Valtman (SoCal regional 1st place)

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tmoiynmwg 6335

I placed first with this deck at the Pasadena regional on July 25, 2015; the latest release was The Underway and 89 players were in attendance. This deck went 8-1 in the tournament. I beat NEH fast advance, 2 EtF Caprice glaciers, Batty Blue Sun, EtF fast advance (twice), and EtF NEXT Batty; and I split 2 games against @Nobo715's RP.

Do you remember when Anarchs were terrible in competitive play? My gosh, we've certainly come a long way since then!

(Before O&C was released, someone asked me what my favorite new identity was; I picked Valencia, "because I'm a troll at heart." Today, I'm confident that Val is one of the very best runners in the game, and I'm not trolling one bit.)

During the week before the regional, I was still debating between this deck and a Gabe deck. I really wanted to bring Gabe and go full retro 2014, but then @Nobo715 mentioned to me that he'd been having a lot of trouble beating Val with Replicating Perfection. Since this was coming from someone who had already won another 89-person regional with RP, I figured that Val was the correct choice. The bad publicity just does so much work in fueling the multitude of taxing runs that you have to make against RP.

I took inspiration from a lot of different "good stuff" Val lists, especially the ones posted by @nobodyhasthis, @hhooo, and @d1en. As bonkers as Desperado is, I decided that running it wasn't quite worth paying 6-9 influence and having some memory issues. Grimoire is in-faction and offers great perks: 2 MU, extra Imp counter, extra Medium access, crazy Parasite tricks.

Everyone's been talking about Street Peddler and she's really the heart of this deck. The added consistency she brings mitigates Val's higher deck size, the higher deck size mitigates the risk of milling out, and her synergy with bad publicity is icing on the cake. Peddler also synergizes with Clone Chip to install 2 hidden things in mid-run, Atman/Femme to deal with whatever ice blocks your way, and Stimhack to get Atman/Femme/Liberated Account out for cheap. The only downside is the risk of milling Blackmail. I've never been a big fan of Blackmail in these "normal" Val decks anyway, so I was happy to minimize my reliance on that card.

The rest of the cards are fairly standard. Wyld Pancakes is incredible value in a long game, having lots of credits is the best defense against flatline, and having a bunch of AI breakers helps fight against gear checks. Cyberfeeder is a flexible slot, but it does generate a ton of value against glacier decks (when I remember to use it).

I highly recommend this deck to anyone expecting a glacier-heavy meta. Many thanks to Noah for his deck advice and for being a fearsome final boss, to @sirris and @alexstevens as great testing partners, and to @jimmypoopins for being the most gracious of gentlemen. Good luck to everyone competing at nationals!

19 comments
28 Jul 2015 siowy

love it. a nice blend of good val lists updated with street peddler. great job!

28 Jul 2015 sruman

Thanks for posting the list, interesting choice to go double atman, but it is a great card to get out. The 1-of cyberfeeder seems a strange include. Why that over a 3rd blackmail ( a great card for slowing down the early game while you setup ). How does the stimhack work for you? Without that much shaper-bs (out of clone chip into femme), seems like you might not have that many opportunities to fully utilize the creds.

28 Jul 2015 johncraven

@sruman probably uses stimhack to pay off multiple peddlers at the same time

28 Jul 2015 sruman

Ah, good point, haven't come over to the peddler camp yet but I think I have no choice given the mounting popular evidence that it's a solid card.

28 Jul 2015 SlayerCNV

0 meat\net damage prevention. How play against butchershop and generally weylands?

28 Jul 2015 AsteriskCGY

I'd say between Wyld draw and good Imp/Utopia usage with those scoring runs with blackmail saving money making the Sea/Midseason harder to hit.

28 Jul 2015 nobo

Congrats again @tmoiynmwg, so happy you're going to come to Worlds.

I see 2 Atmans pretty often in Val lists, and I never get it. Is the 2nd one really better than like, an NRE or something? Also 2 Blackmail is super next level.

28 Jul 2015 chinominja

Between Street Peddler, Clone Chip, 50-card deck, and the power of Atman-at-4 the 2nd Atman looks to offer the increased likelihood of seeing the card in play, in my humble opinion.

28 Jul 2015 johncraven

you could play SMC for the just-in-time install benefit though

29 Jul 2015 RTsa

Haha..nice. I've been playing quite a bit of good stuff Valencia lately and I've honestly considered dropping down from 3x Blackmail myself. The card is pretty good in a lot of situations, but only really very good early and people seem to be playing pretty well to counter it anyway..Haven't had the guts to make the cut though.

29 Jul 2015 tmoiynmwg

@sruman Cyberfeeder adds a little bit of extra econ - especially important without Desperado. The mere threat of Blackmail is usually enough to slow the corp down, and it's pretty awkward to draw a bunch of Blackmails late when they're buried in the stack. Stimhack is always helpful at some point in the game and it has amazing applications with Peddler and Clone Chip.

@SlayerCNV Out-money the corp with your resources, or try to trash the operations from their hand.

@Nobo715 Thanks again Noah! Atman is great because it can handle any ice if you have enough money. It's not too hard for Val to get rich, but it's tougher to draw the right breaker out of 50 cards.

@johncraven SMC would be a fine alternative. But Atman is especially well-positioned against RP right now (for example, @mediohxcore's post-Batty list plays seven 4-strength ice), and the ability to have two Atmans out on occasion is pretty nice.

@RTsa Well, 2 Blackmail was partially successful because everyone assumed that any Val deck would run 3. If people stop respecting it as much, 3 could easily be correct again.

29 Jul 2015 RTsa

That's genious. Thanks! :)

29 Jul 2015 anr_marsellus

I've been playing Val since she hit the shelves and almost instantly went to 2 Blackmail :) The threat is stronger than its execution.

31 Jul 2015 Abstract

@tmoiynmwg Played this list last night, loved it. The only problem I had was one game where I just never saw wyldside, and had very limited options for breakers. Recommendations for that situation? Just get in where you can?

31 Jul 2015 tmoiynmwg

That's a pretty tricky scenario. Get in where you can, yes, but don't spend too many clicks on low-percentage runs - you need to keep drawing cards and maintaining a large credit pool. Try to keep the element of surprise - you have so many different tools for getting in that it's tough for the corp to know how safe they really are. Try to deploy the tools that you do draw at just the right moment for maximum impact. Good luck!

1 Aug 2015 nobodyhasthis

I love despy but with the purple glacier explosion this is probably the way to go. On the upside, I can ditch memstrips for grimoire. Downside, I don't get the play memstrips for nerd cred. Love the feeder include.

2 Aug 2015 tmoiynmwg

Thanks, @nobodyhasthis! Your deck was obviously a huge inspiration and your love of Val is truly infectious.

4 Aug 2015 dormio

What do you do if one of your standard breakers is at the bottom of your deck? Work around it with Atman and Faust?

4 Aug 2015 tmoiynmwg

Yep, that's why they're in the deck!