Waldemar HB (Scottish Regional Top 8)

Corrected deck list... I took out the 3 Encyption Protocols before the tournament!

Similar to my runner deck, a couple of weeks before regionals I had a crisis of confidence in my corp game. I was running a Grail Turtlepads NEH that had been doing really well up until the rebirth of PpVPKate. Kate could not only pull out the right breaker to get through the Grail ice (much harder out of Criminal or Anarch), they also had money to trash assets and clot on demand to stop the fast advance. Being a tough match up for all three of my deck's legs meant I was making things more difficult for myself than I had to!

I noticed Waldemar, which had a bunch of cards I really liked in it. I gave it a spin at our casual pub runner meet and had some success, I tweaked it, tested it, and had more success. I decided to go with it!

I was worried about Hacktivist Meeting, so I decided to swap out the Encryption Protocols (which a smart runner trashed right off the bat anyway) for Enhanced Login Protocols and a single Interns (one of my favourite cards in the game). Both changes were good on the day, ELP in particular. I also decided to grab some Breaker Bay Grids to work in either a scoring server or on top of my ad campaigns, and I shuffled things around to take an Ashigaru instead of a Tollbooth; I have been stung recently by both Kit and Cyber Cypher, and the Ashigaru deals with both of those.

This run through is a little more brief, for a more detailed report check out my runner deck over here.

Game 1, Matt: Hayley

Matt himself admitted he wasn't too familiar with his deck having changed to it last minute. I fairly quickly got a taxing scoring server set up and Matt's economy wasn't forthcoming so I could squeeze out an over advanced Vitruvius early followed by a Mandatory Upgrades. This let me score an NAPD from standing off the table, then fast advance an agenda from HQ for the win.

Game 2, Zak: Reina

This game went similar to the last one, Zak didn't get his economy set up, and again I managed to get a Mandatory Upgrades scored. I would typically install advance turn one, advance twice turn two, then advance three times and score (giving me an extra click). Here I scored an NAPD on the second turn, leaving it on the table, meaning I could score it the turn after the Mandatory Upgrades for the win (I was worried about going to time!). I had another 3/2 in hand, so I wasn't too worried about Zak grabbing the agendas for the win.

Game 3, Alasdair: Kate

Alasdair's Kate deck was quite similar to my Andy deck, so I knew roughly what to expect. I went a bit faster than usual, and an early breaker bay onto an Eve set up a nice steady stream of money (and I managed to put a second Eve onto it later when Al neglected to trash it!). Again, scored Mandatory Upgrades early on which let me push out the last couple of agendas.

Game 4, Matt: Exile

This was always going to be a tough matchup! Matt's Exile deck just makes buckets of money. I knew it was going to be a tough game; Matt was getting frustrated by coming into my scoring server every turn to see another upgrade or asset, but honestly this is a sign things aren't going well as you really need a couple of upgrades to get an agenda scored. I think I managed to squeeze out a couple of agendas, but he took the game. Highlight for me, though, was an architect on HQ which Matt hit without a breaker; it let me install a PAD from HQ and a breaker bay grid onto an Eve I had installed first turn! I love Breaker Bay Grid.

Game 5, Seamus: Kit

Ah, good old Kit. Again, I knew early on this wasn't going to go well. I think I might have managed an agenda or so? But my ice came in the wrong order (and I wasn't paying attention) so I ended up with a load of servers with code gates on the inside and other ice on the outside. Not ideal! Seamus took the victory.

Game 6, Dan: MaxX

I had an idea that Dan was running Keyhole MaxX, so I had a few priorities to help me score. I got a Crisium grid installed onto RnD, and then got a Wraparound on a remote to score agendas (together with Ash and Red Herrings). Turing was also a help I think, as he was only using AI breakers. The cards didn't fall his way and he ended up basically locked out while I scored my agendas. I was lucky not to see his Singularity though, that could have been difficult for me!

Game 7, Even: Prof

First game in the cut I decided to Corp against Even's prof. I have played against variations on this deck for months now, Even loves being able to pull out whatever tools he wants at a moment's notice! I usually either win handily against it, or get completely crushed, in roughly equal quantities. Imp does a load of work for Even here, letting him trash agendas on top of Red Herrings to steal later. We grind through the game, I only draw Mandatory Upgrades which are impossible to score against an Opusing Shaper. Even takes the 4 points he needs from Archives!

Special shout out to two cards, Breaker Bay Grid and ELP. The former needs some more experimenting to see how well it works in various decks, but I'm hopeful (and can potentially see combo potential with Isabel Macguire?). The latter is just all round good. Makes the runner even less likely to check remotes!