Bound by Blood - Top 8 Midlands Regionals 2024

This is a slightly modified version of the deck I took to an earlier Nottingham tournament, and it still worked very well, and felt very fun to play. People were also still assuming it was the Punitive list, which is always a joyous mistake to see. As the writeup I did last time still largely holds true, I'll just be going over some of the changes here.

Changes

Cloud Eater -> Boto

Boto is proving to be quite a good Jinteki ice, and is a good bit cheaper than Cloud Eater. Reaching threat 4 in this deck happens decently quickly too. Having a barrier in the deck means that runners have to think about installing a fracter, costing them time and money, and lets you have a hard end the run to secure a server if they don't.

Send a Message + Reaper Function -> Longevity Serum + Hybrid Release

These two agendas are both easier to score than Send a Message, and give you recursion to better set up while getting closer to a win. Having a few smaller agendas also helps you reduce your reliance on scoring multiple 5/3s. The loss of a Reaper Function for deck slots was a little more damaging than I had hoped, as all my opponents were holding a good number of cards in hand at all times. This made scoring Blood in the Water harder than it was in testing. I didn't feel that Regolith was needed though, so I'll likely swap that back into the third Reaper.

The Games

Round 2 - Loss vs Lat (Dzerards)

Early SMCs for Cupellation to grab Hostile Architecture and Paricia to control my board. He found the Blood in the Water I tried to sneak out on the board, and Trick Shots found three agendas on top of R&D. I didn't see any ice, so couldn't punish him for using SMCs for tech cards, or tax him in any meaningful way. He also didn't hit any Urticas, so this was about as bad as luck can be. I maybe could have tried drawing to set up better, but Dzerards was playing well, and his win was deserved.

Round 4 - Win vs Lat (mays.leyline)

I think I assembled Hostile Architecture, Front Company, and ice on HQ and R&D quite quickly, though the Hostile was Pinholed through Archives, with Stoneships used to cautiously draw up. Key assets were slowly trashed, and 4 points were stolen from R&D, but I iced a remote and scored a Fuji that they were too cautious to check. The next install double advance was an Urtica that they felt they had to check, and die to after taking damage from the ice.

Round 6 - Win vs Esâ (Matt/ish)

Matt/ish and I hand tested this matchup at our local meetup, and an Esâ with Begemot and Laamb as it's breakers was going to be risky if they went to low hand size, but an early Marrow kept them safe, with Ghosttongue getting the third core needed for Begemot to get through Anansi. If I remember correctly, this got a Chastushka through safely, but despite a decent amount of sabotage, no agendas were going in the bin.

I think this was the game where I used a trick my partner Mandoline pointed out in testing: use Cohort to advance an ice, meaning Hearts and Minds always has a counter available to move. This let me kill with Ronin from 0 advancements after the runner tanked Anemone and Fuji damage on R&D, with only enough clicks to draw back to 2 in grip.

Round 7 - Win vs Quetzal (lif3line)

This was a really fun game that went to the wire. I was able to set up key assets, and lif3line grabbed an early 2 points out of an unprotected R&D before starting to carefully trash my board. I'd drawn a few agendas, and was able to pull off something I'm quite pleased with. I trashed a Fuji to Cohort, then scored a Hybrid Release, and installed the Fuji. Next turn, Cohort and Hearts and Minds let me score the Fuji, getting to a solid 4 points.

By about this point, the centrals were iced, and Poison Vials had been lost to damage and Moshing, meaning Anansi fired a few times. A Fuji was stolen (I think through an Anansied remote) and I drew into most of my remaining agendas. lif3line was keeping a good number of cards in hand though, as well as controlling my assets, stopping me scoring Blood in the Water. They were also accumulating Twinning counters, so running HQ was a guaranteed win, assuming they survived the Anemone rez.

They decided to try and close the game with a Finality dig, but they let the first Anansi sub fire despite having Kongamato installed. This let me move the last agenda in R&D to the top, then draw it with the second sub. Twinning let them see 6 cards, but there was nothing to steal. They then check Archives with four facedowns, tempted by the Fuji that came out of there earlier. All they got was losing two of their three remaining cards to an Anemone rez. All the agendas are in HQ though, so they make a last ditch run there, and Anemone is rezed for a kill.