Prickly Pālanā: My First Cut (8th @ York SC)

Firstly, this SC was an absolute blast and filled with amazing people, plus our gracious host, organiser and TO Akira (@Blonde Haired Hacker Girl) did a fantastic job sorting a venue and getting everything to run smoothly, so massive thanks to her!

As this was the first time I've made a cut, I thought I'd indulge myself and publish my lists for once, although really neither of them are mine, and list theft is a theme of this SC for me.

So I've recently been speaking to the dark lord of Aldershot himself - @rotage - about the remainder of SC season and wanting to try a bit harder, maybe even get into a cut and grab some sweet sweet Laurie Points (spoiler alert, I did). He pointed me at the Pālanā deck he successfully piloted to 3rd in the Aldershot SC last month and suggested I give it a go. Little did I know that it had already been liberated from the Scourge of Aldershot himself, @Swiftie - so the theft was twofold. I made a couple of minor changes to squeeze in a CVS for even more turtle hate (which I was glad of as I played several 419 decks on the day, although #Swordsman and IP Block also did work) and I switched #Thimblerig for #Enigma because I'm just rubbish with #Thimblerig.

In addition, @realitycheque (who stormed to 4th in Swiss and 6th overall) was playing a Mwanza PE deck I offered him as a joke a few weeks ago and has since made 2 SC cuts with something like a 9-2 record, including beating @rotage's runner in the cut at York. Furthermore, when RC was pondering Runner decks at 1am the night before the event, I mentioned that @paulyg had sent me a #Turntable Hayley deck which he went 14-2 on Jnet with, but wasn't going to be able to use at any SCs before the release of Downfall. RC seemed keen and after a test game against @Zerethgames that evening and a glance at the list, he decided to also take it.

Anyway, this Corp deck went 3-2 for me in swiss, beating Chaos Theory, 419 and Smoke in the last 3 rounds and then lost a close game on time to eventual winner @RotomAppliance's 419 in the first round of the cut.

I'm sure this deck still has lines I'm not aware of, but I essentially played it to get very rich as fast as possible and score out in a nasty remote (usually loaded with all the Prisecs I can find) while threatening Punitive if the Runner gets too aggressive. It's certainly a deck that gives the Runner opportunities to make mistakes and for you to them punish them for it!

I always prefer to be scoring Obokatas as they're harder to steal and open up more possibility of a Punitive after they're stolen. Psychic Field is anti 419 tech, so if they choose to use their ability when you install it, you've got a chance to win a psi game and then Neural them for the win. Gene Splicer worked well to make sure I only needed to score two 5/3s and often put the runner in a difficult spot when on game point. Bacterial Programming is a pain to resolve in meatspace, but worked quite well, often allowing me to ensure I would have the kill when it was stolen, or set up the next score when I was scoring it.

Anyway, I can't offer a great deal of insight - I just luckboxed my way to a mini-submarine (I was 1-3 after Round 2) and then promptly lost my first 2 games in the cut. I loved every minute of it though, so thanks to all my opponents and everyone who was there, it was a great time!