Apex Predator: 1st Place Baltic Nationals, Undefeated

"They left us bananas. Many, many bananas.

Apparently in the corporate dystopian future everyone only eats bananas."
- SaturdayNightWizard

You've heard of Comrades Potatoes,

Now get ready for Unband Bananas

This time around I felt very secure about what corp I wanted to bring to Baltic Nationals, as it was a list I was very familiar with, that others were not too familiar with, and that played well into the meta. Though I was surprised that there were more criminals than expected, still, the absence of Big Wu decks meant this PE deck was mighty powerful. Unlike my friend Bridgeman I didn’t feel like a Cornered Animal. I felt like the Apex Predator.

Card Changes:

-2 Wake Up Call -2 Hokusai Grid

+2 News Team +2 Retribution

As mentioned in my review, I think Wake Up Call, while very cool, is too fair of a card to be good. Plus, I really liked the strategy of poisoning archives, and News Team is a sticky poison card when they don’t take the negative points. More critically, the negative points mitigate the losing proposition of runners finding too many points too quickly, while also fuelling the decks’ Stock Buyback economy. Part of the reason this change works is that Snare! is another neat way to tag the runner at times when they might be too click compressed to clear the tags AND also draw back up to prevent dying to a Sting! score or contesting a IAA Obokata next turn, leaving them with difficult choices. Hokusai Grid being cut is largely collateral, but since it synergises with WUC it also seems like a fine enough cut.

-1 Longevity Serum -1 Hokusai Grid

+2 Hybrid Release

So the previous change was originally made to mitigate the liability that is Longevity Serum. Parhelion brought another good 1-pointer in Hybrid Release that is worth slotting over LS. Many people impulsively cut a Regenesis for a 3rd copy of HR, personally I think that is not a stricly optimal swap, and for my play style Regenesis fits better. However, one hidden neat thing you can do with HR is overinstall an unrezzed Botulus target, and score HR the next turn to recur the ice.

-1 Diviner

+1 DNA Tracker

An experimental change I made about a week before the tournament. I figured going up in the (real and fake) agenda count would allow me to play a big piece of ice that Blorch sturggles to break. Felt good on the day, and with that being said, Jinteki ice suites are places of continuous tinkering, so achieving a near-perfect balance like Bridgeman did is gonna be tricky.

Thanks to:

• Axwill who sadly had to sit out due to illness. We had a great game of Nemesis soon after. I got slaughtered. :D
• Iceprisma for graciously hosting me in Finland, and for fighting tooth and nail to make the Unband Finals (tm) a reality.
• vo1d for stepping up as organiser, being damn cool, and also for Estonian music recs
• Everyone at the tournament who made it an awesome experience, it was lovely to meet you and I hope we will see each other soon again