Foodcoats

I play glacier for a very long time,sure it does not have easy wins like asset spam or other decks,but it’s a challenge and interesting archetype to play/play against,and right now the power level of glacier is increasing,you just can not play pure glacier;you need to play more tricks in your deck to have more consistent match ups.

I just piloted Foodcoats to 4th place at US Nationals, so yes, I think it’s still good. The ice is strong, protection upgrades are annoying even if several of them get turned off by Rumor Mill, and no one is playing both Rumor Mill and Blackmail. It’s an even matchup against a lot of decks.

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I’m curious, which defensive upgrades did you decide to run and how did they fare? There are a lot of different combinations of upgrades out there and options to consider (e.g., Caprice + Ash, Mason Bellamy + Heinlein Grid, Mason Bellamy + Strongbox, Sandburg). Which one(s) have you found the most success with in your glacier decks?

Congratulations! Was it a fairly standard list?

EDIT: I found your Regionals list. Is it similar to your Nats list?

Identical, actually. I haven’t bothered reprinting my decklists from Nats because they’re identical to the Regionals ones. I may update the descriptions.

The upgrades are 1 of Crisium, Caprice, and Batty. They all have their uses at various times. I’m never really rich enough for Ash or Sandburg (and they both get turned off by Rumor Mill anyway), and Bellamy-Strongbox seems too combo-y to use. Debated a Corporate Troubleshooter and still need more experimentation with it, but I do like that it’s immune to Rumor Mill.

The deck is weak to very rich runners and combo decks if either play Rumor Mill (and the combo is fast enough), and arguably lock Shapers if you can’t out-rush them. Otherwise, all the ice is a PITA to deal with, especially with the conspiracy breakers that are everywhere. Against decks that are slow to set up, such as DLR Andy, you can usually rush behind a piece or two of ice, and if you can get a 5/3 scored early you’re doing really good and will probably win. Double biotic gives you a way of forcing past players that try to lock you down in the end game. A CVS is probably the 50th card.

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With runners having to choose their poison in teching with the current big 3 (Skorpios, Sync, Moons) something like foodcoats can come along, which would probably lose to a runner trying to tech against the general field, and do a very good job against these runners because they’ve lost their staying power from fighting these 3 decks. I think foodcoats is strictly worse than any of those 3 decks (but not by that much). Given that no runner will really be teching for you you may end up doing better as a result.

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Have any tournaments had more Skorp than Foodcoats? And is there even a standard Skorp list that you can tech against? There’s nothing in common between the horizontal Skorp that came in 2nd at NorCal and the barriers only hatchet job Skorp that did well at Nationals.

Not saying that Skorp doesn’t have the possibility to be better than Foodcoats, but I’m not sure I would tech against Skorp more than Foodcoats.

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Foodcoats is fine, but currently it seems better to play something a bit more flexible, that can biotic out agendas as well. You can play pretty reasonable midrange decks with 3 biotics that still retain a few defensive upgrades and decent econ, obviously you’re a few deckslots down on pure glacier, but I think it’s worth it.

Glacier hosers like rumour mill (even blackmail) are not out of the game, and the ability to bypass them with fast advance is really useful.

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My opinion is that Skorp wasn’t really a contender for top spot until the new hatchet job + salem’s build that just came out, but now it is up there among the top of the field. In general you want tech against any type of skorp but its not until that one came out that it was a necessity to dedicate deck power to doing so.

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Struggling to beat or really compete with Lock Hayley.

Any tips on the match and how to approach it?

Laguna-Lister-Faust is a wicked combo.

Play never advance in a taxing remote to make them run it repeatedly. Give them less time to prepare via Enhanced Login Protocol. Try to snipe a Levy with Arc Lockdown. Play Turing to make them install Cy-Cy and reduce Deep Data Mining power. If you really want to improve the matchup, import a Chiyashi or a Swordsman. Once Beth is on the table try to not give them the click.

I find it tough to build taxing servers and never have 15 credits in my pool. If I can’t rez the ice it is not taxing.

I know giving the extra click is bad but this feels like a catch-22.

I guess you have to try to force them through your scoring remote early and often. Once two or three pieces of taxing ICE are rezzed, you don’t need to have a lot of money any more. Foodcoats needs lots of money over the course of the game, but you can try to push and invest your money early to never having a big pile of money sitting around. NA games are absolutely the way to go against those Shaper decks, I think.
But honestly, I also think Lock Hayley is a Tier 1 deck atm and Foodcoats is simply not, and that’s for a reason. Laguna-Lister-Faust + RM shuts down too many of your win cons, and you don’t even have the FA out due to Clot.

Yes. I know Foodcoats is not at the top of the pile as far as competitive decks go, but I’m not top of the pile as far as competitive players go. My goal at my next regional is to go .500 or better, not win the whole thing. I’m just trying to figure out the best lines of play with it vs. the decks I’m facing. Thanks for the help.

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It’s definitely a rough matchup, but I would say pack counter currents to rumor mill and Turings for the anti AI tech. Expect to lose 75% of the time.

Abandon centrals early. Go for an extremely aggressive remote game, rush out agendas like there’s no tomorrow. Naked campaigns early are usually fine because Lock Hayley doesn’t really have the tools to reliably contest them. Your goal should be to get to at least 4, ideally 5 points by the time they’re set up. Then you can start icing up R&D some more, shove something into your remote every turn ideally, and force them to run it a lot. If you’re on match point and they are not, it’s often worth putting the winning agenda in the remote even if you know they can get in. Sometimes they’ll psych themselves out and not run it, and either way you force them to waste resources.

Another nice play is to build a second remote. Not as big as the primary scoring remote, but just 1-2 ice - something like Architect --> FC3 is great. Then, if you’ve managed to get to the point where you’re on match point and they’re not, you can shove into both remotes at once. Hopefully they’re both agendas and then they have to get into both or you win, but even if they aren’t both agendas you can at least force them to either get into both or guess right.

Beth will give them free clicks, you should accept that and move on. I don’t think it’s worth trying to play around that. If you’re looking for a current that’s good against Hayley, Scarcity of Resources is better than ELP. Also might be worth swapping a single Ash for a Corporate Troubleshooter. Sneaky Corporate Troubleshooter can mess with their Faust math, and it gets around Rumor Mill.

I’ve played this match-up a lot, feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions.

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Hortum help at all?

Doesn’t get around their Chameleon or CyCy, but it does prevent Faust.

So does Turing, which is in-faction and doesn’t need to be advanced.

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I don’t think Hortum is a very good idea. One Hortum won’t be enough; they’ll just plant CyCy on that server and call it a day. If you could fit two and put one on each remote you could at least tax resources (though Chameleon + Lister will still get through), but that’s very taxing to you in terms of resources (that’s six clicks and six credits that are spent not advancing your game plan) and influence (4 influence is a lot for a deck that wants to splash Caprice). If you’ve got influence to spare, NAPD and Crisium are both really good right now.

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