Deckspace: Breakerless Quetzal

Originally published at: Deckspace: Breakerless Quetzal - StimHack

Discuss the latest StimHack article by @Nagnazul here.

Sad that the final article of 2015 here already. Really enjoying this series.

That said… well, you say the deck looks like it won’t work and then does, so it’s possible I’m just in the “not having played it yet” camp, but it seems like there are a few issues against pretty common decks. Still, a really neat idea – and it’s nice to see something interesting out of Quetzal.

got any investment tips from the future?

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You can’t go around claiming you’re breakerless and then have 3 Knights. It’s just dishonest!

Anyway the list looks like fun in the same way RP looks like fun. Grin wildly as your opponent looks longingly at the clock hoping it will be over soon, at least when it works.

I still think AoA works best out of Reina. That +1 credits really hurts when you’re denying the corp every single credit.

7 Likes

I think it’s really important to remember that DLR can be installed early game when you aren’t tagged. This is very often a good play.

I like the deck, looks neat. Shame about the BS matchup…

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Fixed, thanks!

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This seems like my kind of deck! Unfortunately there’s too much BS (pun really intended) in my local meta to consider playing this. Could adding E3 help in some way? You’d have to cut an account siphon to get them in, though - might be too weakening.

Yeah, I find this really annoying too.

I really enjoyed Tag Me when that was a thing, but Blue Sun practically blanks Caissa and Crisium Grid isn’t uncommon. Lists like this look fun, too. As noted in the article though, the hit to it was maybe because a lot of people find it really, really aggravating to play against, and I can respect that from a game design point of view.

I really hate playing any deck that automatically loses when they are playing a certain ID/archetype assuming optimal play (which is why I stopped playing CI - Noise automatically wins against them if he’s good), so it’s a no-go for me now.

I’m glad that O&C is soon. It really feels like Blue Sun hit Anarch way too hard. Lotus Field in Blue Sun means they can’t get through (yank back Knights) and they blank Caissa.

2 Likes

I like Reina as well, but I think her weakness is that she’s not amazing anywhere specifically. I like Whizzard more against NBN for checking remotes. Quetzal, I think is better for RP. I think stronger central runs are better than cheaper remote trashing. Kim, I think will be the Weyland choice. Trashing Scorched/Counterstrike makes them have to defend HQ more.

She’s still my favorite out of them though.

I just finished a game with this deck. It’s amazing. Terrifying, but amazing. Played against HB. They got an Ichi on HQ, but couldn’t get the credits to rez whatever the other Ice was (or it was just a barrier). R&D had two Ice, but neither was ever rez’ed. The remote server had an Enigma on it until I double parasite’d it, and just ignored the remote for a bit. The corp trashed 6 resources (first a fall guy, then one DLR, two John Mas., an Armitage with 3 left, and the +1 click guy), but as advertised, it took everything they had to do it. I was very much throwing things out, playing them for a turn, and then losing them. But it didn’t matter, because I was still getting a better return than they were. I even threw 2 parasites and a lamprey in the trash to run through Ichi. AND! The best bit - he installed in two remotes - one with unrezzed, Sherlock (pfft), unrezzed, upgrade. The other with nothing. And he had 4 credits. So I Deja vu’ed for an account siphon, took his 4 credits, ran the open server, found his snare, trashed it, ran the other server, found my final agenda points. He even scored Priority Req and Accelerated beta test! Between beta test and DLR, there were 12 trashed cards in archives, but no agendas. :frowning: I’m fairly sure he had at least 3 agendas in hand, I just couldn’t find them.

I used Imp 3x total - I had to feed it to Ichi a few times, but even so, I was happy with the return.

But yeah, this deck is exhilarating to run. Even the corp guy said “I was pretty sure I was winning the entire game.” This is, to me, what playing an Anarch should feel like. Psychotic destruction, running headlong in to servers, taking tags and getting trashed, and still winning.

Watching the poor corp click for 3, or click for two and a trash, and not even be able to take the turn to clear virus counters, is both awesome and sad.

I feel like this deck would struggle against any kind of heavy horizontal play with lots of must-trash assets and drip economy. Especially since they have built in siphon recovery with assets and diversified. After playing some games against this I think NEARPAD is almost as bad of a matchup as BS. DRTs backed up with Hostile Infrastructures just wrecks this deck as once the corp starts rezzing them you have to slow way down to avoid flatlining yourself.

…but Blue Sun?

That’s why there are three Imps I’d imagine - though that card is probably worth a 3-of in Anarch anyway right how. They help, but yeah, the matchup is still tough.

Won’t -1 Siphon +2 E3 turn BS from “unbeatable” to at least “possible”? E3 lets you waltz through Curtain Walls and any barriers the corp might have. Not to mention it makes Knight break mutliple-sub ICE for cheaper, and is obviously good against bioroids.

The issue, though, is that Blue Sun simply negates all your install actions. Parasite? Gone before you use it. Knight? One turn of clicking through. Rook? Possibly nets you a cost of 2-6 if you’re lucky, and then it’s out.

Sure, you can recur them. And perhaps you can throw 2 parasites on one ice and a knight on another, and and get a couple turns, but it removes a piece of your deck by not letting you host on their Ice, and then removes another piece by basically banking credits you can’t get to. You know they’re going to pull back that Ice and get credits for it, but you can’t attack those credits on your turn.

Also, since several people have said “It can’t be breakerless, it’s got Knight!” I’ve started referring to my version as “Disposable Heroes.”

This article really opened my eyes to a cool idea of a Tag me deck. I altered it a little include deep red, overmind, e3 and more viruses such as nerve and medium. I thought this added a few new things:

  1. It helped to force the corp to spend more turns purging virus counters. This was wonderful cause they would have to choose between either a medium that could get up to 6 or 7 counters or me having joshua B for another turn.
  2. Breaking Eli for 1 credit is cool since he sees so much play.
  3. I like deep red to make the cassia programs move out faster and if I’m gonna run Deep Red, Overmind pairs well with it. E3 pulls it all together in a nice neat package.
  4. Demolition run when Nerve Agent or Medium have 4 or so counters can be a moral killer.

This is still such a cool deck and maybe it runs faster then the way I have mine set up.

list please?

Quetzal: Free Spirit (45 cards)

15 / 15 influence: •••••••••••••••

Sort by: Type | Set | Faction | Name
Event (11)

2 Account Siphon ••••• •••
2 Deja Vu
2 Demolition Run
2 Retrieval Run
3 Sure Gamble
Hardware (7)

1 Akamatsu Mem Chip •
2 Deep Red
3 E3 Feedback Implants ••••• •
1 Plascrete Carapace
Resource (12)

3 Armitage Codebusting
3 Data Leak Reversal
2 John Masanori
3 Joshua B.
1 New Angeles City Hall
Icebreaker (5)

2 Knight
3 Overmind
Program (10)

2 Datasucker
2 Medium
2 Nerve Agent
3 Parasite
1 Rook

The New angelos city hall is in case I want to use my Joshua B for an extra turn with running or such. I ended up changing a lot of this and trading some cards in and out. This got me third place in a local tournament with my shell game PE deck. I will say I think Imp would have helped this deck a good amount and I think I added a liberate accounts to help the econ a little in place of a Armitage. With Joshua B you can completely use that thing in a turn so you don’t ahve to worry about it getting trashed.

Any list for Breakerless Quetzal post O&C?