Hoshipko (1st & 4th at EACC 2022)

Good afternoon class, and welcome to this lesson about EACC-winning deck Hoshipko. My name is…

“You’re not Mr. TugtetguT! Why are you here?”



Well, Mr. TugtetguT is very busy preparing for Intercontinentals so I’m covering this decklist writeup for him. And it may surprise you to know that this deck was actually my ide…

“You’re boring. We don’t want to hear about this from someone who didn’t even play in Continentals.”

OK, OK, time for that substitute teacher standby option. Kids… let’s watch a movie. Alright, let’s see what it says about this sequel. ‘This time the iceberg doesn’t stand a chance’, huh ok.

So, now that they’re distracted, I can tell you about this deck that 5 of 9 NWE players chose to take to EACC.

Sokka demonstrated the power of the Boat at APAC, and that deck (or a tweaked version) was quickly the front-runner for, er, runner. As we started to think about what corps might try to do to overcome the icebreaker that’s not an icebreaker (but is an icebreaker), it seemed likely that the options would include: rush (Sports, PD, Ob?), awkward ice (Acme, Aginfusion, PD?), or net damage (PE). Concentrating on awkward ice, I thought that if we could put the power of the boat into anarch, and combine it with Hippo and Botulus then we could turn big awkward ice into a disadvantage for corps.

About 5 minutes after I suggested this, Asger had already made a draft list and started jamming games. This initial list had Pinhole Threading, Mystic Maemi, DJ Steve, and a Twinning. But as we played around and started to see the emergence of Sports as a big corp it seemed clear that the list needed maximum gas and double Stargate. Oh, and obviously we took out the mildly interesting influence and just played two Rezekis. Beyond that the tweaking was around the exact numbers of Liberateds, Mad Dashes, Wildcat Strikes and Dreamnets to play. I think we ended up in the right place.

To take a brief Dreamnet diversion here: it’s very, very good in this list. You’re running for boat counters anyway, why not also help yourself to a card and a credit? Sure, the credit is cancelled out by Hoshiko as you’re staying on the Digital side but then you’re drawing another card. It’s like being Liza! But on a boat! (Yes I lobbied hard for the second Dreamnet). Botulus and Endurance together (Boatulus, if you will) are a dream for getting through all those tricksy 3-sub ice that corps stocked up on and being able to Hippo ice after paying a grand total of zero credits to break it with the ship feels like the ultimate insult.

As expected, the big ice match-ups looked good in testing and the deck seemed to have the speed to challenge and beat Sports. As a fun side-benefit, it turns out that Dreamnet, Stargate and Steelskin are pretty good against the PE that we thought might be reasonably popular. The R+ grind match-up is a bit tougher than with Lat, but we figured that few people would want to risk the long games for 7 rounds and this deck certainly has some game there. There’s also a bit less protection against CombOb, but the amount of anti-kill tech packed into the shaper lists again led us to think this would be a minority choice.

The tournament field on the day was pretty much a dream for this deck (50% HB) and it performed well, with Matt and Asger in particular taking 4th and 1st places respectively! There were a few surprised opponents along the way, and Asger gave a masterclass in how to play this list in the grand final. Seriously, if you want to know how to play Hoshipko well then watch that final. And, for all my jokes, let’s be clear that the list is good and has good match-ups but the players made it happen. Absolutely fantastic result for Matt, and Asger was due to win one of these big tournaments. Congrats!

Alright, enough from me. Let’s see how that movie’s getting on.

Erm, ok!

Finally, congrats again to Asger and Matt for piloting this beast straight into Intercontinentals qualification, shout-outs to everyone who ran and played in continentals, thanks to percomis for the gifs, and love to NWE for being the greatest and most welcoming testing group. Substitute teacher out.