Banktongue -- 2nd, 8th, 9th @ 20p CO; 3rd @ 17p CO

This is the greytongue variant most of us brought to our COs this weekend. Xi went 6-1 on the day for me, only losing to Eric in the grand finals reset.

Card Choices

Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga creates so much aggression for a single credit. We are quite reliant on it with no Botulus and limited late game economy.

Dr. Nuka Vrolyck is better than Diesel, we are slot restricted and Nuka lets us control when we draw.

Hush is a really strong and flexible tech piece. Border Control is the most common target here given our powerful run events.

Light the Fire! is tech for upgrade hell remotes. I didn't play it on the day, but I probably should have installed it in the grand finals to challenge Bio Vaults.

How To Play

Your core rig is Bankhar, Ghosttongue, Marrow and you want to see all of them relatively early.

With Bankhar you can play very linearly. Be aggressive. Use Bankhar to land your powerful run events while you draw through your deck.

Don't waste Esâ triggers by taking more than 1 core per turn unless it's Running Hot and you're digging for pieces or extending a combo turn.

Labor Rights is nice to hold until later to recur your aforementioned powerful run events. If the game goes long then you'll likely need to recur economy to be able to keep up.

Deuces Wild is almost always 2 cards and 2 credits since we need to build a bank for expensive late game runs.

Post Tournament Thoughts

This deck is very fun and powerful. You have extreme aggression, good tech, and a linear gameplan. But it needs more longevity to be consistent against glacier. If your opponent can successfully weather the storm, you will get locked out. Eric adapted in the Grand Finals by heavily icing Archives and saving Bio Vault for Finality and Legwork.

Tournament Report

• R1: Win vs. Beatrix's Sports. Sports has a hard time in this MU. I was able to land 2 Chastushka early and save Legwork to clear HQ once Beatrix got to 5 points.

• R2: Win vs. Eli | ThatsNoMun's Outfit. Eli and I were on card for card the exact same lists on both sides. He rushed hard out of a remote while I hammered centrals. He usually wins this game, but this time I was click perfect to topdeck a Chastushka off a Labor Rights and mill 4 points.

• R3: ID with Eric | Whiteblade111

• R4: Win vs. Colin | FireRL's Marsmetal Sports. Simply mill 6 points on turn 1. I agree to the truce Colin!

• Cut Game 1: Win vs. Charlie | Santa's Big Deal Outfit with 3x News Team. A real grinder where I, perhaps mistakenly, took all 3 News Team as points by turn 4(?). IIRC Charlie ended at 2 cards in R&D. I was able to force rezzes to keep corp money low while stacking sabotage.

• Cut Game 2: Win vs. Eric | Whiteblade111's Acme. Eric didn't find enough ice to lock me out and my Finalitys paid off. On an early Archives check through a single Thoth, Eric popped a Bio Vault. That felt like a good trade for me, so I ran back over the next few turns to exhaust 2 more of them and that probably made the difference in me landing a second Finality for the win.

• Grand Finals: Loss vs. Eric. Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga didn't show up for me early enough this game and Eric adapted well to the matchup. On the last turn, I messed up trying to get a Bio Vault pop with a Chastushka so I could Finality; instead I should've tried to fork with Legwork.

Thanks to Abraham, Eric, and Sam for running the Seattle event; to all the folks coming down from Canada; to everyone on the team for tuning and testing this monster; and finally to Eric again for the sick finals match. See y'all at our next CO on June 10th :)