Grape Juice - 2nd Place Colorado Regionals

Sanjay 3547

I took an Au Revoir Bios deck to DC regionals. I went 3-2 in the swiss which was enough for 15th place. I was really proud of myself because I had never done so well at a regional, but I was also a little regretful, because I thought the deck was really good and that a 3-2 swiss performance didn't really demonstrate that.

When I published the list here, I included the following note:

"I think you could pick up this deck and do well at a tournament, and I really hope someone does."

Apparently that someone was me.

I took this deck to Colorado and along with my Tennin deck FAQ Page 20, I got third in swiss and got second place in the cut.

I was happy about 15th. I'm overjoyed about 2nd.

I went 3-2* in swiss (again), but this time my corp deck went 4-1*, which got me into the cut. In the cut, Ayla went 3-0, beating Sync, Blue Sun, and AgInfusion.

The list was originally inspired by a list published by @FreqKing which ALSO got 2nd place at a regionals, which is itself an update on previously published Au Revoir + Snitch decks built out of Chaos Theory. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, y'know?

*Technically, I ID'd in the fifth round, but we played out the matchup anyway... Ayla lost, Tennin won. So I guess you could say both lists went 3-1 in the swiss if you really wanted to.

~~~

Big updates since the last list:

1) Daredevil is an incredible card. It's all well and good to build your Snitch combo and make a lot of money, but Daredevil lets you draw into whatever answers you need for the corp you are up against. Being able to make money while you find your breakers and whatever else you need is huge. I think you could even consider playing 1 Turning Wheel now, since Daredevil helps you find stuff.

2) Inversificator is a really good update over Gordian Blade. It lets you get into more servers with fewer installs, helps with some bad matchups, and you can always Rebirth into Kit and really give the Corp the business.

~~~

The deck has incredible matchups against standard Sync, IG, and Skorpios, a decent AgInfusion matchup, and I think it still has a pretty miserable matchup vs. EtF Moons.

I shrewdly played around EtF Moons by never facing it during the tournament.

~~~

I'm really happy right now, and I wanted to throw out a few thank yous:

  • Thank you to the Ghost Branch meta for your love and support, and special thanks to @osclate for helping me be so practiced against Sync.
  • Thank you to the Colorado meta for being so warm and welcoming. Colorado has a really great Netrunner community.
  • Particular thanks to my host who let me crash at his house so I could attend regionals. I figured I wouldn't name him specifically just so he doesn't get bombarded with requests from other people looking to crash Colorado Netrunner events, but he's a really great guy! He also stuck around while I was in the cut so I could have a ride back, which I believe is the highest act of charity.
  • Thanks to everyone on slackchat who talked to me about my decks and about what they were doing with the Au Revoir engine. It was really, really, helpful.
  • Thank you to everyone who wished me well and congratulated me over the internet. I finished the tournament feeling like I was wrapped up in a warm blanket of positivity and friendship.

Lastly, and most importantly, here's a gif I found:

10 comments
17 Jul 2017 CodeMarvelous

A fine deck from a fine gent. 10/10 would snitch again!

17 Jul 2017 Sanjay

Thank you for telling me about gifs, @CodeMarvelous!

17 Jul 2017 FreqKing

Congrats on the placement, and thanks for the shout out! I love to see Au Revoir-Snitch doing well. I've been testing Careful Planning in this archetype to combat rush tactics. It's been surprisingly effective. Its not a card people generally anticipate seeing. Good idea to include an AI breaker as well, which is essential against Penguins and some AgInfusion builds. I chose Brahman since you generally have several low cost options to bounce and its brutally efficient against a lot of ice. I've found it really helps in the early to mid game to be able to get into a two or even three deep server with a single SMC. I've been trying out Daredevil as well. The extra memory is great and the ability is definitely amazing, but I'm hesitant because of the extra cost that slows your setup. Definitely a meta call but if you anticipate seeing horizontal decks, Astrolabe really helps your chances. Keep fighting the good fight!

18 Jul 2017 Sanjay

@FreqKing My original attempt at the concept had Careful Planning! I really like the idea. I wish I had saved my first draft of this concept: there were a lot of sketchy choices (original console was The Toolbox, was trying Levy Advanced Research Lab to help find Au Revoir faster. I think Brahman was my main breaker).

I really like Test Run in the deck because it helps you vs rush (when combined with Femme) and also helps you find your engine when you don't need it to fetch Femme.

Careful Planning definitely has a lot of potential... I wanted most of my tech cards to be fetchable with Artist Colony, though Daredevil allowing me to blast through my deck at super speed is making me think again about non-installable tech cards. I love how Careful Planning can be a pseudo-Inside Job and a pseudo-Councilman.

Again, thank you so much for the initial idea for this deck. Anytime you want to talk shop about au Revoir, let me know.

18 Jul 2017 Grimwalker

Let's see...if I swap in Na'Not'K for Femme, and import Careful Planning to cover the bypassing option...hmm.

Anyway, I played the native list for several games last night and damn.

19 Jul 2017 FreqKing

Nice. I overlooked Test Run. I can see how that helps a lot when combined with Femme Fatale.

21 Jul 2017 Daemonology5

So, excuse the n00b, but who is the Rebirth for?

23 Jul 2017 Sanjay

@Daemonology5 Great question.

Rebirth is almost entirely to turn into Kit.

Against Sync and maybe against other decks who are trying to tag you mid run, Rebirth into Jesminder Sareen.

Maaaaaybe Rebirth into Hayley Kaplan if you need help slamming down a clot from your hand during your opponent's turn. I've never actually done this.

Don't Rebirth into Kate, I don't think. That's just trading a great tool for messing up the Corp with a pile of credits, and usually you don't need that trade.

Make sure to take any cards off NVRAM before you Rebirth! It's only being Bios that lets you take them to begin with.

5 Aug 2017 SHIEL

Loved the look of the list! Then it made me sad when I realized Snitch will be cycling out. Is there any hope for this type of deck moving forward, or will we be bidding it farewell?

10 Aug 2017 Sanjay

@Rhaplanca1001 Sorry for the slow response!

I'm really excited to see if something can be made of Au Revoir once we lose Snitch. The downsides of Au Revoir: slower set up, not being able to combine your runs with successful run events, and huge mu costs, probably mean that such a deck might not be nearly as powerful, but I'm interested to see what can be done.

The archetype might need to go to Criminal, because if Au Revoir is inefficient enough they can always just play Magnum Opus.

Without Snitch, the deck has much more interesting counterplay for the corp, so it would be exciting if there still is a functional Au Revoir deck.