[Throwback] Knife Eater - 5-1 @ EMEA team tournament

This deck performed very nicely at the EMEA Throwback Team Tournament for both me and @not_yeti (he played -2 Dirty Laundry -1 Hush +3 Raindrops Cut Stone).

When we started looking at possible throwback decks I quite quickly settled on the idea of playing Eater with Jeitinho on the basis that in a wide open semi-unknown format I wanted something that could focus on it's own linear gameplan and mostly ignore what the corp was doing.

This was originally built out of Sable but as time went on and I kept saying "the rest of the deck is money and draw" I came to realise there are two things criminal is not great at: money and draw. So the switch to Hoshiko happened and we were immediately much happier with the deck. We play all the good anarch tempo cards to burn fast through our deck and do the thing as quickly as we can. We play a bit of recursion because we aren't importing any bypass to get back our knives.

I was very happy that all of the tech choices came into play at some point in the tournament, as seen in some of the highlights here.

Game 1 vs @Percomis on Cerebral Imaging Percomis is one of the all time greats and I have a lot of respect for him so I very happy we get to play. Turn 1 blind facecheck HQ to see Drafter and an unrezzed Jinja City Grid, proceed to knife 1. Turn 2 we've seen Jinja install a second drafter on HQ but no other ice on centrals, so we decide to risk it and let 2 drafters fire to get knife 2. Take a few turns to build up and draw. On the final turn I hit MIC on archives and choose to end the run. Play Running Hot and lose the Jeitinho to core damage, Katorga Breakout archives to get it back, install it, click Liberated Account and run HQ for a credit perfect finish.

Game 2 vs @oggy on Pravdivost A tough matchup as NBN has a lot of incidental AI hate in it's ice suite. Wraparound and Virtual Service Agent start to appear on centrals and things are happening in remotes, but I managed to get to 2 knives, using Running Hot to clear VSA tags at one point. I passed over my first No One Home earlier in the game during The Price but luckily I draw and install the second just in time to save me from a Breaking News score. Next turn, Hush let's me afford a wraparound break to go for the win. Oggy later gets a thorough revenge on me in round 1 of swiss.

Game 3 vs @BaaRamWu on Cerebral Imaging A fellow UK player and all around lovely guy, I was excited to play Baa especially because he's a TAI breaker and that meant I'd probably win. A lack of early ice meant I got to knife on turns 1 and 2. We then both proceeded to get a lot of cards and money before I installed an Eater and a Wizard’s Chest with around 18 credits, threatening the win next turn. Baa then proceeded to (very reasonably) look at his giant hand of cards for 15 minutes before declaring he couldn't win. It was just like playing against CI in the old days. We definitely both agreed the game was Fun.

I really enjoyed playing throwback, especially getting to play against so many great and lovely players.

Huge shoutout to team EA Sports and especially my teammates for the day @CobraBubbles and @davz131 for keeping the spirits up.

My corp deck was a spicy combo kill Sports seen here