I think the plan against FA is to hope you get Wyldcakes up early. That gives you the card advantage and time needed to put on central pressure (hopefully medium) and the money to keep trashing their assets. If Val is up and running she can get into HQ easily enough to check for agendas, forcing more ice on centrals, killing ice, and keeping up the pressure.
If the draw falls flat FA will probably win. How it usually is for any runner. Val’s early game weakness is mitigated by her strong mid and late game. Also Blackmail.
Desperado is an incredible card in Val but giving up 6 influence and 4 card slots to bolster MU always left me feeling like it just wasn’t worth it. I’d much rather have Grimoire against Glacier. However, in the current FA / asset heavy meta it’s definitely better than it has ever been. Two scrubbers also seems like a good call. After playing Timmy’s list at Nationals I have a new found respect for Imp in Valencia but it is no longer enough protection for 24/7 kill decks.
If the draw falls flat FA will probably win.
Yes, you have to rely on good draw versus mediocre-poor draw for NEH Fastro. It’s Valencia’s worst match up by far in my opinion. I know some have experimented with SMCs and Clot in Val in an attempt to shore this up. SMC is not exactly a bad card in Valencia anyway but I’m not sure if that strategy is going to slow NEH down enough to be worth it.
@stormzbowler I think you should strongly consider more draw than Wyldcakes + 2 Peddler. In my experience you will see consistency issues.
I may try to squeeze in 1 or 2 I’ve Had Worse, but honestly the NEH matchup isn’t all that terrible. The Turtlebacks list is particularly easy to keep down if you see 1 Scrubber with Desperado. I don’t feel like Val has any worse matchup than any other Anarch against NEH as it basically just comes down to whether or not you see the cards you need in the top 10 cards or so of your deck.
Turtlebacks is probably easier than traditional NEH because you can just keep their SanSans and Team Sponsorships trashed and check remotes with Desperado. I haven’t played Valencia much since that has been in vogue.
Fastrobiotics definitely has an easier time beating Val than Noise with Clot IMO.
Hi, first time poster here and avid Valencia player here.
I also run a Val-Desperado build but with some major differences.
Here’s the list.
Valencia Estevez - The Angel Of Cayambe.
Event (10)
3 x Blackmail
3 x Dirty Laundry
1 x Levy AR Lab Access **
3 z Sure Gamble
Hardware (6)
3 x Clone Chip ** ** **
2 x Desperado *** ***
1 x Plascrete Carapace
Resource (16)
2 x Adjusted Chronotype
3 x Daily Casts
2 x Kati Jones
1 X Same Old Thing
2 x Scrubber
3 x Street Peddler
3 x Wyldside
Icebreaker (6)
2 x Corroder
2 x Faust
2 x Mimic
Program (12)
3 x Clot
2 x D4v1d
2 x Datasucker
2 x Medium
3 x Parasite
Major changes to your decklist are:
+1 Levy -1 Atman, since Levy gives me a late game boost which is super useful against glacier and can further improves Faust;
2 Career Fair + 1 Clone Chip, because I overwrite a lot of programs and I need to recurs others, such as clot, and 2 Clone Chips are not enough to be drawn consistently in a 50-cards deck.
3 Clot, because I have to mitigate FA, which is Valencia’s great weakness. So far 3 clot have worked very very well for me, except in OCTGN since the system notifies the Corp player when a clot is hosted under Street Peddler…but that’s another story
No Yog, as I feel it’s not needed. Only troublesome Ice is Turing on a central, but it’s an easy parasite target.
All in all I think the deck has a good or reasonable matchup against most decks. I was considering adding a second plascrete to tech against 24/7 shenanigans but this would bring me at 51 cards and I have really know idea what to cut.
two datasucker in a desperado running list is pushing it. 3 is so synergistic with desperado and faust, etc. that I feel like this is the single biggest mistake in your list. If you change anything, make it this.
I feel like you want a little more than pancakes /peddler to find pieces. Consistency in Val is a tough cookie. IHW maybe?
Your SoT should be Deja Vu for extra recursion in case peddler doesn’t hit levy. SoT does nothing in this list except 4th blackmail. Deja is 2 more credits, but less click instensive by 1 and is a lot more flexible. Recurs your clot and parasites. Also datasuckers from power shutdown.
You do want a 2nd plascrete or 2 IHW. I’d go with the 2nd plascrete
All good points, especially 1 and 3. I am definitely switching SoT with Deja, even if peddling both Levy and Deja has happened to me before and it’s just sad. But beside this worst case scenario Deja is better.
With regards to point 1 - It all comes down to tightness in deckspace. If I have to cut a card for a 3rd datasucker I really have no idea what it could be - maybe a single parasite or a medium?
Draw is not a problem most of the time, I think that peddler and pancakes are ok. Of course, the single plascrete can be IHW for the extra sinergy with faust. At this point I can go with 51 cards and Add 2 IHW and replace the plascrete for increased draw and meat/net damage protection.
Consider how important Levy is to the list. How many games out of the last 10 have you needed it? Most of the time in a list like this that doesn’t have any draw outside of pancakes, the game is won or lost by the time your deck is empty, or it’s very very close.
Levy is great in concept, but analyze some games this week. see how often you actually need it. A lot of whizz / val are fausting away and don’t ever need to cycle back through their deck.
I’d personally consider less copies of clot and replace levy with smc. If you dip down to 2 clot and change out levy to smc, you can tutor if you need it, or something else. This could free up a slot for datasucker / plascrete etc. without changing how comfortable you feel playing the list.
I will say that Levy plays an important part in at least 20% of my games, and it’s more versatile compared to SMC. Surely no SMC means no tutoring, but: I dont’ have a way to draw SMC reliably enough as a 1-of, whereas I have no problem if I draw Levy mid or late game. If I draw it early it’s a meh situation but not a big deal. Secondly, I feel that Levy gives me an edge against glacier decks, especially Foodcoats, or decks against which I cannot reliably lock R&D or, more generally, decks against which I dont want to end with 0 cards in the deck, like SYNC and butchershop variants
That said, I play levy because it fits my playstile with Val - I usually play aggro most of the time but I can sit back on certain matchups. I will try SMC out, adjust my style of play, and see whether it’s worth it or not
Even if you’re not big on SMC, consider options that Atman gives you back now that HB foodcoats is here.
Atman at 5 covers a good bit of options right now:
Tollbooth
Ichi 2.0
Assassin
Little Engine with 2 datasucker tokens
Archangel with 1 datasucker token
Archer with 1 datasucker
Don’t get me wrong, D4v1d covers us for all these too, but you don’t and won’t have that many counters or cards with faust to go through to a server, see ash, and then come back in. I don’t run Atman because it’s needed, I run it because it’s flexible and wins games when I need it most.
I’m not trying to steer you off Levy, just consider the field of decks right now.
I couldn’t agree more. I can’t imagine running an Anarch deck without at least 1 Atman right now. There are too many common pieces of Ice that Yog/Faust have a hard time with and you can run out of D4vid counters really quick against the big multi-sub ice.
I’m going 3 IHW in this list when normally I think 2 is plenty, BUT, I have no plascrete and only 15% of the player base is trying to kill you via meat dmg anyways so I think this will improve the other 85% by adding valuable draw, while increasing consistency. It’s a poor mans diesel, can’t be that bad right
Main concerns are more targets for peddler to ruin and IHW is not fail proof. Is it worth the risk though for the boost in the other 85% of decks you’ll play? I think so.
I’m pretty keen on the Desperado version–but don’t have Clone Chips or SMCs. I think your list might be money hurting a little if draw is poor. The money generation looks a bit click intensive. I don’t have Kati in mine (haven’t missed her), esp. since breaking news can get rid of her extra easily these days.
Otherwise it’s pretty similar to what I’m rocking. I do recommend some Plascretes, if you are coming to Worlds! I also wedged in a Utopia Shard, for reasons.
You could, technically play a Memstrips… Would save a deckslot and let me fit something else in.
But nobody ever wants to play the $3 to install it. It’s not terrible though.
Progenitor makes CVS less terrible to hit, but is weak to Power Shutdown, if you don’t expect it. If you do expect PS, you can use Progenitors as a buffer. I don’t expect a ton of PS however.
