This deck was never meant to be good. It was meant to be silly, fun, and a meme to surprise people with at the local CO before switching to the deck I would actually bring to CBI. Yet somehow, someway, it just kept winning? 20th at the New Year showdown was a pleasant surprise, even if I missed the cut due to a deck error game loss. (This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it kept the secrets of the deck under wraps.) But then 1st at an 18-player CO? I was given no choice but to bring Salvo Testing to CBI, and boy, was it a blast.
The deck is super rich; 3x Tatu alongside 3x Nightmare forces the runner to get a lot of access before they can win, allowing us to rake in the dollars needed to fund a big deal. Runners that take the core damage after sniping one or 2 are only in a marginally stronger position. If we push hard, it’s surprisingly easy to get a kill (2x Nightmare, big deal out Salvo on Djupstad, Elivigar on Djupstad), but it’s not preferable.
Unsurprisingly, we perform much better in closed decklists. The traditional advice of “just run into PD” is crushing if you aren’t careful; Jaguarundi both buffs our win con and is a pretty bad tempo loss, and NEXT Diamond is soul-crushing even if every Killer breaks it for pennies. The better version of this deck cuts NEXT Diamond and 1 or more of the Jaguraundis for some central Brans.
The crushing, and I mean crushing, weakness is Deep Dive. Our agenda suite has little defense, and DD efficiently dodges Nightmare Archives. We need a very lucky draw to outpace a quick DD deck and draw nightmares to put into archives.
Special thanks go to Kror for running a great tournament and Andrej for being an excellent coach.
this is a really cool deck, congrats on your placement!