Always Be Closing!

Without a Clot against you, anticipate this powerhouse to be easily closing by turn 8-13, with no real ability to rein you in.

Overview:

Welcome to my workshop!

History/Pre-rotation:

I created Big Deal Outfit (Too Big Two Deal) back in April and brought it to my first real significant tournament placing 2nd.

It continued to power out solid results across multiple COs and took 5th in Canadian Nats.

Across the tournaments I've also workshopped the deck and created small changes, and/or larger meta-defined variants like Too Big News Deal, which was a workshopped list for the Esâ meta and took 4th at its main respective tournament. It additionally took 9th at another where I got bubbled out of the cut due to an 8 way tie on SOS for 2nd in swiss.

Now/Post-rotation:

With Bulwark leaving I had some initial concerns, until I saw the spoilers for both Valentão, and Pivot.

• Valentão is a great ice and fits the missing BP (Bad Publicity) ice slot left by Bulwark rotating.
• Pivot is the all-star new card for the deck, and has many uses:
  • Firstly, by running 2x Big Deal you have 5 cards in your deck that can be a Big Deal, along with the ability for it to pull a Project Atlas for the Too Big Two Deal (install advance an Atlas + Big Deal for 2x counters) play.
  • Beyond that the ability to pull a Too Big to Fail, even spending your whole turn for it is a great option.
  • Can also additionally pull a Regulatory Capture, or an Audacity for a FA when at 4x BP if the other is already in hand.

New Cards [that are old cards]:

• Envelopment, I personally think this is the spiciest, and most unexcepted include in an Outfit, not Ob? However, it fits the decks gameplan of speed so well.
  • It's an extremely powerful early lockout against some decks since it's both Boomerang, and Botulus resistant. It typically requires them to have their fracter, or Inside Job if installed on the remote to jam an Atlas behind, which is its main purpose.
    • See Cut R1 vs crowphie as an example
  • Plus, there are many games where tossing Envelopment on R&D locked them out and gave me 4 turns to find a better ice. When you're closing on turns 8-13, I'd say that ice did a good job, and just don't use it when/once it's no longer good. Although, remember an unrez'ed ice still requires additional click/credit math.
• Winchester, this is a great ice for HQ, and can be repurposed for R&D in a pinch. The cost of tracing through on HQ even if there is a link is still 7 credits (10 without), and 5 to break for Carmen, or 6 with Num.

Additional choices:

• 0x Rashida, what?? This was one of the clearest improvements to make, for a couple reasons:
  • With the plethora of money you have in this deck, Rashida is mostly just draw 3. Click to draw is simply better
  • Might pop some games, but since you don't invest in a scoring remote it's just generally a dead card beyond turn 1-2.
  • Adding 3x trashable cards to your deck is a huge downside, as the porousness of your deck late game in many instances will be your main concern.
• 2x Big Deal, even with Pivot?
  
  • Yes, by adding 2x Big Deal it means that you have 5x Big Deal's in your deck, and the ability for the runner to clear out the threat of Big Deal is almost non-existent as they need to find both. All about consistency! :)
    

Shift in play post rotation:

With Bulwark missing it's generally a less spiky deck, with now almost non-existent investment in the scoring remote. However, it makes up for this loss, with the vast increase of speed, and most importantly consistency.

Also, with Pivot it's not nearly as possible for the runner to lock you at <4 BP, which I found happening on occasion before. Now, even playing at the top tables it really feels like you're in control of your BP, which was not always the case pre-rotation.

This deck is a powerhouse! Play it now, and always be closing! :)

Matchups

In favoring order:
1. Aumakua Anarch (Extremely favored)
2. 419: Amoral Scammer (Very favored)
3. Anything non-Esa without a clot (favored)
4. Esâ Afontov: Eco-Insurrectionist (unfavored)
5. Clot + Simulchip + Recursion (Going to be real hard, but still winnable)
No Data:
- Mercury: Chrome Libertador (Anticipate favored)

APAC Results:

Happy to answer any questions about decisions/replays in the comments :)

Note: I'm charliedmcb on jinteki.net

Matches:

Swiss [7-0]:

Win distribution by turn:
10, 14, 15, 11, 9, 12, 19

R1 (Win): vs CyberStein on 419 [Replay]

R2 (Win): vs Dragons1rule on Arissana [Replay]

R3 (Win): vs wiley on Lat [Replay]

R4 (Win): vs Spieroz on Esâ [Replay]

R5 (Win): vs AugustusCaesar on Hoshiko [Replay]

R6 (Win): vs seebasss7 on 419 [Replay]

R7 (Win): vs enkoder on Lat [Replay] [Streamed]

• One of the best and most intense games I've ever played!
  
• Thanks enkoder for the incredible swiss final!
  
• Brief rundown:
  
  • I burnt through 4x Clot's. The 3rd of which most importantly required enkoder to choose between rig shooting himself, or trashing Conduit. A very tough decision, where he choose to trash Conduit, leaving more of his run options but removing the multi-access pressure. I was eventually able to pull through the 4th Clot with exactly Mav + Reg Cap + Audacity and win.
• See the stream vod, and/or enkoder's perspective through the youtube video he uploaded of his run through APAC to get another perspective.

Top Cut [3-1]:

Win distribution by turn:
8, 11, 14

Loss distribution by turn:
8; threatening a guaranteed turn 9 win if R&D held

R1 (Win): vs crowphie (SendMeSpirals) on Hoshiko [Replay]

• This gameplay was 100% based on the open deck list information from the top cut.
• Brief rundown:
  • I pushed out a 4 counter atlas behind an Envelopment, knowing crowphie was only on 1x Devil Charm + Aumakua, or 1x Cleaver as the only options to breach it. The play paid off and gave me an easy close by turn 8 with the 3 follow up turns of:
    1. Atlas counter -> Hostile score
       
    2. Atlas counter -> Hostile score
       
    3. 2x Atlas counter -> SDS + Big Deal score
       

R2 (Loss): vs Jai on Tāo [Replay]

• This is my one loss of the tournament on Outfit, and I think if Jai was on Clot it would have been an absurdly hard matchup; although, you'd also have to adjust the list's rig as the current set of programs don't allow you much room to start ripping it apart with Simulchip + Clot.
  
• Brief rundown
  • In this game I tempo'ed out early with a Big Deal + Project Atlas turn 7, knowing that I'd have an exposed R&D for conduit digs, due to Hermes.
    
  • I thought this was a fair trade as I'd be up 4 to 0 with two Project Atlas counters pressuring a Big Deal + SDS score for the win as soon as I pumped back up with Too Big to Fail sitting in HQ the next turn.
    
  • However, R&D didn't hold, giving up 4 points the first turn, and SDS the next where he also had the needed Engolo to match my Afshar on R&D.

R5 (Win): vs KyraWNY on Hoshiko [Replay] [Streamed]

• This is a very good example of how to claw back a very bad start, which after enough games you are bound to have.
• Brief rundown
  • After a mulligan + mandatory draw + click draw I started with 0 Ice, and 2x agendas in hand (Atlas + Regulatory Capture).
    
  • KyraWNY turn one ran HQ twice pulling both agendas leaving me down by 4.
    
  • I was able to claw myself out of the pit, and pull this game back only giving up one more Hostile Takeover.

R7 (Win) (Grand Finals): vs Jai on Tāo [Replay] [Streamed]

• This was an amazing grands! The final click coming down to a 2/7 for Jai to win, and 5/7 for me.
• Brief rundown
  • I learned a lot from my first game vs Jai.
  • Hermes + Tāo, can be extremely punishing if you push out your scores too early, as with Conduit they can start snowballing, and pulling your servers apart. Due to this I delayed my score outs until I had 2x ice on both R&D + HQ, and re-icing before scoring more, going to 4x ice on R&D and 2x on HQ before the next score.
  • The longest consideration of the entire game was on the last Conduit run, and second to last click of the game. I had to consider if pulling SDS into HQ with my one Project Atlas counter, which I possibly needed to win the game was the correct decision, or not. I did already have a win condition in hand with 1x Above the Law + Audacity. However, it was an incredible thinker as if Jai followed up with a run on HQ than it would be a 1/7 for Jai to win, and a 1/7 to eliminate my win condition.
  • I pulled the SDS, R&D held, Jai ran HQ pulled nothing, and I was able to close with an Above the Law + Audacity.

Thanks

• Thanks to Team Muntal Bost for:
  • Helping me refine my play over the past months
  • Getting me prep games day of the cut on Hosh, which I had 0 wins on in swiss lmao (watch for the 1st APAC: Clutch Shiko [Swiss: 0-3, Cut: 3-0] deck list post which will contain the full story :p)
  • Going over the top cut deck lists with me and importing them into netrunnerdb for easy reference as I still don't know cards by name
  • And all around the wonderful support! <3
• Thanks to all the members of my netrunner community for cheering me on throughout!
• Thanks to all the players in the event! What a turnout! :)
• Thanks to the APAC judges for running a wonderful tournament!
• Thanks to the commentators for streaming 6/17 of my total APAC games :)
• Additionally, a special thanks to 2018 North American Champion Sam Suied for designing the card Big Deal :)