spice rack val (3rd, Cleveland Regionals)

A few days before Cleveland Regionals I asked @foilflaws for a Val deck list, because I knew I wanted to play Val - it was the only runner I'd used since Worlds (outside of dabbling with Adam during Store Champs season. The night before the event, after a beer, I was like "tell me about Doof Spam MaxX instead" and built it, then woke up at 7:30 in the morning before the event and broke the MaxX list down to build this instead. This is why I always bring my complete collection to Netrunner events.

I played zero games of practice with this but it was similar enough to Comrades Val that the experience carried over. Went 6-0 on the day, beating Titan, Titan, PU, and CI in Swiss (then IDing in round 5), then Mti (due to an unfortunate corp oversight) and Azmari in the cut.

Individual card thoughts:

• Clan Vengeance is nice but never felt necessary. I think the biggest use I got out of it all day was using it against CI, and even that just felt petty because I already had him under Employee Strike from turn 2 onward. It's nice and all, but not necessary to the deck, and I think 2 is probably the right number.
• Zer0. I ain't gotta tell you how good this card is, you already know.
• Hippo was pretty fun for peeling open servers with a problematic ice, and a Hippo on board does make Mti think hard about how they defend an otherwise-unprotected server. I think I fired Hippo in every game and always felt good about it.
• Diversion of Funds is kind of a nod to what this deck was the night before the event. It's an unexpected little splash and I don't regret it.
• On the other hand, Turntable wasn't really useful - I had it in the deck early because of thinking maybe there'd be some Argus or Skorpios on Standoff and I could turn it into points; on the day I installed it vs. PU on the off chance I could trade a House of Knives or Philotic for an Obokata or TFP, but then I just stole Obokatas instead. Patchwork is definitely promising.