Another store championship has come and gone here in Colorado. And once again, I chose to travel some unconventional paths in my deck design. As such, here are the decks I brought this time:
Time Dilation - 45 cards
Identity: Apex - Invasive Predator
Programs
Endless Hunger - 3
Harbinger - 3
Hyperdriver - 2 (6 influence)
Leprechaun - 2 (4 influence)
Hardware
Chop Bot 3000 - 3 (3 influence)
e3 Feedback Implants - 3 (6 influence)
Heartbeat - 3
Plascrete Carapace - 3
Resource
Hunting Grounds - 3
Wasteland - 3
Events
Apocalypse - 3
Dirty Laundry - 3
Levy AR Lab Access - 1 (3 influence)
Prey - 3
Quality Time - 3 (3 influence)
Sure Gamble - 3
Traffic Jam - 1
The main goal is to set up a large turn using Hyperdrivers. Of course, the only way to host them and Endless Hunger at the same time is to have a Leprechaun installed. Harbingers are standard for Apex, so they go in. e3 Feedback Implants is also kind of standard, since it lets you break additional subroutines. Chop Bot is a clickless draw engine. Combining it with Wastelands lets you get credits and a card at the start of your turn. Both Plascrete and Heartbeat let you mitigate damage, plus Heartbeat gives you the extra point of memory you need. Hunting Grounds shuts off some more annoying effects of ice, such as Tollbooth, Data Raven, and Komainu. Apocalypse is your main goal. Getting a good number of cards out of the way forces the corp to spend time and money recovering their board state. Just remember, you'll probably want to hold on to duplicates of some of your rig in your hand so you can get back up and running after Apocalypse. Dirty Laundry and Sure Gamble make up most of your economy, but you'll probably be credit light for much of the game. Prey can remove a piece of ice that is particularly troublesome. Quality Time works as a draw engine, helping refill your hand when it gets low. Levy is pretty necessary, as you'll likely burn through the deck quickly. Make sure to trash face-down cards that you'll want to use again before you use Levy, though. Traffic Jam rounds out the deck, allowing you turn shut off an annoying Corp current, such as Enhanced Login Protocol, without having to grab an agenda.
This deck does have some weaknesses. Being credit light, you'll not do very well against tag storm decks. Plus, your breaker is dependent on ice having at least one "End the run" subroutine, so damaging/destroying ice will be problematic. I was contemplating running a copy of D4V1D, but was unsure of what to remove in terms of influence without breaking the idea behind the deck. Still, it feels fairly solid.
Mind Games 1.0 - 54 cards
Identity: Nisei Division - The Next Generation
Agendas - 23 points
Global Food Initiative - 3 (3 influence)
Medical Breakthrough - 3
Nisei MK II - 3
Philotic Entanglement - 1
Ice
Chum - 2
Clairvoyant Monitor - 3
Cortex Lock - 2
Himitsu-Bako - 3
Komainu - 2
Sensei - 1
Susanoo-No-Mikoto - 1
Assets
Jackson Howard - 3 (3 influence)
Project Junebug - 3
Shi.Kyū - 3
Snare! - 3
Upgrades
Caprice Nisei - 3
Operations
Back Channels - 3 (3 influence)
Celebrity Gift - 3
Medical Research Fundraiser - 3
Mushin No Shin - 3
Trick of Light - 3
Yes, I'm aware I'm not using all of the influence available to me. I couldn't come up with something I wanted to use the last 6 points for. But the basic thought behind this deck was inspired by the Stimhack article on Personal Evolution and Yomi. If you'd like to read it right now, here's the link: http://stimhack.com/playing-the-high-stakes-game-with-personal-evolution/
For the agendas suite, originally the GFIs were Fetal AI, but I switched out so I could bring in some more cards and use some more influence. Medical Breakthrough is good, because if the runner grabs one, then the others move into the range where they can be fast advanced. Nisei Mk II can shut down a critical run. Philotic can be fast advanced as well. Ice has been selected to be taxing. Chum was added to increase the tax on the runner, or to force the runner to abort a run. Clairvoyant Monitor combos with the identity ability and can get you more advancement tokens. Cortex Lock is good while the runner has not yet filled their rig. Himitsu-Bako is cheap EtR, and can be moved around if needed. Komainu is more taxing/damaging. Sensei can increase the taxing on one or two more ice, depending on its position. Susanoo-No-Mikoto is meant to go on your scoring server, to deflect runners. Jackson is pretty much standard. Junebug, Shi.Kyu and Snare all add damaging traps to throw the runner off. Caprice helps shut down a run and combos with your identity ability. Celebrity Gift and Medical Research Fundraiser are the primary economy of this deck. Back Channels can give some more economy, especially when combined with Mushin No Shin. Trick of Light can also be used with Mushin No Shin to fast advance something.
Basically, the idea behind this deck is to keep the runner guessing. Test whether or not they will test unprotected remotes by mixing up traps and agendas. Use Mushin No Shin to full effect. Utilize traps, even if the runner knows they are traps, because they can be used with Trick of Light or Back Channels. Use Celebrity Gift to show the runner a hand mixed with traps and maybe one agenda, forcing them to consider if running HQ would be worth it. Granted, the deck is very porous, and if the runner doesn't jump the way you want them, they could easily win.
So with that out of the way, on to the matches.
Round 1: vs. Jason
Apex vs. Haarpsichord Studios: 2 - 7 L
Nisei Division vs. Noise: 5 - 8 L
Not a great pair of opening games for me. I had to mulligan cards as Apex that could have been useful early to try and get some economy. As such, I was struggling for most of the game to get to an Endless Hunger. I ended up getting hit with a Midseason Replacement after swiping a 15 Minutes, and that got taken away from me as well. I landed one Apocalypse and I was able to grab a Project Beale, but lost the game on running into two of Quantum Predictive Model. Second game was a little better. I gave up some agendas early, but was able to get a GFI and a Nisei scored. I had the Philotic in scoring position, but got hit with an R&D dig and lost.
Round 2 vs. Aidan
Apex vs. The Foundry: 7 - 2 W
Nisei Division vs. Kate "Mac" McCaffrey: 0 - 8 L
A little bit better. Apocalypse managed to be much more significant this game, as I snagged agendas at the right times to take my runner game. Corp game should have been good, as I had gotten both Cortex Locks in my hand, and used them to protect both R&D and HQ. However, my opponent managed to get a Deus X on turn 1 to break the one on R&D, then got a Clone Chip on turn 2 to break the one on HQ. After that, he loaded up on programs, making them useless. Plus, Faust was running rampant on all the other ice. I wasn't able to establish a foothold.
Round 3: vs. Ken
Apex vs. Personal Evolution: 8 - 1 W
Nisei Division vs. Ken "Express" Tenma: 4 - 4 W (flatline)
I feel my opponent this round was tilting pretty badly, which was probably not helped by my performance. I was able to prevent a good chunk of damage thanks to Heartbeat. Also, I took out a lot of cards with Apocalypse, since no Hostile Infrastructure seemed to be present. As such, I was able to hammer R&D and HQ to grab the agendas I needed. Second game could have gone either way. He managed to snag a Nisei and a Medical Breakthrough, which let me sneak out two Medical Breakthroughs. But he was also hitting my traps throughout the game. At least one, but possibly two Snares were used, and so was one Junebug early. He then ran into a server I had set up, getting past Caprice because I was out of cash, but that gave me the one credit I needed to trigger the Junebug that was there for 6 damage.
Round 4: vs. Jacob
Apex vs. Engineering the Future: 8 - 6 W
Nisei Division vs. Adam: 7 - 4 W
Remarkably, I was able to get two Apocalypses off as runner. The first one took out some cards that had been put up from an Accelerated Beta Test. Second didn't take out nearly as much, but felt pretty good. I hammered afterwards to grab what I needed. Next game was interesting. Adam running Endless Hunger is an interesting choice. Still, I managed to sneak out a GFI thanks to Mushin No Shin. Later, I pushed out a Nisei Mk II and a Philotic to win.
Out of 25 players, my 10 prestige put me close to the range of the top 8. 4 people managed to get more than that, and 4 more matched it. As such, my strength of schedule placed me at 9th. Still, I'm pleased with how well I did considering my unconventional choices. Also, I have an idea for Apex that I want to try out, so that may be coming to the blog in the future.
Until next time, don't trash the baby.
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