculously taxing (10 to break 2 eli's anyone?) but it just did't have to cash consistently since HB:ETF easily got me 12+ credits a game. Mentioned the seemingly strange inclusion of wrap-around above but it was a meta-call. The rest fairly obvious except for the Sherlock. Definitely some double-takes when I rez that. I have mixed feelings, it's a 5 strength-2-sub sentry for 6 so breaking it is a way painful for anything outside of stealth. However, it is almost always clicked through (but can surprise on last turn) so 6 str for taxing 2 clicks is so-so. Ichi 1.0 be the other obvious choice (or 2.0) but I feared Atman at 4 given already 7 ice already there. However, with the rise of swordsman, not sure that Atman will be that prevalent. I do want to give props to Viper which I don't see much but is wonderfully taxing, I'd say right up there with Eli most of the time except when some test-run/scavenging shaper jerk busts out Torch (or a cypher-cypher). Even then it's 2 creds for a 3 credit ice.

Tech Cards: The wrap-arounds did good work but the crisiums were so-so as they either did not come into play or were trashed ( which I suppose is net-6 credits to HB so that's something).

All in all, I had alot of fun playing the deck because, well, I like having money and HB can do that ( I know, I know Blue Sun is money king now ....). Plus I want to get some FA in before clot. Is it better than NEH .... probably not except in specific meta situations, like when runners can get going quick ( e,g, Eater/Keyhole in maxx ) and you need to tax the runs as much as possible.

Well, if anyone made it to the bottom of the rambling, thanks for reading. Comments, questions, and especially suggestions welcome.