I Prepaid For This Motherf***ing Event (SMC Tournament)

akonnick 2076

I posted my original first draft of this list right when Order and Chaos was released. Since then, I've been playing the deck a fair amount and making tweaks and discoveries along the way. My original write-up is still helpful, but wanted to post updated thoughts since that very first version. I took this list (1 card difference as I will explain) to the Southern Megacity Circuit Tournament a couple of weeks ago and have linked videos of me playing (shout outs to SMC and Dodgepong for the amazing videos as always) as I always find it helpful to not only have the deck list, but actually see how the deck is played when making a decision of whether a deck is something I want to try.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVque104Jb0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGeorimVSj4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9Behz0bOlc

Thoughts/Key Learnings

  1. Prepaid Voicepad in MaxX is worth it. The more I play this deck, the more I realize how much money I make off these when I get them in play. The only game loss with this deck at the tournament resulted from me not being able to score the final 2 points because I didn't see any prepaids and couldn't find a Morning Star. If you watch the videos, you can track exactly how often I use the Prepaids (pretty much every turn) and judge for yourself whether they are worth it. There is no question in my mind that this combined with Day Job, Sure Gamble, Lucky Find and Account Siphon recursion is the burstiest economy package you can find at the moment. I see a lot of other decks trying to bridge the gap with Kati Jones and Liberated Accounts, but those are clearly slower options and this is a deck that demands to be played at a certain pace, otherwise you will run out of cards. I only ever install 2 Prepaids (that is usually all you will see reasonably early anyways) as you don't get enough value out of the third given the number of events that only cost 2 credits (Deja Vu, Day Job, utensils).

  2. Eater and 1 support breaker coupled with a well put together ice destruction package is all you really need. My first version played Morning Star and Femme Fatale. The more I tested, the happier I was with Morning Star to neutralize Eli 1.0, Wraparound, Hive, Bastion, Markus 1.0, etc. At the same time, I found myself almost never installing Femme as there were only a handful of ice where it drastically reduced the cost compared to Eater. At the same time, I made the decision that I needed a 2nd Account Siphon and the influence had to come from somewhere. Once I cut the Femmes and started testing, I've never looked back. It single handedly solved my memory problems, freed up influence and allowed me to focus the card slots on more utensils, which was a far better solution. I think Morning Star is still an excellent solution in the current meta. As long as Eli is king, this card will always be relevant. I tried cutting one Morning Star for a Mimic at the tournament, but never used it once even though almost every deck I played against ran Swordsman. Parasite, Keyhole, Wanton and the raw variance that happens when you only run 1 Swordsman is really all the protection you need, so I wouldn't play it again after my tournament experience.

  3. 2 Account Siphons is far better than 1. I mentioned in my initial post that I was debating going up to 2, but now remain convinced that that is the correct decision if you are going to spend any influence on Siphon. The consistency of seeing it early (whether in hand or heap) is so crucial to speed you up and slow the Corp down. You will see in all of the posted games how huge the card was to the overall tempo of the game and I could never see going back to less than 2 copies.

  4. It is always correct to run 3 copies of Keyhole and Wanton Destruction. This deck can flat out win the game or make winning inevitable if your opponent has a poor opening hand or guesses wrong with their 1 ice placement if you have 1 of these cards in your opening 6 cards. Watch the last game I posted and you will see what I mean. If your opponent can't stop you from making Keyhole runs, you just win. It is worth the extra card slot to give yourself a chance to win without even having to try. Wanton Destruction even more so since it is an event and you want to draw it as much as possible.

  5. 3 Deja Vu and 3 Same Old Things is always correct. I was hesitant to accept this at first when it came to Same Old Thing, but am convinced. Between Account Siphon and the utensils for ice destruction, you want as many of those effects as quickly as possible combined with the flexibility that the recursion cards to play them can provide. The cards are just too powerful not to play as many as possible and the risk of clogging up your hand with recursion occasionally is still worth it. Adding the Same Old Things made it easy to run a smaller number of utensils as I could neutralize an ice type very quickly once I saw the respective utensil. If you don't need to kill problem ice, you just Account Siphon again...seems good.

  6. Parasite and Utensils make great ice destroying friends. My first build opted for Parasites instead of Utensils. I traded messages with SlySquid after he posted his list and agreed with his decision to add Utensils as the final capstone to make the deck as powerful and aggressive as possible. Having added the right amount of recursion and all 3 of the utensils (Spooned is prioritized at 2 copies because of Lotus Field and a higher proportion of 4+ strength code gates relative to sentries) shored up a lot of match ups for me. Blue Sun was a big struggle at first, but you can see from the video that the deck can absolutely compete against the Curtain Walls of the world. Having the flexibility of parasite in addition to the utensils to take out key pieces of ice has been fantastic as it keeps the Corp's board really clear. This in turn saves you exponentially more money as you aren't spending credits to break ice and can make multiple keyhole runs a turn once you take control of the game.

I have thoroughly enjoyed playing this deck and really appreciate all the feedback and comments on the initial post. I never liked playing Anarch previously and this deck totally reignited my interest, which I think is a testament to the quality of design of the Order and Chaos box. At this point, I have taken the deck as far as I think I can take it as it performs the way I want it to with the consistency I was hoping for. Enjoy and happy to answer questions or comments!

12 comments
22 Apr 2015 Myriad

I can't watch the vids at work. How did this deck do at the tournament? I like the inclusion of Lucky Find!

Also, this deck seems like it would have some problems with Blue Sun as Curtain Walls are kind of expensive for you to tackle, but you do get that nice burst out of Lucky Find, Day Job and Account Siphon.

Seems pretty polished. I love the inclusion of Morningstar to counter not only taxing ice (Eli, Hive, etc) but also to counter Wraparound, which is super effective at the tax.

I also like that the deck is 45 cards. Although I think if you wanted to go up to 47, the two cards I would include would be Inject.

Probably going to give this deck a shot. I love Eater/Keyhole and wish it was as viable as RegAss right now, but everyone is teching against it.

22 Apr 2015 akonnick

@Myriad I was 2nd overall at the tournament (no cut so just took final standings from swiss). My only loss was to the tournament winner with his RP deck. I was up 5 points in the first 3 turns, but he drew all the Eater hate cards really quickly (Caprice, Swordsman, Wraparound) and stabilized. I never saw Morning Star and that was the difference as I couldn't Wanton the winning points into archives.

Blue Sun used to be near unwinnable and this list is a direct response to that. You will see in the first vid of the tournament how the Blue Sun matchup plays out. You are behind early game, but once you start picking off their key ice, they usually can't recover from the repeated Wantons/Siphons. Knifed, recursion and the 2nd Singularity (didn't expect at first, but testing proved out) really helped this matchup a lot.

45 cards is absolutely the way to go, but agree that 2 Inject wouldn't break this deck at all. I just like the consistency and pacing that the current configuration provides. I tried with Inject and sometimes you just don't want to overdraw since your deck already feeds you so many cards. I played against hate cards all day in literally every round (Wraparound, Swordsman, Jackson, Caprice and Crisium Grid) and still believe that there are enough answers in this deck where you can overwhelm the corp with aggression and destruction of their key cards. Take it for a spin and let me know what you think. Appreciate the comments!

22 Apr 2015 Myriad

Another quick question for you. Hacktivist support. Is that going to justify a slot in this deck as it makes Wanton even more effective? Or are you going to skip it.

If so, I am curious what could be cut. Or will you just run it 47 until you get some games in with it. It sounds pretty solid in the RP matchup.

22 Apr 2015 akonnick

@Myriad great question. Hacktivist Meeting seems like a brokenly good card. I was discussing this with the group yesterday and could see swapping one or both of the Singularity since they both are there to punish remotes. That is really the only meta call card I feel like I have with this deck as all The programs, hardware and economy events are pretty essential to the deck. Now I need to figure out what some of my corp decks that play assets are Going to do...

23 Apr 2015 Myriad

I took this deck for a spin last night and played about eight games with it.

My only real complaint is a lack of D4v1D against Blue Sun. It was my only loss that evening as I was unable to contend with curtain walls and Tollbooths at all.

Since then I dropped in two D4v1Ds and will probably go down to 1. I play against way too much Blue Sun. D4v1D and Cutlery are so good together.

23 Apr 2015 akonnick

@Myriad that makes sense to me if you see that much blue sun. Am curious what you cut? I think some number of parasites or singularities could be a decent swap but let me know what you Changed. Sounds like the rest of the matchups were pretty successful so congrats on that!

23 Apr 2015 Myriad

I dropped x1 Morningstar and just went up to 46.

My logic was D4v1D would let me get through Wraparound a bit faster and its another great target for ret run in a lot of matchups.

Singularity is the only other "flex slot" and I am going to be dropping x1 singularity for x2 Hacktivist Meeting, bringing me up to 47 during testing.

I had great success with this last night. Like I said, only one loss due to Blue Sun shutting me out. Its definitely nice to play Eater/Keyhole and feel mighty once more.

23 Apr 2015 akonnick

@Myriad awesome - thanks for the comments and let me know how you like hacktivist once you play with it. I'm putting the deck down for a little bit to work on some other stuff and give The local crew a break from having all their stuff trashed and credits stolen. You will definitely see that this deck more than any other I've played causes Opponents to scoop in disgust, so I try not to bring it to casual nights to discourage newer players. Have fun and thanks again for the feedback!

10 May 2015 Jman3256

Hi, first off thanks for posting this deck. I played it at a GNK yesterday and it did very well. Have you considered playing Comet in here instead of Grimoire? It would force a change to Corroder over Morningstar for MU but being able to Day Job into Account Siphon or other silly Comet plays with 28 events could really turn up the pressure on the corp with this deck. I tentatively cut 1x Lucky Find to fit the influence. Also tried Hacktivist Support over Singularity and it did work! Thanks again for posting the deck and I am interested to hear your thoughts on that change.

10 May 2015 Jman3256

Hacktivist Meeting not support :-)

11 May 2015 akonnick

@Jman3256 Thanks for the comment and glad you enjoyed the deck and had success with it. Comet does seem like a fun include especially given how crazy explosive the deck already is. While I really love the Lucky Finds, you could certainly swap out for another slightly worse econ card like Queen's Gambit or Dirty Laundry. Grimoire is basically a blank 2 memory console in this deck as the Parasite strength boost is rarely a big deal, so having Comet give a relevant ability seems nice. I honestly don't even think you'd necessarily have to give up Morning Star to play Corroder. Morning Star is only there because it neutralizes the most popular barriers in the most common decks for so much cheaper than Eater. Corroder doesn't really do anything for you that Eater doesn't with the exception of Wraparound. In either case, if you keep it, you could simply fix the 1 less memory but swapping Parasite for more cutlery (another Knifed or even D4v1d would help with Wraparound better than Corroder). Eater is the main focus and Morning Star, Parasite and cutlery are just the supporting cast, so feel free to tweak those cards/amounts to what makes sense based on what ice you are seeing the most of near you. Hope that helps and let me know what you think of the Comet swap when you try it. I am also testing the deck with 1 Hacktivist Meeting and cutting 1 Singularity. I'm a little nervous of that after Blacklist got printed, but we'll see how big a deal it is once I play against it more. Hacktivist Meeting is awesome and I think is totally worth making room for. All you need is 1 copy since you can get it with Déjà Vu and Same Old Thing, so it is pretty easy to make room even if I end up needing the 2nd Singularity.

11 May 2015 Jman3256

@akonnick Thanks for the quick response! That is a great point about parasite. I think that cutting both parasites for a 3rd Spooned and a 2nd Forked could work because Morningstar deals with the vast majority of barriers. Very happy to avoid cutting Morningstar also because I found it integral in a lot of my wins with the deck. I missed the Singularity on the weekend when I played (cut both for Hacktivists). I lost a game by being locked out of a remote guarded by Lotus Field and being unable to find a copy of Spooned. A 1-1 split of those two cards seems right to me. Again thanks for posting and replying! I will give this some testing and let you know how it goes. Cheers