Zinc Saucier - World's Second-Best Adam (37th Overall)

This is the Adam list I've been playing for a few months, and I decided to take it to worlds with the singular goal of getting Top 8 Adams in Day 1A to get the cool ID. To my surprise, I managed to make Day 2 on this list, where I promptly split both rounds of swiss and unfortunately missed the title of "Worlds Best Adam" by 7 places due of strength of schedule (to frankbsad, who now gets that title forever).

I'd do it all over again.

Card Choices

Misdirection: The CtM match-up is hard. I lost both of my CtM matches, even with this installed.

2x (Some) Breakers: Definitely the most contentious decision. In Adam, you need either Laamb or Engolo, and I went with Laamb because the Sports / Jinja server break matchup is far cheaper with Gordian than Engolo. I have 2x of Laamb and Na'Not'K for two reasons: first, you can emergent one away for itself (or another) for basically free, which is a huge tempo boost, and, second, running 5 breakers means you can start a game with none in hand and you'll nearly always see one just off of Safety First draws. That said, I don't think I ever installed the entire breaker suite all day: I took two games off Titan with Laamb + Logic Bomb, a game off a Sportsmetal with just a Gordian, and a particularly fun game off Acme with E-Strike + Stimhack and no breakers.

1x Overmind: It fills the role of Aumakua, but you can Emergent it for a free Laamb and you don't have to turn on HHN to get counters.

1x The Shadow Net: It only came up once, but RFGing a Meridian for 9 credits was one of my favorite moments in the entire tournament.

1x Interdiction: This is help to not die to a Batty'd Cortex Lock when you're on game point with a Brain Chip installed. (I did anyway.)

Armitage / Data Folding: These cards fill basically the same role, and I think -1 Data Folding for +1 Armitage might be better. That said, getting a single Data Folding down early next to a Casts can win you games and I've lost games clicking Armitage. The jury's still out.

Shoutouts

First, thanks to Doomrat, who gave me the following sage advice: "If you don't access HQ turn one as Adam, I don't know what you're doing." That single sentence will get you a long way on this (or any) Adam list.

Second, thanks to all the Texas people I split an AirBnB with (especially Jeff and Sean for loaning me cards at the last minute), and the Austin City Grid.

Third, huge shoutout to Tundo and frankbsad, the world's two best Adams!