Something wicked this way comes - 1st@St.Petersburg SC

Stigmy 169

A control/denial toolbox deck. Went undefeated in Swiss and DE with an overall 8-0 result. Won 5 games against various NEH, 2 against Jinteki:RP and 1 against Harmony Medtech.

The Deck basically is Anarch-style various denial (Imp, Parasite) - especially asset hate - and Aesop's Pawnshop economy engine combined with shaper-specific recursion and cost-efficient toolbox breaker suite able to provide an immediate threat to where the Corp is the weakest. Depending on the meta influence may be spared for D4v1d or a couple of Datasuckers + 1 more Parasite.

Our meta is kinda NEH and RP-heavy so I bet on 2x Imp for maximum denial and 6 Influence spent paid off immensely. My first tutor via SMC or Test Run was Imp in most games.

Nerve Agent was another HUGE card to win me 2 games by a landslide. A better thing is sometimes people don't even see it coming.

I couldn't find any use for a Sharpshooter except feeding it to Aesop's (which is also acceptable) though there is no reason not to play it. (It was just me to not have faced even a single Archer or Grim during the whole tournament)

Scavenge was also of not so much use though a fresh Imp or Lady is always a good thing so I don't really feel like dropping it.

2x Plascrete was totally a meta-call (St.Petersburg Corps are known to run meat damage even in HB, and people say it's a common thing to find yet another district completely blown up xD). Otherwise feel free to add whatever Shaper card you like.

P.S. Storechamp was held in "Hobbit" board game store on 07/02/15 with a total attendance of 28 players.

25 comments
9 Feb 2015 nickv2002

How effective is Aesop's Pawnshop? Are you normally trashing Icebreakers to make room for better ones you've drawn, or extra Plascrete Carapace/Astrolabe, or something else. Seems odd as a 3-of without more synergy.

9 Feb 2015 Cryoclasm

@Stigmy Thanks for detailed statistics! You are always welcome to our city )

9 Feb 2015 Cryoclasm

BTW, Was Earthrise Hotel better than Quality time? Did you ever miss LARLA?

9 Feb 2015 Stigmy

@nickv2002 Aesop's Pawnshop is actually the bread and butter of the deck. I trash everything i don't need at a given time + Cache + Daily Casts for an extra credit + Earthrise Hotel when i see i don't need extra draw and want my cash back + extra Astrolabe + an empty Cerberus "Lady" H1 to recur it once more + a purged Nerve Agent i think i'm not gonna use further etc. I can trash literally anything depending on how the game progresses. I have a lot of cards using counters in this deck so having my money back after i spend all of them is really useful.

9 Feb 2015 Stigmy

@Cryoclasm Earthrise Hotel turned to be way better than Quality Time. It doesn't give huge overdraw and with Aesop's Pawnshop provides us with an option to choose whether we need more cards at the beginning of our turn or we'd better have some extra cash.

9 Feb 2015 PlutoNick

Not my deck, but I suppose he can use Pawnshop for daily casts(3), armitage(2), Imp(2), cache(3)

and also recur Cerberus, Atman, Deus X, Sharpshooter with clone chip.

Enough synergy to me.

9 Feb 2015 gozik

Add 2 astrolabe, 3 clone chip(to recure imp/cache and eat them again), 1-2 smc(when you have your rig out). Aesop cache engine is really good and it does sinergyze very well with imp which is one of the best cards by himself in current meta.

9 Feb 2015 Dydra

No Order and Chaos cards :) great :)

9 Feb 2015 gozik

Should be mentioned that O&C was illegal at this tourney.

9 Feb 2015 p3t00h

Good job and XOPOLLl TOBAPULLl,!

11 Feb 2015 saltytacopanda

Piloting question, what if you don't see your personal workshop until late game?

11 Feb 2015 Stigmy

@saltytacopanda i don't run personal workshop but i believe the question is actually about Aesop's. There's enough econ for early game in the deck, and if i don't see Aesop's it means i see something else. I spend more clicks drawing in this case as well. Astrolabe helps a ton.

11 Feb 2015 saltytacopanda

*Aesop haha sorry typo! But thanks for answering.

12 Feb 2015 nickv2002

@Stigmy thanks for answering all the questions. Any particular cards from Order & Chaos that you would consider running instead of those last few cards you mention that are meta-dependant?

12 Feb 2015 mzob

Our meta is kinda NEH and RP-heavy so I bet on 2x Imp for maximum denial denial

denial

15 Feb 2015 Swiftie

@Stigmyvery fun deck, took it to store champ and came 7th, won every runner game but was let down mostly with my corp (was trying Titan Transnational: Investing In Your Future with Trick of Light to fast advance the Project Atlas train). Had to corp in both double elimination games so lost them both.

16 Feb 2015 Vaos

I also took a variant of this deck to a local tournament (did 2 out of 14 players), and it was a blast !

The only changes I made is removing Stimhack and one Plascrete Carapace for one Earthrise Hotel and an Utopia Shard, and also added one Feedback Filter for annoying Jinkteki Net Damage Decks (It won me a match). Basically running with a fully charged Nerve Agent in a Jinteki: Personal Evolution without fear of death is amazing (as long you're stocked on money, which this deck can do).

Earthrise Hotel is really great in this deck, it helps you draw replacement Astrolabe or other cards to keep selling and optimising that Kate free install credit each turn.

The game I lost with that deck was when I could not draw any money cards for the first 20 cards against a Jinteki RP, which then took his scoring window to lock out the game with Caprice Nisei and a Nisei MK II scored.

Anyway great deck, pretty fun to play this instead of Noise CacheShop or Kate Prepaid in tournaments.

16 Feb 2015 Stigmy

@nickv2002 i'm actually eager to try Stim dealer and Chop bot here, but the place for them in the deck is yet to be found unfortunately.

21 May 2015 jfaulkner8

Any update to this deck? I love this build so much more than PPVP

1 Jun 2015 Stigmy

@jfaulkner8 trying it now with symmetrical visage. Clot is a surefire addition instead of Nerve Agent or 1 Imp depending on the meta.

1 Jun 2015 jfaulkner8

@Stigmy I've got a version with Clot, 2x earthrise, 1x symmetrical visage, and 3x Career Fair to keep from taking a tempo hit

22 Jun 2015 Stigmy

@jfaulkner8 how has career fair been working for you so far? It's an interesting and unexpected one, i think i'll try it. And I'm actually just back from a Saint-Petersburg regional (22 participants) where a variation of this finished 2nd in Swiss and 3rd overall (my losses actually were mostly corp losses, and runner lost only once and only in Swiss). The only changes i made are Utopia Shard instead of Stimhack and Symmetrical Visage instead of Earthrise Hotel plus Kati jones instead of Scavenge.

22 Jun 2015 Stigmy

@jfaulkner8 ah, and a Clot for sure)

22 Jun 2015 jfaulkner8

@Stigmy Career Fair has worked pretty well, but after messing around for a while with it, I'm not sure it's worth the influence. It works great with Earthrise, but I find myself waiting to find it before installing too often. Another card I've been messing around with that has added some further econ is Scheherazade, installing everything but permanent breakers on it.

23 Jun 2015 Stigmy

@jfaulkner8 Scheherazade is very nice of course, it was in some of the previous versions of the deck actually and worked well. So it's a good splash if you feel like using it.