Well, this weekend (10/3/2015) was the summer tournament held at the Yellow King. And it turned out to be quite interesting. Considering that my ideas have been beaten into the ground at league play for the past few weeks, I had no idea exactly what I wanted to bring. As such, I threw together the following decks the day before the tournament.
Break All Barriers - 45 cards
Identity: Quetzal - Free Spirit
Programs
D4V1D - 3
Datasucker -2
Djinn - 2
Femme Fatale - 1 (1 influence)
Medium - 2
Mimic - 2
Morning Star - 2
Nerve Agent - 2
Yog.0 - 2
Hardware
Cyberfeeder - 3
Dinosaurus - 2 (4 influence)
E3 Feedback Implants - 3 (6 influence)
Net-Ready Eyes - 2 (4 influence)
Plascrete Carapace - 3
Resources
Kati Jones - 3
Symmetrical Visage - 2
Events
Dirty Laundry - 3
I've Had Worse - 3
Sure Gamble - 3
To be honest, this plays a lot more like a Shaper build. The goal is to get your rig up, putting one of the three onto Dinosaurus for a boost. I prefer to put the Morning Star on Dino, because then you have room for two Djinns loaded with programs, or a Djinn and a Femme. Net-Ready helps push one icebreaker up, but it's mostly there to deal with Lotus Field (which I didn't really see.) E3 is staple in Quetzal, so in it goes. Cyberfeeders will help pay for viruses and also help pay for using icebreakers. Datasuckers to help lower ice down to the point where they can be broken. D4V1D to deal with large ice efficiently. Placrete to mitigate tag and bag decks. Kati is the primary economic engine. Probably best to build her up for a while before taking the cash so you can install something big. Symmetrical Visage for some extra economy with card draw. Dirty Laundry and Sure Gamble for more economy, and I've Had Worse for card draw. Could probably swap the Femme out for something else. Maybe a Shard.
Not exactly Tier 1, and probably not even Tier 2, but it's what I felt like going with.
White Noise - 49 cards
Identity: Jinteki - Replicating Perfection
Agendas - 20 Points
Braintrust - 3
Medical Breakthrough - 3
Nisei Mk. II - 3
Philotic Entanglement - 1
Ice
Crick - 3
Himitsu-Bako - 3
Ichi 2.0 - 3 (9 influence)
Tollbooth - 3
Susanoo-No-Mikoto - 1
Assets
Mental Health Clinic - 3
Shock! - 3
Sundew - 3
Upgrades
Akitaro Watanabe - 1
Caprice Nisei - 3
Cyberdex Virus Suite - 1
Marcus Batty - 3
Operations
An Offer You Can't Refuse - 3
Cerebral Static - 3
Diversified Portfolio - 3
Kind of an offbeat deck, but I'll try to explain what I was thinking. Braintrust because it is a 3 for 2, but also because it can be overadvanced to make ice cheaper. Medical Breakthrough because it starts as a 4 for 2, then becomes a 3 for 2, then a 2 for 2. Nisei Mk. II because of its ability. Philotic Entanglement because it is another 3 for 2. So sort of rush style, but it can get around Clot in a pinch. Running light on ice, but only the centrals and the scoring server really need protection, at least in theory. Crick on Archives to get back Marcus, Caprice, CVS (maybe,) Mental Health Clinics and Sundews. Himitsu-Bako as an early game ETR, but also to set up a combo. With a Tollbooth or an Ichi 2.0 outside of a Himitsu-Bako, the runner encounters the dangerous piece of ice first. If they get past it, you can return the Himitsu-Bako to your hand and force them to encounter the big piece of ice again. Susanoo-No-Mikoto goes on the scoring server, both to serve as a deterrent but also works with the Himitsu-Bako combo. Mental Health Clinic and Sundew are the primary economic engine, and Shock! is mostly there to be dumped into Archives, but it can be held in the hand to surprise runners. Akitaro helps make those big pieces of ice cheaper. He should probably go into the scoring server. Caprice to defend the scoring server further. CVS can be dumped into Archives to stop buildup of virus tokens, but can also be used to clear a Clot. Marcus for additional protection. An Offer You Can't Refuse is interesting, as you can use it to force the runner into taking damage and letting you install cards, or they put you closer to scoring, as just having one of these in the score pile means you only need 3 agendas instead of 2. Cerebral Static is a bit hit or miss, since it hurts a good number of runners, but 2 popular ones ignore it completely. Diversified Portfolio can make you a lot of money if you've got a lot of your assets out.
Again, not a Tier 1 RP deck, and probably not a Tier 2 one either. Diversified Portfolio could probably be swapped for Hedge Fund or Medical Research Fundraiser. Ichi 2.0 should probably be adjusted into a cheaper influence Destroyer, so influence can be freed up for Jackson Howard. Maybe Offer should be removed for Jackson. Plus, another hard ETR ice would probably help. Maybe the whole deck would work better at 54 cards.
So, with that out of the way, on to the matches.
Round 1: vs. Zack
RP vs. Ken "Express" Tenma: 5-8 L
Quetzal vs. Personal Evolution: 7-4 W
Getting to play against people you don't normally oppose during league is the big advantage of tournaments. You get to see styles of play that you might not normally think about. First game I managed to grab two agendas and an Offer, but couldn't keep the runner out when I needed to. Most likely because he did destroy my economy when I tried to set it up. Next was also interesting. Took 2 Shi.Kyus out of Archives, then snagged a Medical Breakthrough to even it out. Was kind of touch and go in the midgame, but eventually managed to snag enough agendas to overcome.
Round 2: vs. Mark
RP vs. Noise: 2-6 L (milled out)
Quetzal vs. Engineering the Future: 0-7 L
I suppose this was the possibility I was dreading the most, but also the one I had tried to tech against. Cerebral Static did a lot of work in the first game, although the one I got in my opening hand was destroyed instantly by an agenda pulled off of the top of R&D turn 1. The next Static shut down much of the milling, but ultimately, was still milled out at the end of game. Game two I wasn't able to get the rig setup fast enough, mostly due to losing a Yog.0 to Net-Ready Eyes, and having no way to recur it, forcing me to try and dig through the deck.
Round 3: vs. Brian
RP vs. Silhouette: 8-4 W
Quetzal vs. Cybernetics Division: 8-2 W
Another interesting set of games. Cerebral Static doing a lot more work in this one. That and Himitsu-Bako kept HQ from being profitable for him. Second game was a lot more intriguing. Managed to snag a Self-Destruct Chip, but he then scored two of them, followed by rezzing Chairman Hiro, leaving me with a hand size of 0. So I couldn't take any damage or hold any cards. Had to be very careful, but was lucky by pulling a Project Wotan and a Sentinel Defense Program before he could start icing up HQ and R&D. Was able to get into HQ easily through Heimdall 2.0 thanks to Quetzal's ability and E3 Feedback Implants. Managed to snag the last agenda for that game.
Round 4: vs. Kate
RP vs. Kate "Mac" McCaffrey: 8-4 W
Quetzal vs. Haarpsichord Studios: 6-8 L
Again, two interesting games. Got my economy well set up and had a pile of cash through most of the game, enabling me to rez an Ichi 2.0 at the right time, destroying a Magnum Opus and a Gordian Blade. Second game was interesting as well. Was able to pick off a few agendas at the time, though wasn't helped by running into NAPD Contracts twice without the money to steal it. Took a Project Beale and an NAPD before getting hit with a Midseasons. Had to get to the agendas before the opponent at that point, because I knew Psychographics was in HQ thanks to Celebrity Gift. Was able to take another Project Beale off of R&D, then checked R&D again. Unfortunately, it was Explode-a-Palooza, which meant the game was lost.
Round 5: vs. Dave
RP vs. Valencia Estavez: 4-0 L (milled out)
Quetzal vs. Argus Security: 0-7 L
I guess I was lucky that I didn't run into more people playing Valencia, as I think there were three other people running this style of deck. Was able to score a Medical Breakthrough and an overadvanced Braintrust before the DLR was put into place. Tried to do a triple Offer turn to kill the runner, but I rezzed Crick, which was too greedy, as he just broke it with Eater each time, meaning he didn't hit the two Shock! in Archives. Got aggressively milled after that. Runner game went poorly for me. Couldn't find the one breaker I needed to get into his scoring server, so I couldn't stop him from advancing out a Cleaners, then two Oaktown Renovations. I guess I could have been a bit more aggressive on both R&D and HQ once I got Mimic out.
So after 5 rounds of Swiss, the tournament came to an end. Out of the 19 players, I placed 15th with 8 prestige. Still, the Swordsman from this tournament completes my playset of alt-art Swordsman, so perhaps I should incorporate them into a Jinteki deck. Maybe a Chronos Protocol deck. But there are some other ideas I want to try out in the meantime.
Well, until next time, keep those connections clean.
