US Cambridge Regionals - 1st Place (4-1 + ID)

1st Place Runner @ US Cambridge Regionals on 2018/06/30 at Pandemonium Books & Games

This Regional had 23 players, four rounds of Swiss, followed by double-elim top 8.

Corp deck: Skorp

Deck Choices

This is a modification of Max Security. Please see that deck for TheBigBoy's excellent writeup on the card choices.

Improvements:

• -1 Stimhack
• +1 Divide and Conquer
• -1 Underworld Contact
• +1 Liberated Account

Deck Considerations

With the current ruling on The Turning Wheel and Divide and Conquer, D&C is bonkers. Don't play the corp's game: make them play your game. Slotting another D&C is worth investigating.

Why Reina?

Watch Freeware, a ~7min short, by Alex Orelle. I'll wait..

...

(Also: Runner. Git rekt, NBN.)

Strategy

1. Disrupt corp.
2. Steal agendas.

The fallacious promises of any corp should be countered by Employee Strikes and, where necessary, Mining Accidents. A good corp is a broke corp.

Once the drip starts, most turns involve running a central to incite a rez, using bad publicity credits to install or use a conspiracy breaker, bounce on an ETR or laugh through the traces, trigger Nexus if needed, then jack out (or access, if the run is cheap), and gain a The Turning Wheel counter. TTW counters are important because, when paired with Divide and Conquer, you can access all of HQ and a significant portion of R&D.

If something is installed in the remote and you suspect an agenda, successfully run HQ, then contest the remote with Security Nexus, Maxwell James, and whatever bad pub you've accumulated.

For certain matchups (e.g., Mti), consider mulligan'ing into an Employee Strike.

Matchups

On the day, only one corp ICE'd Archives. Landing well-timed D&Cs was effortless.

Swiss

R1. Sportsmetal: Go Big or Go Home

This was Reina's only loss of the day, but it was fun!

The corp was a variant -- copy or original -- of Naked Bootleg: feed the Runner several cheap or -1 "agendas" and score behind a Giordano Memorial Field. Unfortunately, the Fields met a tragic accident before groundbreaking could commence.

They eventually score 5pts and 2 Domestic Sleepers. With two turns remaining, I build TTW counters then launch into an 7 (1+6) card dig via Divide and Conquer. For each of the 2 Global Food Initiatives stolen from HQ, Sportsmetal drew 2 replacement cards which kept another game-winning agenda hidden in HQ. Big whiff on the R&D dig.

Next turn they activated their second Sleeper. This freedom fighter went home.

R2. Architects of Tomorrow

Applied economic pressure by landing an Employee Strike, running to force a rez, initiating Nexus traces, and jacking out to build TTW. I closed out the game with another deep D&C dive, grabbing an agenda from HQ and two from R&D.

R3. Mti Mwekundu

First hand was decent, but lacked Employee Strike. Mulligan was better.

They did the bold Mti opening of IA into a naked remote. A labor dispute finds a tokenless Nisei in my score area. A turn or two later, a second Nisei is pilfered from R&D, and an Obokata Protocol is sighted (with only 3 cards in grip). They later build a single-ICE remote and IAA. Game-winning turn includes Maxwell James, a run on HQ, and on-encounter derez of their Kakugo to steal an Obokata.

R4. Skorp

ID.

Top 8

R2. Azmari EdTech

Jinja City Grid and Surveyor can make deep, dangerous servers quickly, especially when fueled by Special Report.

Fortunately, most NBN ICE are tracers. The remote was deep -- but nothing Maxwell and Nexus couldn't handle -- whereas HQ was a toothless News Hound and R&D was protected by IP Block and Enigma. Single accesses, using 3 bad pub, to build TTW lead to the win. No D&C needed.

R4. Industrial Genomics

Bio-Ethics Association, Urban Renewal, Drudge Work, and ... Vanity Project? Oh my!

We play a war of currents: EStrike vs. Scarcity of Resources. After nabbing a Vanity Project from R&D, I find another two 3pt agendas in HQ. (I hit a Shi.Kyū in Archives earlier.) Reina literally won the match because IG was on 4 creds and could not afford to rez the single Kakugo protecting HQ.