Originally published at: Chicago Regionals Tournament 2014 (87 players) - StimHack
Discuss the Chicago Regionals winning lists here. These lists definitely warrant their own thread!
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I’m curious from those who played against these decks, could the game have gone either way, or were these decks demonstrative?
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I’ve been testing the Tennin deck a bit since the list was posted, and although it was hard for me to see why it was good on paper, when you see it in action, it is an unstoppable beast. Every time Tennin’s ability fires, it is like 2 free clicks (1 credit + 1 click = 1 advancement), and considering you’re only defending HQ and R&D (and so those two servers are very taxing and well defended), there are many turns in which your opponent needs to just store up on credits instead of running over those taxing servers (thus letting Tennin’s ability fire).
I found you can get away with never icing remotes nor archives, but instead focusing only on protecting HQ and R&D. Shock! and Shi.Kyu protect archives on their own (saving you clicks and credits that you would have to spend if you were to have to defend archives with ice).
I’ve been trying to find weaknesses so I can try to mitigate them when piloting the deck or exploit them when playing against. Although it is perhaps too early in testing for me to say, but if I see a weakness in this deck it is early HQ. The runner might be more concerned trying to get an R&D lock and might be afraid of running a Jinteki HQ (mainly fear of the unknown evils that Jinteki might be hiding in there). But I think the best move for a runner might be to go for HQ first against this deck, and when it becomes too taxing to run HQ, only then go for R&D. This is because the deck, as I’ve played it, seems to need to stall a little to get setup for scoring, and during that time a couple agendas might clog up in HQ.
I guess the problem for runners nowadays is that it is hard to know what exactly the corp is running just by knowing the corp ID, but that deck diversity is all the better for the health of the game. That mystery, however, gives a faction like Jinteki (in particular) a lot of power (should you expect Junebug? draw up before running to protect against Snare!? etc.). The more different decks you play against, of course, the better player you will be in being able to identify your opponent, identify the threats, and identify the weaknesses.
This deck would hurt against runners who can divert accesses (e.g., Sneakdoor Beta or Security Testing). That would make the archive defense useless, and especially strong is Sneakdoor, which can grab those agendas that pile up during the early game in HQ.
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What does this deck do against Security Testing on Archives? It seems like that will lead to a stomp.
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Does the Tennin list click for credits a lot? It doesn’t seem like there’s enough economy in there, even with relatively cheap ICE.
Particularly, how does the deck afford to put any teeth into Shi.Kyu without bankrupting themselves? Just theorycrafting but I feel like Pup is stronger, especially with respect to Security Testing / Sneakdoor and the number of trashables in R&D.
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While Sneakdoor Beta and Security Testing might be seen as counters to this specific deck, they don’t seem like very popular cards to play with atm.
What, really? IMO Security Testing is perhaps the best Runner card in Honor and Profit and should be 2-3 of in any Criminal deck-- not for any “counter Tennin” special-case reasons but simply because it’s extremely strong in standard play.
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I faced what looked like a very close version of the Tennin list and I siphon-milled it into the ground with Noise, 7-0. I didn’t face this player or a runner that looked close.
I had a lot of success with Security Testing(2 copies) in my regionals. I chose to cut other economy for it, still not sure if that is correct, so its kind of weak in some matchups where your not getting free accesses as I was more reliant on Kati. I think it’s definitely something you want to play though. It’s really good against Jinteki relying on snare/shikyu to defend archives value runs, and great against drip economy.
I really don’t know how I feel about the Alias in the Sil list. I need to compare it to Ninja to see if your really saving much by going with the Alias. Since your all in on quest completed I could see it working.
Each gave up 2 games for the day, so they were by no means unbeatable.
Only one player installed a security testing against me and its impact was pretty minimal. I think sneakdoor is my biggest worry and I lost hard to one player who ran it.
I do click for credits a lot, but its important to keep in mind how much cheaper Trick of Light is than SanSan or Biotic Labor. If all the pieces are in place, I only need 2 credits at the start of the turn. Also, I never spent more than 1 credit on a Shi.Kyu, they are just there to be shocks 4, 5, and 6.
Finally, every single Project Nisei that I drew for the day ended up in archives where it was never scored. Even without a Jackson on the table, nobody wants to run an archives that they know has multiple shocks and Shi.Kyus. It’s enough to tempt me to run NAPD instead, I’m not sure which would be better overall.
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According to http://sneakdoor.com/ - Alias beats ninja on most common sentries and ties it on a couple more - outside of weird stuff like Sherlock, only Grim and Ichi 2.0 are in Ninja’s favor.
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Hey, that’s… actually, I didn’t even think I could play it like that!
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Yeah, it’s why I keep telling people that if you had to ditch one for Shi.Kyu, ditching the Snares is better than the Shocks. Make your Archives (un?)pleasantly untouchable. Costs you much less, and you can up the amount by a credit or two if you REALLY need to land another one.
It seems insane to me that people wouldnt be playing these.
Security testing is amazing. Desperado + Security testing and you can take $3 clicks onto archives. Not only that, but it forces the jinteki players who had been playing Shock to defend archives to actually ice it!
Sneakdoor gets you around Caprice on HQ. Sneak in and kill her. This lets you Siphon them.
Of course, I havent played at all, so what do I know. 
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One more thing on the corp economy - it’s possible to win using only 2 trick of lights, and pretty common to win using 3. As a result, its usually safe to blow an archived memories on the successful demonstration or a hedge fund if necessary.
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Great job Kranse, awesome decks.
This would be the two ToL game?
ToL Braintrust
Stolen Medical Breakthrough
ToL Medical Breakthrough
Medical Breakthrough
Clone Retirement
One thing that puzzles me is your ice selection. Small binary ice for a deck that would seem to play a bit like CI. It would make sense if the deck was really fast and was trying to accomplish something before they get their breakers out but you’re going to have to draw half your deck to win so I would expect games go a bit longer? The deck is definitely good at turning on Tennin’s ability from the start which may be the most important part.
So the Nisei were never scored. How about a swap to The Future Perfect and another Clone Retirement? A card I would be very tempted to add to the deck is Subliminal Messaging, it works well with Jackson overdraws and like Peekay pointed out if it comes back once it’s a Green Level Clearance.
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@kranse, you don’t know how it pleased me to see what won. A solid punch in the face of the naysayers to the state of the game. Excellent job!
Doesn’t mean I wasn’t psyched to see CI scorch/Prepaid Kate take second. Well done, @chill84! Chicagoland defended its turf, gangland-style, from the invaders.
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How long was this tournament and what format that you could lose four games and take the whole thing!?!?
6 rounds of swiss (I lost all my games in this phase) then a cut to top 16, double elim (played flawlessly here). The tournament lasted from “noon” (closer to 1) until 1:30 AM.
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I get a lot of utility out of early binary ICE - it’s cheap, it lets me build up advancement tokens early, and it doesn’t let the runner use any bad pub (from Grim or stolen Clone Retirements) until they’re rigged up.
I was also very worried about ICE destruction, which is pretty popular in Chicago. With a large quantity of small ICE, I can try to outlast the parasite recursion and spread my advancement tokens around a bit more.
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