80V (1st place, SF Bay Area Store Championship)

westonodom 1120

It's like the Palana decks you've seen before, but fun.

A little more seriously - this deck isn't that different from previous Palana decks, but the addition of NGO Front and Gene Splicer is significant. You get to Install, Advance, Advance a lot, sometimes multiple turns in a row. This creates a lot of decision points for the runner and is the main reason this deck is good - they are forced to take action before they're ready, and much of the time you win either way.

I took a very untuned version of this to an SC in the SF Bay Area on Saturday and did alright, then made a few tweaks that night and won one the next day. I wouldn't change a single card if I was playing again tomorrow, outside of the Preemptive Action mayyybe being a flex slot. I like it in case you need more econ or you get a lot of upgrades trashed out of R&D, but I can see not including it to.

Questions, comments, salt, and pepper are all welcome.

Oh, and by the way - if the deck name is confusing, say it out loud.

14 comments
6 Feb 2018 JuneCuervo

I'm sad I didn't get to play against it T_T

6 Feb 2018 westonodom

@Joseki yet ;)

6 Feb 2018 RoRo

Looks fun! What's the thinking on lateral?

7 Feb 2018 Saan

Palana with only 1 Celeb Gift, and I don't even think it's wrong. Wild, my dude, wild. Looks pretty sick ;)

7 Feb 2018 westonodom

@RoRo - The first version I played the day before had a slightly higher ice cost (an extra DNA Tracker and Data Loop, along with a couple other small differences), and I found myself poor too often. After reading #AllTheCardsInTheGame a couple of times Lateral Growth ended up making the most sense as a single card to add for a little econ boost because it lets you keep doing what you want to do as often as possible: Install, advance, advance.

7 Feb 2018 westonodom

@RoRo - I felt like the version I played the day before was running a little too poor, and after cutting the 3rd Data Loop I had 2 inf to play with. I read #AllTheCardsInTheGame a couple of times and Lateral Growth ended up being the best fit; it gives you a little boost without keeping you from doing what you want to do as often as possible: Install, Advance, Advance.

7 Feb 2018 westonodom

Thanks @Saan =D

7 Feb 2018 westonodom

Oh, and just a note - there is still definitely a lot of room to tweak this deck. It's still a very young list.

7 Feb 2018 shadowhawk

I really like the deck, but what's the plan against Film Critic and Tapwrm?

7 Feb 2018 spags

Nice job!

I liked the look of Gene Splicer on first blush, so I'm glad to see it immediately panned out (TheBigBoy: 3/10).

7 Feb 2018 westonodom

@shadowhawk - To be completely honest I don't have a specific plan against anything yet. I made the first version of the deck at 1:30am, slept for ~7 hours, then played it. I then tweaked it a little at 2:30 the next morning, slept for 3.5 hours, then played it again (the SC that I won with it). It was a tiring weekend...

Part of the answer is that in general it's as much (if not more) of a rush deck as it is a glacier deck, so you are trying to make plays before they're setup. The reason this can work is that you've got almost a 50/50 split of things you can IAA that the runner has to decide about. I imagine there can be games where the runner is good at making calls and gets setup that will be difficult. I don't think the deck is broken or anything like that, it just feels pretty generally solid. If the meta adapts and decks like this get more popular then I expect that runners will also adapt to be better at beating them.

7 Feb 2018 westonodom

@spags thanks! Yea, I liked it too. The idea of a win-win trap seemed really strong in a deck trying to score out of a remote, and my experience over two tournaments so far seems to agree.

I think I used the point from Gene Splicer in all but 1 of my games across both tournaments. Sometimes it meant I only had to score 2x Obokata Protocol, sometimes it meant that a Nisei MK II or Philotic Entanglement essentially doubled as a 5/3, and sometimes I "scored" multiples and they totally replaced an agenda. I also got a flatline with one in the cut when my opponent thought it was an Obokata - I saw that they (playing Sunny) ended their turn on 1 card so I asked how many cards they had in hand, then when they said "1" I immediately IAA'd a Gene Splicer. It turned out that their last card was Film Critic, and they didn't draw up above 2 cards before running :sunglasses:

19 Feb 2018 Restartt

I played this deck with a few tweaks to 2nd in a recent store champs. I literally didn't lose a game until the finals, where i lost both. for this deck, thats 3 swiss wins and an ID, then 2 cut wins, then a loss in the finals (mostly due to my play, some lucky r&d, and a really strong relentless opponent)

It's super fun, not to hard to start playing, has a lot of options and decision branches, and you can really do some fun plays.

I swapped preemptive with genotyping. It is a credit, but i like that i can shuffle then draw into what i shuffled, and i can return more cards and/or have more hidden info. but really a sidegrade. I really liked the slot as a "get back from archives" slot, but i strongly considered best defense, and that woulda been REALLY strong as well (lots of sac cons making purges hard or stopping the batty/trash program option, and being able to best defense and use 2 other clicks is strong).

The real thing i came to say is PLAY ONE SUSANOO. I cut a cobra for it and it felt PERFECT. komainu was low strength multi subs, cobra still had the suprise hit and best threats with batty, and the susanoo was high strength single sub so you diversify your threats. another it's another hard stop ice and the two most popular sentry breakers (na'not'k and MK) are awful against it. 10 credits or 9 credits as a solo ice, or 7 and 9 in a 2-3 ice server. Aumakua players sigh when they see this rezzed. and now that ice you install in archives against the rebirth omar or apoc or sneakdoor or aumakua also matters cuz if they fail to pay through susanoo they just hit that (most likely a crick, but most of your ice does work besides etr). it really did WORK for me during the day, and i suggest trying it.

14 Mar 2018 Kingleil

I love this deck, but I tweaked it where I dropped the two DNA Trackers for two Anansi. You get a sick combo when a runner hits Anansi, then if you have Marcus Batty installed and trash him - and win - and force a resolution on one of Anansi’s subroutines - it means Anansi immediately does 4 net damage potentially. This assumes you chose Batty’s resolution for the net damage on Anansi.