1.1.1.1 NEH Scorch-Combo

This is the Corp deck I used in a 1.1.1.1-tournament at Highlander Games, Bremen. This deck is my try of rebuilding the Shutdown-Boom!-decks which did fared fairly well at Worlds. Since Power Shutdown and Accelerated Diagnostics are in the same pack, you just need Jackson Howard as your single card to complete the combo. Of course this deck is weaker than the teched out versions you have at Worlds. Its main weaknesses are twofold: The first one is that you can only play 2 Breaking News. This can slow you down considerably, since you need to score one of these to activate your combo. The other one is the lack of BOOM!. With only 2 Scorched Earths and neither Boom! nor Traffic Accident, you can't deal as much damage. But it still does fairly well, since Runners are also slower in this format. With a Breaking News scored and 8 Credits, you can combo out and deal 8 Meat Damage to your opponent. What's even better, with 11 Credits and a Jackson on the table, you can play 2 Diagnostics, using Interns, 24/7 News Cycle and Scorched Earth in the first pile and double Scorch (plus Hedge Fund if you were exactly on 11 Credits before starting the combo) to deal 12 Damage, which is normally enough to finish the runner. Also, there is SEA Source in the deck, to surprise-kill the runner when he feels safe as long as you don't have a Breaking News. But since this deck does not make much money, this happened rarely in testing and not at all during the tournament. I think the Sources should go down to 1, that would allow the player to cut the Priority Requisition, which is quite a liability, and replace it with a 1- and a 2-pointer.

My tournament experience: In the first game, I was matched up against a player from my local play group, who knew the deck and played an Andromeda-Deck, which was fully teched up to beat the various flavours of NBN. After three or four turns he landed double Crash Space and Logos (which is too much, even for the triple Scorch), backing them up with double Decoy as the game went on. The deck went down without a chance. The second game went much better, I had an unsuspecting Kate run into an Archangel (bye bye Professional Contacts!). This slowed her down a lot (especially after receiving 2 News Teams from a Maker's Eye on turn one) and allowed me to build up the combo and burn her house down. The third game was against Whizzard. I was horribly flooded there (after around 20 cards drawn I had 14 agenda points in HQ, Archives and the scoring zones). I needed just the Power Shutdown and even had a server, which was safe at the time to protect the Jackson for the double combo. But he Siphoned me multiple times so I also lacked the money for the combo and he grabbed enough agendas to win the game. In the fourth game, my opponent Maker's Eyed second turn on his last click, ran into a Turnpike, took the tag and was Scorched the following turn.

All in all I think the deck did quite well (moreso in testing than in the Tournament itself). Although it can be countered by Siphon spam or by playing Crash Spaces, Decoys and running all remotes (therefor preventing the double-combo), it can be a nasty surprise for the runner and, with a little luck, actually be quite fast and kill the runner quickly.

Also, News Team is great.