Sleepy Girls Don't Gachapon

easterncalculus 769

Friendship ended with Gachapon. Now Prognostic Q-Loop is my best friend.

This is a standard Arissana deck similar to @YsengrinSC's Hold The Waffles, but with some differences:

  • Buzzsaw -> Engolo: I prefer Engolo's painting: when you want to SMC for a breaker, Engolo allows for facechecking with relative impunity. However it is definitely expensive, especially in terms of .
  • +2 DZMZ Optimizer: Primarily here for the extra , but I think its discount ability helps smooth out Arissana's economy, especially when playing less events. Together with Urban Art Vernissage, there is very little we can’t install. Can combo with Prognostic Q-Loop on the corp's turn, but a bit of a nombo with The Twinning. More on that later.
  • +3 Aeneas Informant: With this, The Twinning and Conduit we can turn our multi-access into credits. Along with Kyubans and Pichação and we have solid end-game economy for repeatedly running servers, even when protected by lots of ICE.
  • +2 Networking: A bit of a meme card, but I thought this deck's worst matchup was tagstorm R+; most of the econ is tied up in running remotes, and with only 2 Hush we’ll probably take some tags eventually. Networking is slower, but more efficient than No Free Lunch for multiple tags, and seriously helps when trying to financially recover from Oppo Research on low credits or maintaining Bellona money. In retrospect I would’ve been better slotting Pinhole Threadings for the Keeling matchups on the day.

Now, the first version of this deck ran no Prognostic Q-Loop. Despite being one of my favourite cards, especially in Shaper, I just thought Q-Loop had too many moving parts and I wanted the influence for other things, specifically 3x Gachapon. But on our last day of practice before the event, I had some absolutely brutal Gachapon fires. Hitting 3x Aeneas Informants, LilyPADs or Urban Art Vernissages when I had none installed. Creative Commissions, Daily Casts and Environmental Testings when I was hoping to draw into my econ with LilyPAD… There were too many misses: it was clear that Gachapon had to go.

So I traded that influence for Prognostic Q-Loop last minute and found it much better, especially when I threw in 1x The Twinning. Together with Urban Art Vernissage we can clicklessly gain 1-2 Twinning counters each runner and corp turn:

  • Run once on our turn and check the top two cards of our stack with PQL.
  • Use Arissana to install something during the run, spending those hosted credits from Vernissage, getting a Twinning counter and maybe drawing a card with LilyPAD or advancing an Environmental Testing.
  • LilyPAD states that we may draw a card: though we almost always will, this lets us attempt to set up hardware or programs on top of our deck that we can use PQL to install on the corp’s turn, spending more hosted credits and gaining more counters. If we delay a program install until the opponent’s turn, we can basically get the draw back with LilyPAD again if we didn’t take it before (and don’t forget the Environmental Testing counters!)
  • Combining this with Conduit for 5-9 deep runs of R&D or swapping targets to clean out HQ was a regular occurrence and felt so powerful, especially since Aeneas Informant was paying us to access extra cards.
  • This also gives us some resilience to Mavirus as we can still farm multiaccess that can’t be purged.
  • The main problem with this is that DZMZ Optimizer can optimize away some of our twinning tokens by saving us money on the corp’s turn. It might be worth looking for alternatives for that fix.
  • Other than that, it can be difficult to assemble the full engine since PQL and The Twinning are both 1x includes

I had a lot of fun with this deck at Irish Nationals, but with somewhat lackluster results to show for it. Except for a brutal tie vs a Keeling that went to time, every other game was a loss! But despite my awful track record, the deck operated very well and every game was close! If I had to suggest improvements, I’d definitely cut the Conduit and double down on either The Twinning or Prognostic Q-Loops, influence permitting. I’d then probably drop the Aeneas Informants for more Trojans or economy events. And as said above, DZMZ Optimizer doesn’t feel quite right for a deck that wants to spend hosted credits on the opponent’s turn.

2 comments
15 Sep 2023 m.p

maybe T400 Memory Diamond would help? it allows for more cards in hand (useful for storing cards for ari´s ability) and gives MU without discounts

13 Nov 2024 andreeone23

Impressive Retro Bowl College piece! I love the depth here. For a fun break, you might enjoy 'X game' – it’s what everyone’s playing these days!