MWL 1.2 Blackmail-Spam (65th at Euros)

This is the runner deck I played at Euros, taking me to 65th place, going 3-6 (I got a bye in Round 7, since my opponent dropped but didn't tell the judges, as it seemed), Corp deck can be found here.

This deck is my own creation, with some input from @beyoken and @TR1S after playing them on Jinteki. I thought this deck would be a good call, since it is kind of a dark horse. I didn't see any similar decks at the tournament. Also, there is not much Blackmail-hate going around at the moment.

The Match-Ups

Moon Spam: I faced 3 Moon decks, going 1-2. This deck packs lots of hate, Scrubber, Rebirth, Salsette Slums and Archives Interface handle the assets really well, while Rumor Mill at the right moment can shut down a loaded Estelle. Although I got outplayed twice, especially in testing this deck has a quite good chance against Moon Spam.

Praise the Sun Sol: I played this deck twice and lost twice, although both games were very close. This was a deck I didn't see coming, but I think is manageable. Scarcity of Resources hurts a lot, but you have Strikes and Mills to remove it and be free to play all your resources in one go. Also, if you somehow manage to remove their currents with Archives Interface, they will be really sad. Just watch out for Ark Lockdown and try to always keep one Blackmail in hand, using Same Old Thing for Déjà Vu if necessary.

Fiery Info SYNC: This match-up is almost entirely dependant on whether you can find the Plascrete Carapace before they Boom you. In my one match against this deck, I could and won. Other than digging like mad, try to keep at least one Déjà Vu in hand (or have Same old Thing ready) to recur the Plascrete. Keeping a Daily Casts up and a Liberated Account with some money on it can allow you to bounce back from the dreaded 24/7 -> Closed Accounts -> Hard-Hitting News combo. And the most important thing against this deck: grab any chance to remove the Booms and the Exchange of Information. Once they are gone, SYNC is helpless.

Various CI variants: If you are lucky, you are up against Killer Penguins, realise it soon enough and find your Plascrete in time. If not, it's gonna be tough. Your best bet is to draw as much as you can and try to Employee Strike them. Play every piece of recursion you have, to get the Strike back every turn. If you manage to make the Strike the stick, you can win it. You could also try to race them with Medium or Nerve Agent, but that will not end well most of the time. Definitely an unfavourable match-up and I was happy to avoid it.

Jinteki Glacier: This depends on the build, but most of these decks just crumble to the combination of Rumor Mill and Blackmail. Don't get sloppy in case they play traps, watch out for Philotic Entanglement and Braintrust, but otherwise this is a really easy match-up, where I was quite sad that I didn't get to play it once.

I think these are the most played decks. The other three matches I played were against a Foodcoats/Fast Advance-crossover list, which was a close win, PE grind in which I played too recklessly, because I thought it would be 24/7-Philotic-Combo and a Brain Damage/Punitive Counterstrike-EtF, that got me completely unaware, but I think should be an okay matchup if you know what's coming.

All in all, I did much better than I expected and I don't see much this deck is missing. Of course it has its weaknesses, but since I knew that I wasn't even close to the really good players at the tournament, I was looking for something, that can just cheese out wins against some decks and doesn't do too bad against the rest of the popular stuff. And this deck fit the bill nicely.