Tough Times Whizz - did okay at Reading Regional

My tournament preparation for the Reading regional was even more half-assed than usual. Our testing group had put together a tweaked version of Bahram's Adjusted Matrix deck (affectionately known as Jank Kate) which had been putting up really good results, I also sleeved up the Coolman's Andy deck and a Reg Whizz deck with lots of Slums and Employee Strike.

Anyway, I played one game with Jank Kate and didn't really like the style of the deck (our version has cut all of the fun run stuff and replaced it with more dumb combo cards), then Alex White said he'd been doing well with Desperado Whizz. I hadn't tried it or practiced, but the clinching factor was that I could play a deck with 39 full art cards so I tweaked my existing list 10 minutes before registration closed, scrounged a second John Masanori from Tiggles and sat down to play.

The deck went 6 and 2 over the weekend, losing a close game to Ben Ni's Jammy in Swiss and then a less close came against Sam Burdock's CI in the cut. It was enough to finish top of Swiss and third overall.

Some thoughts on card selection, provided by Alex White

Desperado - This is a good card because it gives you a credit when you make a successful run

John Masanori - This is also a good card because when you make your first successful run of the turn you draw a card. You have to be careful though, because you take a tag the first time you make an unsuccessful run.

Employee Strike - This is a useful card because it blanks the text box of Corporation ID. That means that it doesn't do anything.

This deck has pretty good coverage against the field; the Moons matchup is okay, it's great against CtM and IG, and isn't too bad against Skorpios or AgInfusion if they happen to turn up. CI is only vaguely winnable because you have three Strike, but it's still a pretty bad matchup.