Teched-out Sifr Whizz - Antwerp SC 2017

21 player Store Champ. Came in 4th after Swiss and 4th in the cut.

This runner deck was made with the expectation of a field possibly consisting of HB Friends, various Shutdown combo decks (CI, Railgun), Jinteki nonsense and asset spam. I did not expect anyone else but me to be playing CtM. With this in mind, I made a random pile of hate cards with the right amount of money to be paying for it. As you probably can tell, the deck is pretty poor. It cannot afford the influence for Temüjin because I needed the influence for the hate. Keeping in mind that CtM was not going to be present, I did not think of this as much of a problem. Also, if Timmy Wong can get into the cut of Worlds twice by clicking for credits a bunch, then that strategy is good enough for me to vie for a spot in the cut of a local SC!

Onto the deck:

Influence-free econ package:

Dirty Laundry, Sure Gamble, Daily Casts, Liberated, Kati. The Kati is needed for the glacier matchups.

Draw:

No Injects, because recursion is limited and I needed my Deja Vu's for Parasite. A lot of my tech can double as draw if needed (ie. Hopper, Aaron). Making an Entrance was added as the 46th card and I liked it very much throughout the day. It digs 6 cards deep (2 more than Inject) for the tech you need at a certain time. It's a pseudo-tutor for your heap breakers and it can arrange your Peddlers in this Event-heavy deck.

Breakers:

Credit-free breaking by Faust and D4v1d, backed up by Sifr-Parasite combo and the heap breakers. You don't get free cards via Wyldside, so be stingy with what and how much ICE you break with Faust.

Hate:

• against CtM + Asset Spam/Prison: Strike, Slums, Whizzard, Medium
• against CI7: Strike, Rebirth into Noise/Kim, Rumor Mill for Jackson, Hades Shard, Medium
• against Railgun NEH: On The Lam, Hopper, Aaron, Shard
• against Jinteki net damage: On the Lam, Hopper, Aaron, IHW
• against Palana: Rumor Mill
• against HB Friends: Whizzard, Slums, ice destruction

The tournament itself: This deck went 3-2 during the day, but the loss in the cut was due to a massive misplay on my part.

Round 1 (Railgun NEH): I mull into a hand of Shard + On The Lam. Shutdown combo is turned off from the get-go. From there, I have to make sure that I play around the regular 24/7 Boom combo via 2 scored agendas. Tense situation, but I'm able to do this and come out on top. WIN

Round 2 (HB Sleeper Hold variant): I get Kati early and she provides me with all the econ I need during the game. From there, I control the remote and go for pressure on centrals after he goes low in credits by Biotic-ing out agendas. He fires some ABT which put agendas in archives, so that obviously helped me a bunch. WIN

Round 3 (HB Friends): I get some lucky single accesses early on while he's struggling for econ (Strike after he Biotics a Vitruvius really constrains his money). After a while, I'm low on money and play Making an Entrance which I use to ditch some heap breakers. He recognizes that I don't have money to pay for them so builds a remote and puts something behind it. I have Faust in hand though + I've Had Worse so I can get it. It was fairly obvious to me that it was an agenda. But it could have been a bluff and then I'm probably out because I have no money and no cards after the access. WIN regardless.

Round 4 (BABW Midseasons Boom): He gets up on money very fast and I can't keep up (I missed Temüjin here...). I need to let go of 2 naked Oaktowns, but I have Aaron and On The Lam. A bit later I'm able to Slums a Boom he has in hand. I also Rebirthed into Kim. As he goes for another score I need to go get it and suffer the Midseasons. But due to Aaron counters and On The Lam, he cannot kill me in a single turn. I get the second Boom in his hand and he's low on money due to the Midseasons. I run his hand a couple of times, find nothing. I'm debating whether he has the 3rd Boom, but usually Weyland only plays 2 copies. Couple of turns later he Consulting Visits (which I missed in his hand) for his 3rd Boom and I die. Could have popped my Hopper, but yeah, I gambled on him playing only 2 copies. LOSS

Cut, game 1 (Railgun NEH): Rematch from the first round. Making an Entrance finds me everything I need (Aaron, OTL, Peddler with a Hopper on it). I install Aaron and the Peddler, but keep the OTL in hand. Somehow I convince myself that I need to trash a Sensie without installing the OTL also. Of course he has the combo in hand and I die to double Boom. He makes a gamble here though, because he's done for if I have the Shard under the Peddler. Anyways, this was a massive misplay on my part and this game could have been an easy win. LOSS

All in all this random pile of hate did its work during the day and I'm happy to have played a couple of interesting games with a lot of back-and-forth.