This was a bit of a roller coaster for me.
Store champs with 26 people and goes to a vote as to do a top 4 or top 8. Iām 8th but abstain because as much as Iād like a shot at a mat, I donāt want to go for several hours. Votes goes to doing top 8, so I get pair up against 1st place and he choose to play as Maxx. Iām playing a tagstorm Sol deck.
First draw is ICE light, but no agendas or Jacksons. I keep it because that last time I took a mulligan on a hand like that I got 3 agendas. I ICE up HQ over R&D to because siphon, get some money, and he the turn with R&D naked.
Maxx trashes some random card and keyhole. First click, retrieval run. Keyholes twice and runs archives to steal 2 astros.
I do a midseason for 7, put down a news hound on R&D without a current, and another piece of ICE on R&D.
Maxx keyholes me 4 more times, just floating tags from the newhound. Those runs they manage to kill my scorches, a Jackson, and another agenda.
I find a Jackson, install him to pull out agendas and that Jackson from archives and get enough money to rez the second piece of ICE on R&D.
Max does another run of R&D and I rez information overload and Keyhole gets trashed. Maxx ends up using an amped up and the 1 brain damage hits apocalypse out of hand.
I eventually stabilize and get R&D locked down but not before Maxx manages to snag the last Astro off the top of R&D. At this point Iām using Lilly Lockwell to pull up econ operations (and a current) to help me out after siphon and to secure a server to get melange running. I pull up psychographics so I can try to draw into a beale. My opponent muse out loud what number of advancements beale needs to be 7 points and I tell him itās 13 to save us both time. Maxx then drops down to 12 tags.
I eventually draw into my beale with 13 credits. I install, psycho trying to think of if I should do it for 11 or 9 but my opponent groans and makes me realize I can psycho for 12 and then advance once to hit 13. I win the game from 0 points.
The meta part of this was that after that first win, I managed to go undefeated until the final set where my corp lost to Noise, but because it was double elimination, I switched to runner who had a preferred match-up against their corp (who I previously beat on my way) and win. I managed to take first place in the Store Championship after placing 8th and almost not even playing in the elimination rounds. My only regret was beating my brother, who was 2nd place after Swiss, twice.
That, and the fact it was 11 at night and we started at 2. On a Sunday. I went into work a bit late the next dayā¦