A Glacial Teia (3rd @ West Coast Nats)

Since The Automata Initiative was released I've been fascinated by A Teia. I tried a few times to build my own deck from scratch but didn't like anything I came up with. Then I saw @Sokka's A Timely Teia and started playing around with it a bit. It was super fun to play, but I wasn't the best pilot and I ended up iterating through a few different versions that I felt matched me a little better. This deck is where I landed, complete with panic edits the day before the tournament.

This deck ended up going 2-1 in swiss and 1-0 in the cut at West Coast Nationals, and my panic changes worked out well, affording me plenty of credits for ridiculous board states like this:

And here was my accompanying runner.

Iterations

v0 - The original Timely Teia from Sokka.

Like I said, super fun. But I often felt like I didn't have enough money and couldn't keep the runner out for long. The ice that ends the run was cheap to break and everything else could be run through with enough cards in hand, making it hard to find scoring windows mid- to late-game. When you score Timely Public Release early, you can easily score a second 4/2 from hand with seamless. After that, I always hoped to score Hybrid Release, then Audacity out one of the 3/2s. In the end this felt a bit too fragile for me to play consistently.

v1 - Removing Audacity for Brân and Tranquility Home Grid

Audacity felt to me like a crutch, required because I couldn't find late game scoring windows. Bran added a lot of security and opened up some windows, and the extra install was nice when it fired on a remote, but rarely happens. Tranquility Home Grid was amazing, especially when you have one installed in each remote. The runner didn't usually trash it, but when they did it still felt good to set them back 4c.

v2 - Enter La Costa Grid

This was a huge help, since now the deck wasn't as reliant on Seamless Launch to score the 4/2s. Unfortunately this knocked out Tranquility Home Grid and I had to find more econ. I first tried Vovô Ozetti, but it turns out he's too trashable and only ever helped me rez 2-3 ice per game. I ended up with Regolith Mining License because it doesn't occupy the remote for long, and there were often turns where I just needed to get money to rez big ice. After adding in Regolith I can't remember ever clicking for single credits again.

v3 - Daruma

After playing the previous versions a bunch, I didn't find there to be much flexibility, and the A Teia/ TPR trick was great but fired rarely since you had to first score TPR. Daruma still triggers A Teia, and allows you to take advantage of riskier scoring windows safely. And best of all, if the runner ran last click or you've set up a second server, you can always daruma the agenda to hand, and then A Teia it into the other server. And how can you encourage the runner to run last click into one of your tricks? Brân. Let the runner click through, then daruma them, setting you up perfectly to score next turn and hopefully leaving the runner low on credits. (In theory anyway. On the day I missed my opportunity to do this, instead opting to rez a third Anansi on the scoring remote, putting me too low on credits to score next turn.)

v4 - The agenda no one plays, Vulnerability Audit

This deck allows you to "Fast Advance" the forgotten un-fast-advanceable 4/3. TPR, Daruma, or Tatu-Bola all have the opportunity to install Vulnerability Audit for you on the runners turn, then you can use Seamless Launch or La Costa Grid to score before the runner even realizes you installed it. This addition solved a lot of my issues with flooding, and meant that I never have to score a 4th agenda.

I'll admit this build became more glacial than I expected. I'm sure there's a more aggressive version I haven't found my way to yet, especially considering the lines created by Tatu-Bola on a remote and Daruma. It's just so easy to install deep ice with A Teia. 😅

Round Recap

Swiss

Round 1: Win vs @Joevovich - Nyusha "Sable" Sintashta: Symphonic Prodigy

Won by the coveted Turn 1 Saisentan facecheck.

Round 2: Win vs @Zee - Arissana Rocha Nahu: Street Artist

I drew everything I needed in the right order this match. Scored TPR early. Manually installed Vulnerability Audit a few turns later on a La Costa Grid, then TPR/ Seamlessed out the last agenda.

Round 3: ID against @Sindarin

Round 4: Loss vs @GhostMeat - Esâ Afontov: Eco-Insurrectionist

I was not favored in this match, since losing all your ice to sabotage makes it hard to glacier. This was possibly the most tense match I've ever played. On the last turn I had 2 agendas in HQ (out of 2 cards), 1 Vulnerability Audit in R&D out of 3 cards, Vulnerability Audit installed in my remote ready to score next turn. In the end it came down to core damage that trashed Strike Fund, giving the runner exactly enough credits to break into HQ to steal the winning agenda.

The Cut

Round 1: -- (runner round)

Round 2: Win vs @tzeentchling - Arissana Rocha Nahu: Street Artist

It seemed like the runner had a decent start, getting Prognostic Q-Loop down after a couple turns with money to spare from Environmental Testing. I was a little worried by their econ and didn't trust that I could score anything early because I had no idea what trojans tzeentchling had in hand, so I set out to reinforce R&D and build the most taxing scoring server I could think of. Fearing he had Ika in hand, triple Anansi seemed good (it was). At some point I was ready to score Timely Public Release and felt safe with it sitting on a Daruma, but tzeentchling disrupted that with pinhole and broke in for the steal anyway. Every time I went low on credits, I had a Regolith Mining License ready to go and brought me right back up to a respectable level of wealth. NGO Front helped me gain money and build my scoring remote deeper for free with A Teia: IP Recovery. Despite all the money and deep ice, I never felt safe with tzeentchling kickflipping all over the place. In the end I just barely won the econ war and managed to score out the winning agenda before he could Deep Dive.

Round 3: -- (runner round)