So I saw @Cory_Hockman playing this on Peachhack a few weeks ago and had to try it out. I’ve been playing it pretty religiously in my testing since then and have found the deck to be very, very solid, though what @pacer says about it being hard to win with is true.
I also took it to a monthly tournament on Saturday 13 June and will be taking it to regionals on Saturday 20 June. It went 3/2 (same as my runner, Reina Headlock) but I didn’t get to see how it performed in the top 8, because I had to leave to go to work even though I’d earned my spot. I flooded game one against PPVP Kate but still managed to score 5 points, then handled a Leela efficiently (though the player wasn’t particularly good with either deck, handing me the win by not remembering he had Jackson on board during an archives run). Game three was against CT Siphon which was an intense match that was very well played by both of us, until he legworked into two Snare’s. I literally shouted when it happened because it was such an intense game and I apologised immediately afterward. Game four was against Noise which came down to the wire, me literally drawing my last card after shuffling in three hedge funds with Jackon, and having just enough to score the winning NAPD. Game five was against RegAss Maxx who ripped a TFP and Fetal AI on their first turn and while I put up a valiant effort, they got me to 0 credits and hit the 20% chance for the TFP that was in my hand.
The deck has a very solid Noise matchup, as you have plenty of turns where you can just purge, not to mention he feeds your ID ability. That being said, because you’re slow he can mill you out, even with 54 cards. The deck has an alright PPVP Kate matchup, it’s nothing spectacular and you have to play tight. You run two blacklist and they’re difficult for her to trash, plus you’re a very taxing deck. If they get on top of you early it becomes rough, because they have the econ to trash your assets. I can’t really speak to the Maxx matchup as the tournament game is the only one I’ve played against her. I’ve played against a couple of Whizzard decks, and it ends up being about normal cost/slightly above for them to trash, which still isn’t fun for them. You can defend high value assets with nasty ICE too.
One thing I’ve learned is that the deck has to be quite aggressive once it has the scoring server online. “Online” can be more difficult to judge, but sometimes it’s simply an Ash and a Caprice when you have a superb econ advantage, and regularly is one or both of them plus a singleton ICE. But you really have to take advantage of those scoring windows.
The changes I’ve made to Pacer’s deck are minimal, replacing the two ELP with two Cerebral Static. I’ve found this to be quite strong in my meta, with lots of Noise, Kate and a few Whizzard. It would do great work against Maxx as well, but I didn’t see it against her or Leela. It REALLY makes the Noise matchup easy. I haven’t replaced this influence yet, but with the prevalence of ParaSucker, I’m considering two Tollbooth and the addition of a few Lotus Field. Not sure what I’d take out. I’m also considering Power Shutdown, as the deck can make effective use of the card’s downside, and Power Shutdown for 0 is the real deal against SMC, NRE and Progenitor.
Really really like this deck, but you’ll want to get reps in with it so you know your lines of play. Never went to time on the weekend but came close, and this is definitely a slower deck. That being said I don’t think it has the raw power of RP or NEH, and it’s much easier for the Runner to play around the kill condition than it is against Blue Sun.