“Lone Gunman” Redux - Prize-a-Palooza Winner

I’ve been playing RNG Key Omar on and off pretty much since Key was printed, including taking it within a coin flip of top 16 at Magnum Opus. After my Hoshiko drip deck felt incapable of competing against rushy decks, I wanted to play something that could pack 3 Stimhacks, maintain pressure, and still make money every turn. Where a lot of Hoshiko decks feel like Shaper decks with Hippo, this deck feels kind of like a Criminal deck... with Hippo.

The play pattern is pretty straightforward - Omar stretches the Corp's ice out and makes it easier for your RNG Key proceeds to give you essentially free R&D runs. Mining Accident further subsidizes those runs, and Hippo stretches ice out further. When R&D becomes inaccessible, run HQ to get more TTW counters, and/or use FTT on assets to check R&D for free. For tech cards I went with Buffer Drive, because there are usually some players on murderous Jinteki lists, and Knifed, for Border Control, Kakugo, and more ice destruction generally.

As it was, the Prize-a-Palooza meta was abnormally fast (or rather, I played an improbable number of rush decks). The deck went 3-1, beating Earth Station and Haarpsichord and splitting with two Titans, the loss being the result of an unusually lucky draw for the Titan player the turn after I finally got my last breaker. Best moment from a pure flavor perspective was my conspiracy theorist Finding the Truth on an HQ run of a Government Takeover.

The deck feels very dynamic and makes for fun games. I wouldn’t change the list right now, though I could see cutting the Knifed for a second Gachapon for more consistency.

My Corp was Why can't I have no kids and three money?, list unchanged, which went 4-0, beating a Geist, a Ken, and two Az - two kills, two scores. Deck is still great. Might be better trimming cards to fit Scarcity but honestly to hell with Scarcity.