No More Play? Undefeated at Bologna GNK

Saan 3116

Get it? Because Patchwerk! Look it up, nerds.

Anyhow, shitty old WoW jokes aside, this deck runs pretty well. I took a drastically worse version to Worlds and ended up winning 4/7 games with it, and wished I'd made these edits the entire time. I won't go into everything that was different, but the takeaway was that you really just want 3 Patchwork in the deck, because getting it is really important. It's the entire reason the deck is in Ayla; it's another chance to get that initial Patchwork.

The idea behind this deck is that things are good if you get a 2c discount on almost everything you install. It's almost like a PPVP that works for every card. Yeah, there's the issue that you also need to pitch a card, effectively lessening the real credit gain, but if you offset that with a little card draw and some Professional Contacts, things feel pretty darn good. Besides a lot of what you're pitching is just extra copies of shit you don't need beyond the first one, giving value to dead cards. SMC and Clone Chips let you get this discount on your opponents turn a few times as well.

This deck's main wincon is DDM, because seeing 5 cards is really cool, especially when you can make it cost 1. You do NOT run a lot with this deck, since Engolo and Laamb cost an arm and a leg to use, and you want to threaten the remote as often as you can, which requires you to have a good bit of money. Fortunately, once Patchy comes down, you can start casting Sure Gamble for 3 and Daily Cast for 1. Peace gets you money in a hurry, letting you either set up early quickly, or letting you recover after an expensive run later in the game. Data Folding suddenly becomes WAY better when you can throw it down for 1 as well.

Finally, the elephant in the room. 3x Modded. I've tried the deck a bunch with and without Modded, and I'll tell you, I love the stupid thing. You like Career Fair? It's that. Getting your first Patchwork down feels so much better with Modded leading the charge. This allows turns like draw 2, Modded for Patchwork, discard a Na'Not'K to play Sure Gamble to net 6. It's also great to install the heavy Laamb and Engolo onto Dhegdheer, making them cost 0 and 1 credit respectively. And if you don't need Modded any more, just pitch it to Patchy. It's now a 2 credit savings on anything.

I tried the deck with Laguna Velasco District rather than ProCon, and while you get a LOT of cards to feed Patchy, the slow, steady money that ProCon provides I think just feels better. Once ProCon is up, I usually only use Diesel for Patchwork value, since every card I draw with Diesel is 1 credit I didn't get from ProCon. If I really need to dig for specific cards, though, or if I need to build a hard size vs Jinteki or something, I'll still fire it. It's mainly there to find Patchwork if your NVRAM, draw, and mulligan didn't get it.

There were a couple cards that didn't really pull their weight. The first one is the last minute inclusion of Sports Hopper. I was figuring that in the games where you are having a hard time finding Patch, some more card draw would be good. Once I have Patchy, I can put it out for only 1. In practice, I never, ever wanted to play it. I honestly meant to turn it into a 3rd Data Folding, but just forgot to before the big day.

The second card I almost never use is Levy AR Lab Access. I had thought that, much like the PPVP decks of old, you'd want to scream though your deck the first time, then have a bunch of discounted stuff the second time. In practice, I almost always just end up winning before the deck is gone. In the net damage matchup it's really nice, since it increases your longevity. However, it might just be better to ditch it and grab a Film Critic or two (with maybe from the Hopper slot). This helps grab Obakata when you need it, which also helps a ton vs net damage matches (and can just be spent as a 2c discount where irrelevant). Although useful, I'm also not sure the deck needs the full 3 CCs. It might be good to drop one and picking up a second SoT, for more DDMs and Legworks.

Anyhow, that's the deck. It's super fun, and full of that good ol' Shaper bullshit.

4 comments
8 Oct 2018 MergeBandit

Nice deck. I also took a patchwork Ayla to world's. I like your take on it. How do you deal with asset spam?

9 Oct 2018 Saan

Ignore assets, aquire DDM. If they try and make a remote, occasionally contest it. If they stack 2 Tour Guides, install both Laambs. So far I haven't played against asset spam much, but it's worked out so far!

10 Oct 2018 BobAloVskI

Do you get the full value out of 3 Modded? If you swap out Sports Hopper like you suggest, you only really have 4 targets for them. Not sure what you would put in their place though. I guess, as you said, you can just pitch the left over ones to Patchwork.

6 Nov 2018 Saan

Yeah, I still love the Modded. And yeah, there's only 3 targets for them. However, getting that first one on Patchwork is so, so good, that I still keep em around. It was suggested to me recently that I might turn them into Dirty Laundries, since I can pitch a card to Patchy to turn it into a 5 credit gain rather than 3, and that's worth considering. I still haven't tested it, but it might be okay.