[Startup] Trick Shot = Good ?? (1st @ EMEA)

A deck doing the current trendy Shaper thing in abusing Trick Shot and Physarum Entangler. Turns out playing a card that's both Jailbreak and Overclock is good! Nobody could have predicted this.*

^{*People may, in fact, have predicted this.}

The girls package means that not only are your Trick Shots getting an excellent third access thanks to Mary, but also that once you start getting locked out of R&D directly you can still get those excellent triple digs. It's worth mentioning I never actually installed Beatriz; Eru turned out to be sufficient. There may be some merit in bothering HQ early with her, though, as her ability does not require Threat to activate Mary.

The popular economy package of Muse / Coalescence / Aesop’s Pawnshop being fully legal in Startup, on top of Shaper's excellent money options in the format, means the deck has a massive reserve of credits to fall back on, so money hopefully won't be too much of a problem. Just be careful about how early you install LilyPAD or your 'real' icebreakers to avoid having to click for credits.

As far as game advice goes, I'd say aggression is key. BtL in particular can start to lock you out with Logjam and Pharos, as Pressure Spike still takes a fair amount of credits to chew through them and you can't cheat your way through with the Entangler, so you definitely prefer to win earlier rather than later. There's nothing in Startup that is game-endingly bad to have to eat the subroutines on, so get to hitting things with your face!

Regarding slots:

• You have more than enough multiaccess so Conduit can probably go - I'd recommend trying out Urban Art Vernissage to smooth the installation credits a bit further and get even more value out of Coalescence (you can always sell it to Aesop once it stops being relevant).

• Test Run is cute for recycling Muse (which then resurrects something else) or for tutoring a key breaker, but can probably also be cut if you're looking for changes.

• Ice Carver is surprisingly relevant for Pharos vs. Pressure Spike but if you're not bothered by paying an extra 2 credits you could cut the influence for something else.

• Finding room for another Burner is probably a good idea, as it's a very strong card I don't utilise as well as I should.

While the deck went undefeated, it's worth noting the asterisks on that - Tradon took an unfortunate game loss in round 2 in a game that could easily have gone either way, and HaverOfFun played an excellent glacier game to secure a draw in the final round.

It goes without saying that I had an amazing time across the entire weekend and can't wait for the next big event I can get to - it was wonderful to hang out with everyone and to meet some new faces.

Particular thanks go to Atien for keeping things moving, to Harmonbee for an almost intimidating level of dedication to judging, and of course all of the various QtM creatures for a wonderful time in Italy. The game wouldn't be the same without you.