Binder Vengeance! Warsaw Regio undefeated, #1 #2 after Swiss

Corporations have it hard these days - bothcze the law enforcement authorities and Martian clans jump into action upon any news on damage being inflicted on lawful citizens. And in case there is no such news at hand, in order to make them, a good journalist sometimes needs to inflict the damage herself!

This deck Mad Dashed undefeated through a 21-player Warsaw Regionals this weekend (granting the two of us 1st and 2nd place in Swiss + 3rd and 4th in the Top Cut) - trashing agendas, disrupting combos and threatening remotes with Blackmail (regardless of whether or not we actually had it in our hands).

It all begins with Clan Vengeance - a magnificent tool to thwart corporation’s plans by trashing their hand when they need it the most (or when we just feel like it). The only downside is the damage requirement, which means that it only works against specific corp decks, right? Wrong! When we look into our binder, we can find plenty of cards that we can use to damage ourselves, that had been sitting on a bench for quite a while and are hungry for some action. Let’s give it to them!

Card choices:

Valencia Estevez: The Angel of Cayambe - Because we need Blackmail to contest remotes and not to let corp rush before we set up.

3x Clan Vengeance - the core card in our deck, working well with the rest of our tools. It trashes corp combos from hand (Booms, EoI, Biotic,ToL, SfT) and works super cool with DNA Tracker or Komainu.

2x Officer Frank - additional combo. Mad Dash R&D. No agendas? Run archives, fire this paying from BP and get them from hand!

3x Mad Dash - it comboes with the two cards above, as well as IHW!, and in worst case scenario it can also give us points!

2x Stimhack- comboes with Clans! allows us to get quick credits to install our breakers from the heap.

1x Blackmail ★★★ - we need time to set up, so threatening remote servers is essential. Plus counters AgInfusion.

3x Career Fair ●●● - we usually don't have two credits to rub together, so this is crucial to speed up our setup.

3x Daily Casts- with CF it actually works better than SG.

3x Data Folding - We tend to play long games, so it’s totally worth it.

1x Dadiana Chacon - we can always fire Dadiana first, before we get credits from DC or DF. We can also go to 0 credits to trash it, take the damage and trigger the combo!

2x Déjà Vu - recursion for Clans / Officer

3x Same Old Thing - recursion for Blackmail / Mad dash / Stimhack / Hacktivist

3x Inject - We need a lot of draw, and if we trash a breaker - all the better!

3x I've Had Worse - more draw, that comboes with damage we do!

2x Wyldside ★★ - more sustained draw

2x Adjusted Chronotype - obvious. Why not 3/3? Because we need the click at the beginning to do other stuff. If we have it, it’s superpower, if we don’t - we can still work.

At some point we need to start getting into centrals, so there is a breaker suite here - one that does not mind getting trashed with Inject/damage: 2x Black Orchestra 2x MKUltra 2x Paperclip

2x Hacktivist Meeting - a meta call against Moon and asset spam that can be changed if needed.

1x Brain Cage - combos with Clans, protects us against Boom!, allows us to play multiple Stimhacks against non-Boom decks.

1x Titanium Ribs ●● - Comboes with Clans, and we can always choose cards that we can afford to lose e.g. IHW, breakers or duplicate Wyldside/Pancakes

1x Turntable - essential for SYNC, super effective against Nisei and Atlas.

1x Rebirth ● - depending on matchup, it’s super! We did rebirth into Alice a lot, but also Quetzal, Edward Kim or Whizzard.

1x The Turning Wheel ● - flex slot. it’s just not to run for 1 card with Stimhack.

1x Levy AR Lab Access ●●● - meta call! can be an additional Blackmail or Rumor Mill. We expected a lot of net damage ice and would hate to lose our tools to a PU.

Inermis games:

Round 1 vs Dima (Palana Glacier)

Clans + Officer + Blackmail gave me all needed agendas. Opponent was surprised and did not know what to do.

Round 2 vs Smieszny (Titan FA)

I accidently ran into remote allowing rez barrier and unfortunately did draw a blackmail but no paperclip. Titan scored 2x HT and Atlas with 2 tokens. But forgot that I can run clans after he uses Atlas tokens to get Biotic from R&D. Clans locked the FA and finally I got Paperclip after rushing Injects and IHW. This locked the remote and the game.

Round 3 vs Odol

ID with Odol, that plays exactly the same Val deck. We built it together and did not want to play against each other (We assumed Val would win anyway)

Round 4 vs Selverin (Tennin FA)

He managed to FA 2 agendas. But I started to run through DNA tracker to set up Clans to kill FA. Then Rebirth into Quetzal to run through Chiyashi. I was lucky to get Mad Dash into R&D for points, and the rest from killing his FA, and trashing hand with Clans.

Round 5 vs RomanoSoprano (AgInfusion)

Romano knew about this deck from scouting, but it did not help him much. He saw Blackmail from my 1st Inject in 2nd turn, so he needed to draw Caprice/Batty before scoring. This allowed me to set up. In this game I did not really use much Clans, but I managed to Blackmail and win the psi game with Caprice to get Nisei, and it was hard for him to get back.

Top Cut 1 vs Jander (SYNC Boom/EoI)

That was the closest and hardest game for me in the tournament. Jander knew that late game will be hard, so he rushed QPM and BN. He baited me with install advance with another QPM so he can HHN me. I removed 3 tags, so he flipped and removed my 2x Clans. After that time I managed to set up Brain Cage and Turntable so I knew I was safe from one Boom. But did not have clicks/credits to setup Wyldcakes even I had them in hand. I did rebirth into Alice, used Officer and hit Food and NAPD. Turnabled Food for BN but I did not had 4 credits to take NAPD, so next turn he Jacksoned and double ICEed Archives instead of searching for Boom. But in the meantime I got 2x HHN. Brain Cage got trashed, but I managed to remove all other tags. This allowed me to run through Resistors. I mad dashed the HQ to use Officer Frank, but hit the Food. He scored another BN next turn. I luckily hit RD for last BN and Turntabled for Food and won.

Top Cut 2 vs RomanoSoprano (AgInfusion)

This game looked very similar to the one from swiss, but this time I mulled and had blackmail in starting hand plus Wyldcakes. He did not ICE HQ, but knowing we run 1 blackmail, he set up remote and tried to score fast. I blackmailed first Nisei, winning psi game with caprise. He gave up few turns later after drawing more agendas.

Odol’s games:

Game 1 - vs Jander (Sync)

Sweep’s Week was super effective, as I had 7 cards in hand. Boom was not very effective… as I had 7 cards in hand! Went broke twice after being HHNed, had to Turntable 15 Minutes for Breaking News to avoid any nasty 24/7s, but survived long enough to thrash + Mad Dash my worth of agendas.

Game 2 - vs Pirez (HB: EtF)

My opponent went on Mushin-advancing anything that he laid his eyes on. With my new masochistic mindset I was disappointed to Mad Dash into an agenda, and a few turns later - ecstatic to run into a Cerebral Overwriter… This was the first time ever I won a game with 5 brain damage!

Game 3 - vs Inermis

ID - having built this monster together, using it against each other was the last thing we wanted

Game 4 - vs Śmieszny (Titan Transnational)

My opponent scored 3x Hostile Takeover for all the money in the world and then some more… but could not build a Blackmail-proof remote to score any more, and 4 Bad Pub was pretty much all I needed to contest his centrals for a “regular” win.

Game 5 - vs Selverin (Tennin Institute)

Game won on a combination of Blackmail and pure luck… Having been an idiot and run into a triple-advanced Colossus on R&D I lost all my Clans and decided to go tag-me instead: first just running through the sentry, then Blackmailing… finishing the game with no installed cards, 14 tags, 8 agenda points and my opponent just as mad as any of my dashes.

Top Cut Game 1 - vs Baltar (HB: EtF)

We spent what seemed like forever playing around each other’s tricks, with the highlight being using Stimhack just to meet the trace on Ash… and accessing what turned out to be a Jackson Howard. We ended up at 5:5 when we ran out of time.

Top Cut Game 2 - vs Selverin (Tennin Institute)

I was really lucky in this one, as my opponent could not draw into his ice and I stole 3 agendas out of random accesses (just to not let him use his ID ability). Once he got some serious ice rezzed, I kept bouncing off his 6-advanced Firewall to charge my Turning Wheel into the stratosphere and then used the most cost-effective breaker in the game… … a Rebirth into Quetzal.