Bang bang (you shut me down) - Eindhoven Regionals 1st place

This is the deck with which I won the Eindhoven Regionals (24 people). 5 rounds of swiss and cut to top 4, deck went 4-1-1 (tie) over the whole day. Cards were legal up to Breaker Bay.

I expected a lot of Anarch, especially whizzard since spags single-handedly made him cool again. Therefore I didn't feel like playing my normal HB FA deck but instead opted to go for a faster version with NEH. Many of the tweaks were done with anarch in mind which paid off, given there were 7 whizzards and a bunch of noise.

Quick explanation of some card choices:

• Power shutdown: already noted by multiple people as very strong in the new meta with NRE, I still opted to play 2 as tech versus clot. You can shut down the SMC which shaper players normally leave on the table to threaten clot, and use blacklist to prevent them recurring it. Frequently this is enough to score one more astro, or slow them down enough to rush behind some cheap ETR. Against non-shaper, shutting down a crucial breaker like corroder can be enough to buy you the few turns you need to win the game.

• Crick: saw this in Zach Cavis' NEH list, and it works really well together with the power shutdowns. Also does some work against noise, prevents security testing on archives and generally surprises people. 3 influence is a lot, alternatively you can cut it and GLC for an extra biotic and probably a tollbooth.

• Lotus field: MVP by far, 2 is definitely the right call. This is just so hard to break for anarch early game, finding atman4 takes time and is still expensive. Offcourse weak vs shaper, however this was the right call for the meta.

• Only 1 architect: this was last minute tech from a friend, reasoning is that people who don't know your decklist still have the install mimic out of fear of faceplanting into it, while people who do know your decklist still have to respect the 1-of. Frees up crucial influence for the PS.

• Grim and GLC were the most dubious cards; just wanted one more annoying piece of ICE and econ. There must be something better to do with these slots.

Small report of the day, Krystian from Teamworkcast recorded most of these so looking forward to watching them.

• Round 1 vs Mark playing Valencia. I can rush out an astro behind enigma very early; next turn I bait the blackmail by install sansan behind it. The opponent didn't have enough credits to trash, so I score out rather easily. One thing I noticed is that he trashed all my PADs without doubt, probably thinking I was on butchershop and opting to keep me poor.

• Round 2 vs Krystian from Teamworkcast playing whizzard. Details are a bit vague, however I mostly win by rushing behind lotus field before he gets atman4 online.

• Round 3 vs Jeroen playing Leela. Our previous game with RP take ages, so had to rush with 10 mins left. I score an early astro, get siphoned in response and draw a 2nd astro which I can't score yet. On his last turn he drops sneakdoor and snags it from my hand for the tie.

• Round 4 vs Ronzacapa playing Noise. Once again I can score an early astro, however his first mills trash a few beales. I get a Jackson just in time, however his nexts few mills are again beales and a Jackson. I do get a solid remote going with Lotus and Sansan which he can't touch, but I don't find the agenda's in time before he locks R&D and mills a couple NAPDs before I get my last Jackson.

• Round 5 vs Steve playing Noise. I keep a hand with lotus field and astro, and game is over in quick fashion as I just keep drawing more agenda's which I can score as he has no answer to lotus.

After swiss I am in first seed, cut is to top 4. Only game in elims I played with NEH was against Argamas with whizzard (told you anarch was popular!). Sadly I dont find my early lotus field this time, so I gamble and push astro behind enigma. Next turn I bait the run by installing sansan behind it and sure enough he has the Yog. I find a 2nd astro and some barriers, however I have to give up some accesses on R&D. He scores 6 points in 4 accesses, and I have 2 breaking news in hand with wide open HQ. His board is clone chip, corroder and yog so I decide to make a play before he finishes it on centrals. I bait a run by rezzing PAD, which he diligently trashes with whizzard. Next turn: power shutdown 1 for clone chip, power shutdown 2 for corroder (trashes a beale), install crick on archives. He draws up and finds his 2nd corroder, installs and runs archives last click. I happily install the beale and score it out, so we are both on 6 points but I am broke. He decides to money up on his turn and doesnt run my hand, next turn I take a cred, install BN, advance + astro for the win.

Overall extremely happy with how the deck performed, however I have my doubts about it's success against Kate with clot. If you expect anarchs especially with NRE, I believe this to be a very strong meta call.