Founding Fathers' WT Ari (11th@NANPC Boston, 2-2)

Smoke trees, and fuck the law

Deckbuilding

The core concept of the deck is to find World Tree as quickly as possible and use it to generate immense amounts of run-based value, as well as to tutor important icebreakers cheaply to keep corp remotes in check. The deck is Big because you want to be able to continue getting this value from WT for as long as possible.

The main driver behind this deck was cableCarnage. sebastiank also had a very exciting take on the WT Ari deck. analyzechris, cableCarnage, rongydoge, and Ysengrin were all instrumental in tuning the deck.

The core of the deck is: All of the Events and Hardware, all of the Resources aside from Trickster Taka and potentially the second Miss Bones, all of the Programs aside from Paricia and Takobi. Taka is a powerhouse against glacier, and does immense work with the threat of Kyuban. Takobi beats Bran and other dummy thicc ICE. Paricia and Bones are for those quaint corps that think they can just not install ICE.

🤓"Bu-bu why didn't you play this card instead?!?" There are a lot of things I considered and didn't include that I will disrespect below. If it didn't make the list, it's because its even worse than the ones below.

• Buzzsaw? It breaks cheaper, but doesn't f**k up a Corpie's day enough. CRINGE
• Diesel? We have enough draw already, and engine draw is better than some dumb Ancestral Recall. ALSO CRINGE
• Second Entangler? Just get good and draw or tutor the first instead. CRINGE
• Rejig? What you think we're just going to keep Coal around forever? THATS A CRINGE
• Cataloguer? Shapers aren't fast enough to multitask Indexing and bong rips at the same time. CRINGE
• Pelangi? Deck is hard enough as it is, adding another layer of thought is decidedly CRINGE.
• Cyberdelia? We're trying to win the game, not build the biggest accounting simulator this side of Stegodon MK IV. Best believe that's a CRINGE
• Valentina or Wheels? We're not really in the habit of tutoring resources unless it gives us 8+ credits of value. CRINGE
• Dadian---DIES OF CRINGE ☠️☠️

Play

This is a tough deck to pilot, full stop. But boy howdy is it fun.

Mulligan-wise, you're looking for a way to get World Tree (and value from it) as quickly as possible. SMC and Trick Shot/Overclock is the big one-two combo that you're looking for, but hard installing World Tree first turn is also good enough. Having a second program in hand to trash to fetch Coal is also ideal. Turning Stoneship into Earthrise or even Casts is also valuable.

After this initial setup, you're either looking to solidify your econ by fetching more econ (Coal, and getting down an Environmental Testing whenever you can afford it), or trashing your unusable programs (that you often install during a run clicklessly) to fetch important ones like icebreakers. Versus non-Jinteki decks, generally you want Cleaver and Inversificator (as you can often lean on the threat of Entangler). Versus Jinteki decks, you facecheck with a large hand, sometimes lose cards, and figure out the rest from there. MU can also be an issue at this point, so it can often be correct to upgrade a Simulchip into a LilyPAD if you're feeling the squeeze.

In the endgame, you're looking to keep the Corp poor through Kyuban and repositioning, and potentially setting up Conduit if digging for the win is a better strategy. Inversificator is a strong wincon, as you can move a lot of ICE as you see fit, doing cool skateboard tricks like surfing a Trojan-loaded code gate down a server)

Results

The deck dropped its first game to Wenjong, whose Issuaq successfully baited me into running a 2x Fujii Archives while I had no LilyPAD or Stoneship live to beat the looming Punitive. What can I say, deck has Skill Issue problems.

I won the second game against Eric's Sportsmetal. I was well-aware of the presence of Sports at top tables in this tournament. Being able to use World Tree to check remotes for extreme value, along with the Bones Train and threat of Clot, helped immensely to slow down the game enough to dig deep with Conduit for the win.

Third game was against a rushy Ob deck piloted by CTZ 🚨 (LINK TO DECKLIST FORTHCOMING) 🚨. It was one of the best games I've had in my recent, reefer-impaired memory. I might be able to talk about it more in depth on Ysengrin's channel -- but the tl;dr is that he won 6-4 on time. Highlights included the Gatekeeper vs Conduit "oh no" moment, and deciding to see four cards off of an R&D packed with Clot-purging Mavirii and little-to-no agendas.

Last one was vs Vergescu's PD. World Tree did its thing, Inversificator moving M.I.C. to HQ plus Bones-ing all the things was enough to grind the Corp's progress to a halt.

Thank you to:

• Eric, for putting on one of the best tournaments in recent memory.

• Eric, for spearheading an amazing league of tournaments, NANPC. Regionals are back thanks to the leadership of this dude.

• Eric, for winning his own damned tournament in one of the most exuberant runs this side of Dan D.

• NotAgain, for securing an amazing venue, Battleground Games, which was not only very accommodating, but also very generous with one of the best prizes in gaming, Store Credit.

• Neon Static, Andrej/Metropole Grid, Ysengrin, for providing a professional-quality stream that is second to none.

• Muntal Bost, for being a group of opponents that are as formidable as they are entertaining.

• Snare Bears. For everything.

• Everyone who traveled, both near and far, for the tournament. Hitting that critical mass of people traveling for tourneys is hard, and everyone that shows up makes the tourney that much better. Y'all are the best. ❤️