BS: Claim Jumper - 4th @ Portland Games Store SC

I placed 4th out of 8 players. Claim Jumper went 2 of 4 for the day. I faced Eddy Kim, Adam, Smoke, and Bullshit Kate. I believe I could have hit 3 of 4, but I made a rash decision during my 1st round and made my loss certain rather than an open question.

Let's be frank, this is a "high" variance Johnny/Jenny deck built around Government Takeover and Casting Call shenanigans. If you are uncomfortable with that play style, then this deck is not for you.

You are still here? Good here is some info and stuff...

This deck is a hybrid of two Blue Sun builds I love... @Cliquil's I'm taking over the government... and @Ino209's Silver Sun. Some quick deck testing the night before (shout out to @Saan and @Benjen for some sage advice on a couple of crucial Ice choices and the damage package) and this is what came out the other side.

Agenda Package:
Standard stuff until you hit Government Takeover.

• Your agenda density is 8/49 which is awesome.
• Counter point, the runner can just suddenly win. Counter-Counter Point, so can you.
• The Tech package section will deal with the how.

Econ Package:

• Hostile Takeover, Oversight AI, and Hedge Fund: Standard Blue Sun economy.
• Restructure: I want 2 and I tried it with 0 (don't do it) but 1 seems to work just fine.
• Caduceus: Turned off by Link heavy builds but will do some work otherwise and may net you money.
  As @CodeMarvelous says, "I hear money is good".

ICE Package:

• Curtain Wall: Standard BS issue ICE.

• Spiderweb: I was running Hive but it was not very good when I was scoring a Hostile and an over advanced Atlas to setup the combo, kill or normal score out. Spiderweb is just a consistent card in a deck that has a lot of moving parts.

• Datapike: This was a late include on advice from Benjen. He is absolutely correct that is a better tax on the runner and it replaced Quandary.

• Fairchild 3.0: Late include after I got rid of Localized Product Line and I had 3 influence to burn. I waffled on this or DNA Tracker. It never came up in 4 games I played. This is a flex spot. I will probably replace it with Mausolus when Martial Law drops this week.

• Archer: DANGER ZONE!

• Caduceus: Another late night include. This replaced two Hives.
• Cobra: So good. People are not teching enough against this card. I closed out one of my games with this.
• Swordsman: If they are not teching vs. Cobra they are not teching against this card either. AI Icebreakers are thing.

Excalibur and Mother Goddess. If someone is not playing with an AI breaker, you will just win games with this combo. Otherwise they are good tax cards for cheap. They pair up with Swordsman too.

Tech Package:
This is where the magic happens. I will do these slightly out of order.

• Consulting Visit: This turns your singleton "silver bullet" cards into three copies. Also now you can summon them as needed. I want three, but two is really best. Never put in just one.
• Preemptive Action: If Consulting Visit is the gun, this card is your reload. Play a combo. Put them back in the deck for a second go around. Saves your Jackson Howards for more important work.
• Ark Lockdown: This card is savage. Runner careless with discards, Blam! Runner loses a key program to Cobra or Archer, Blam! Tired of endless Account Siphon spam, Blam! Learn to love and fear this card.
• Casting Call and Dedication Ceremony: This is your score Gov. Takedown combo. Scoring window presents and you Casting Call, Dedication Ceremony, Dedication Ceremony Runner now has one turn to get in or steal 7 points of agendas from your other servers.
  I also use Casting Call Project Atlas, Dedication Ceremony so I can score out one with 3 advancement counters in the early game.
• Hard-Hitting News: This pairs up with Casting Call. Tempt them in with an agenda. If they take the bait ,they will be poorer and may end their turn with 2 tags. Take two to do what you need and hit them with HHN. You can destroy their Resources at will or BOOM! next round.
• BOOM!: BOOM!
• Best Defense: This card will kill 0 cost cards (makes Adam cry) at worst and will do some serious damage if they go tag me.
• Foxfire: Virtual and Link cards go up in flames. Net Mercur and Ghost Runner die in a fire. This card did some real work. If there are no targets, you have other bullets to fire.
• Elizabeth Mills: When locations have to be gone, period. It also can turn off Val.
• Scarcity of Resources: Getting this out vs. Resource heavy decks (remember Consulting Visit?) is killer. Also, Employee Strike exists.
• Underway Grid: A singleton of this just didn't work out and no one was playing bypass. Its a meta call. This slot will be filled by something else.
• Crisium Grid: This helps you keep your money by turning off Account Siphon and can put the hurt to fun card combos cards like the Eater + Keyhole.

Changes:

• I ran into a lot of connections I wanted to kill. Thus... Contract Killer: This card synergizes with Dedication Ceremony. You can install, DC, and kill in one turn. Or, just do two meat damage and snipe out some Ark Lockdown targets.
• Mausolus: Already talked about it in the Ice Packages. Not sure what I am going to do with 3 influence. That is a good problem to have with a solid deck.

There is a vegan build I am working on that is more about econ control I am working out and I have some other ideas how to change up damage packages to keep my opponents guessing.

THE TOURNEY:

Round 1 vs. Dan R. on Eddy Kim.
Ok, this is a nightmare match up for me (Dan is completely nice, BTW). I have what we like to call a "target rich environment" for Mr. Kim's card ability. Things I did right? I managed to snipe both of his Paperclips early with Ark Lockdown but that led me to being cocky and firing my combo too early.

Massive card draw and a Faust run later I had lost the game. I could have locked him out of the game by being more patient with my ice placement. Swordsman on my scoring remote would locked up the game for me. Coulda, woulda, shoulda...

Round 2 vs. Mike C. on Adam.
I took a beating round 1 but I settled down and manhandled Adam from the word go. Between Foxfire and Best Defense I wiped out 4 out of 6 Directives, the 5th was killed the old fashioned way with a and 2. The only reason this game dragged on was my agendas being buried at the bottom of my R&D pile. I scored out the hard way with 2 Hostiles, a Global, and finished it with an Atlas.

I had 8 min. left to switch sides, FML, and pulled a Timed Win against a Corp that should have chewed up my Runner in a normal game. Sometimes it pays to be lucky.

Round 3 vs. Alexis M. on Smoke.
Alexis and I face off against each other every Monday at our local meetup. I don't know what it is about the two of us, but we usually wind up building unintentional hate decks against each other. For the past two meetups she had been smacking me around but this time I brought the hate (I didn't know she was on Smoke until tourney day).

Smoke got a rocky start (Net Mercur was no where to be found). I over scored Project Atlas with 2 counters, followed quickly a few turns later by a Hostile. Her breakers started to come out (Houdini and Switchblade) but I sniped her Ghost Runner with Foxfire as soon as it hit the board. She did get out a Corroder but with little or no econ she could not get into my scoring remote.

I scored out Government Takeover over 3 turns.

1. Oversight my Curtain Wall on my scoring remote, Casting Call Gov. Takeover, Dedication Ceremony. Pass turn.
2. Pull up Curtain Wall for 14 , draw another Dedication Ceremony, and then install Cobra. install CW, play DC. Pass Turn.
3. After draining all the Runner's credits and destroying Corroder with Cobra, triple advance for the win.

Round 4 vs. Kyle J. on BS Kate.
@bluebird503 is a machine. His decks are on point and his play is pretty tight. I really didn't have an answer for BS Kate except to score out quick. I got to match point (Hostile and 2 Atlas Projects with one agenda token left). Then I managed to snipe Keyhole with Ark Lockdown (which threw Kyle for a loop) but he quickly recovered. I then made a spaz move; I used my last Atlas counter to pull the final Atlas and put it in my completely unrezzed scoring remote. I also had Gov. Takeover and a Global in my HQ... DOH!

I should have grabbed a Jackson with the Atlas counter instead, then install Global, install Gov. Takeover, install Jackson on my three deep remote, and pass the turn. I could then draw at my leisure and Never Advance head fake with Hostile, Jackson or one of my Upgrades. Unless Kyle could top deck my Gov. Takeover, I would be in control of the game. Might have been able to do it, maybe.

Thanks for getting this far. I had a blast and legit won a Store Championship mat!