December marks the start of the 2017 Store Championship season, even though it is still 2016. Still, this past weekend was the first one I was able to attend. Here's what I was able to come up with this time.
Adam's Source - 49 cards
Identity: Adam - Compulsive Hacker
Programs
Corroder - 2 (4 influence)
Datasucker - 2 (2 influence)
Gordian Blade - 2 (6 influence)
Multithreader - 3
Ninja - 2 (4 influence)
Hardware
Brain Chip - 3
Resources
Always Be Running - 1
Armitage Codebusting - 3
Daily Casts - 3
Dr. Lovegood - 3
Find the Truth - 1
Neutralize All Threats - 1
Safety First - 1
Scrubber - 3 (3 influence)
The Source - 3 (6 influence)
Events
"Freedom Through Equality" - 3
Dirty Laundry - 3
Independent Thinking - 3
Sure Gamble - 3
Find the Truth is a big boon to Adam, as it means you are no longer forced to make a run at the start of every turn due to Always Be Running. As such, my starting directives were always Find the Truth, Safety First, and Neutralize All Threats. Basically, you want enough time to set up your basic rig, which The Source can help give you by delaying the corporation from scoring out too fast. Once you have your breakers and a Multithreader or a Datasucker, you can start the process of snowballing. The Source is especially good for Adam, as you can use Dr. Lovegood to shut it off on your turn, meaning you don't have to pay the extra cost to steal agendas, and it doesn't trash itself if you do steal one. Economy is a bit mixed, but fairly decent. Independent Thinking gives you some extra draw, and there's a backup of each directive in case you trash one that you want back.
Your Brain on Drugs - 44 cards
Identity: Cybernetics Division - Humanity Upgraded
Agendas (18 points)
Accelerated Beta Test - 3
Global Food Initiative - 3 (3 influence)
Self-Destruct Chips - 3
Ice
Gyri Labyrinth - 3
Heimdall 2.0 - 1
Janus 1.0 - 1
Mother Goddess - 1
NEXT Bronze - 3
NEXT Gold - 3
NEXT Silver - 3
Wotan - 1
Assets
Cerebral Overwriter - 3
Jackson Howard - 3 (3 influence)
PAD Campaign - 3
Upgrades
Cyberdex Virus Suite - 1
Operations
Biotic Labor - 3
Hedge Fund - 3
Lateral Growth - 3
Rumor was that a bunch of players from Denver were coming down with Jinteki net damage decks, so I figured why not try running a brain damage kill deck. Granted, I probably could have done a better job with it. I clearly didn't use all the influence, mostly because I had no idea what else I could have brought in to improve the deck. And yes, there's no Enforced Curfew in the deck because I didn't own a copy of Martial Law when I pulled this deck together. Otherwise, it's kind of a fairly standard fast advance deck. Also, I put in one of each Heimdall 2.0, Janus 1.0 and Wotan because I was hoping that with this much ice in this small of a deck, I might have been able to hit one with Accelerated Beta Test.
Time to see how well it worked. On to the rounds.
Round 1: vs. Adam
Adam vs. Engineering the Future: 9 - 6 W
Cybernetics Division vs. Noise: 2 - 1 W (flatline)
Not exactly sure if it's ironic that I ended up playing against a person named Adam with my Adam deck. Still, it was an interesting first game. I ended up taking some brain damage early on due to face checking a Viktor 1.0 and later a Heimdall 1.0 on the last click before my Corroder was up. Still, I was able to use Safety First to draw into a Brain Chip, and then offset the brain damage by snagging a Mandatory Upgrades. That started the ball rolling. I was able to pull two more Mandatory Upgrades, but he was able to score out 3 Accelerated Beta Tests, so it was close. However, I pulled a Priority Requisition out of his hand to win. Corp game was also interesting. I used Biotic Labor in order to score out an ABT on turn two, getting a NEXT SILVER and giving up a Self-Destruct Chip as a result. Still, I was able to lure him into a twice advanced Cerebral Overwriter, and to top it off, he used Stimhack to get into the server, leaving him with 2 cards in hand. So he took the 2 brain damage from Overwriter, and then died to the damage from Stimhack. Not too bad for the first round.
Round 2: vs. Rick
Adam vs. New Angeles Sol: 2 - 7 L
Cybernetics Division vs. Ele "Smoke" Scovak: 2 - 7 L
Playing against Rick is always quite the experience. I was able to snag a Global Food Initiative and 15 Minutes early on. However, after that he was able to set up his defenses on HQ & R&D. Apparently, there was a point where he was holding onto three agendas in hand, and I just kept missing them when I hit HQ, even with Neutralize All Threats in play. It didn't help that sometimes I forgot to use the positive effects of Find the Truth and Safety First a few times. At any rate, he was able to score out after that. Second game, I couldn't get a good setup as the corp. I ended up dumping high cost ice into Archives and used Jackson before scoring an ABT to shuffle them back into the deck. I was able to get a NEXT Bronze and a Gyri Labyrinth out of that, but it wasn't enough as he was able to get set up and locked down my R&D after that. Still, speaking with Rick afterwards has given me an idea on how to improve the deck. Perhaps a later article will go over that new design.
Round 3: vs. Scott
Adam vs. Architects of Tomorrow: 7 - 0 W
Cybernetics Division vs. Valencia Estevez: 3 - 2 W (flatline)
I'll admit, losing to Rick put me slightly on tilt. It didn't help either that I couldn't quite finish my lunch between rounds 2 and 3, so I wasn't in the greatest mood going into this match. Still, it turned out better than I thought. I was able to snag an ABT off of R&D early on thanks to seeing it with Find the Truth. I then snagged a GFI and played out a Brain Chip. I played Freedom Through Equality and then pulled another GFI out of his hand, which apparently was flooded with agendas, despite his earlier use of Jackson Howard. Second game was pretty bad for him as well. I ended up losing an ABT on turn one, but I think that set my strategy. I was able to lure him into a twice advanced Cerbral Overwriter, which he used a Blackmail on to get to. I snuck out a GFI thanks to two Biotic Labors. Later on, I overwrote a Cerebral Overwrite to lure him into a third Cerebral Overwriter, which he Blackmailed into again. I scored out a Self-Destruct Chips then, putting him onto a one turn time limit, which he was not able to win the game in.
I was able to finish up my lunch after that, and went into round 4 a bit more refreshed.
Round 4: vs. Matt
Cybernetics Division vs. Valencia Esteves: 4 - 7 L
Adam vs. Cerebral Imaging: 7 - 0 W
I was able to get fairly lucky with an early ABT, which pulled out all 3 copies of NEXT Silver, which I used to place one on each of the central servers. That helped protect against Blackmail and DDoS. Still, I gave up too many agendas and credits to Blackmail and Account Siphon. What didn't really help me was him using Rebirth to change into Omar Keung and getting out Obelus, making my kill condition impossible. He then got out a Medium and dug into R&D, taking the last agenda by sneaking into Archives and making it an R&D run. Second game, I was able to build up and snagged an ABT while Freedom was out. I took another ABT off of R&D and was able to snag a GFI out of his massive hand.
So I ended Swiss rounds with a 5-3 record. Unfortunately, that wasn't good enough to make the top 4 and I placed 7th out of 18 players. Still, that was much better than I was expecting to do. I think this Adam build is viable and the Cybernetics Division might do much better once I implement the changes I have in mind. Not sure if I'll be taking them to later store championships, as I think I'd like to test other ideas. Well, if I can come up with any better ideas.
So until next time, try not to fry your brain with stims.
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