Andromeda: Yellowblood

This is the Andromeda deck I brought to the Pre-Worlds Winter Tourney. The day before worlds, there was an 86 person Winter Season tournament, and both my Runner and my corp went 3/4 and I made 5th (I think) overall. I am writing this to hopefully give some insight on my approach to confronting NBN Fast Advance, and because an 86 person tournament is large enough test-space to write about. I understand that 5th place isn't exactly winning first, and that some may skip this due to it not being credible enough, but I genuinely think that some people might appreciate some advice against NEH.

The deck is designed to be flexible enough for worlds, but to be strong against NEH, primarily. First of all, I find that at least two of each breakers is absolutely vital for speed against current fast advance decks. You want at least a breaker and a Special Order in your opening hand, but that seems fairly obvious. Less obvious is the choice of Interfaces over run event multi-access. The interfaces let you lock down a server, and apply pressure that they can't ignore. If you use legwork, and don't steal an astro, they don't need to respond to it next turn since the run is complete and the multiaccess turn is over. But if you drop a HQ Interface, they can't jsut continue to play their game until they clear their HQ of agendas, or lock down their HQ with heavy ice (something that might be harder for NEH to do compared to Blue Son or RP). Of course, they can drop their Femme-able Tollbooths....but they are Femme-able.

Another interesting choice was Test Run, which is (of course) inspired by that "Test Run in Andy" deck that everybody was talking about a month back (sorry, I don't know where its from specifically). Test Run makes Femme a lot more usable, but it also helps with Sneakdoor (which is insane with HQ Interface), and D4V1D. Test Run is vital to the deck because it opens up plays where there normally wouldn't be. Second turn Siphons (or double Siphons!) are totally possible. Sneakdoor and Femme can be called in the mid-to-late game even if you had to ditch them earlier. They usually don't see these plays coming, so its pretty strong.

Because this is a Worlds deck, I had to also prepare for Blue Son and PE, so infiltration and D4V1D were added to balance out the decks weaknesses. D4V1D hits oversighted-Curtain Walls and Hadrians, as well as Tollbooths in NEH. Infiltration, on the other hand, is for Mushin No Shin, which is a very problematic card for me. With that said, it is sad that I used it for credits all day, so it definitely isn't a necessary include.

I didn't lose to NBN all day because the deck really keeps up with NEH's economy and common ice selection. I played against some very top-tier players who I'm sure many of you would recognize. However, I did lose to Red Coats at the end of the day, which really reinforces how important wiping those tags are (even if you know they don't run scorched). Not being able to install my Kati Jones meant that my economy eventually couldn't find that last agenda when I was at game point. Crash Space doubles as tag removal and double scorched protection (they can't double scorched if they spend a click to trash it), so I'm surprised more Crim decks don't run it. Even in that game that I lost, though, I had 5 points and kept up pressure for a long time. The other games of the day were against HB Red Coats and NEH, and were all won.

As I write this, I am preparing to sleep because tomorrow morning is the World Championship. I wouldn't be surprised if I don't do so well, but I think today's games were a testament to the strength of the decks rather than my sloppy playing. Of course, with the spoiled NBN-hate out in the wild, this kind of deck will probably die very soon, but I thought I would share how I have dealt with a very strong deck this Worlds season. I'd greatly appreciate feedback, so feel free to comment and criticize. Good luck at Worlds, everyone!