Audacity Sports (5th place at BLM)

If you want to see more of a tournament report, check out my Stealth Leela writeup. Audacity Sports transcends one tournament: it's the ultimate jnet stomper; it's the deck you pick if you have to finish a game in 10 minutes and your life is on the line; and it's proof that just because gaining credits and drawing cards are basic actions doesn't mean that they're on equal footing.

The plan in the early game is simple: score agendas, slam Rashida Jaheem, and draw a million cards with Tranquility Home Grid and Violet Level Clearance. If you can overscore a Project Vitruvius or score Advanced Concept Hopper in the first three turns (often assisted by Vanilla) it's almost impossible to lose.

Keep jamming agendas until the runner can get in. It's vital that you fork them in the early game. Eventually the runner will have 20 credits and roll over all your ICE, but in the precious early turns, make them choose between getting money, getting breakers, and running R&D (which we almost always leave undefended).

You will win 90% of your games with Audacity. That's the beauty of this deck. Once you're on game point, it's only a matter of time until you get Audacity. The runner will steal Project Vacheron on turn 5 and think they have the game on lock. Little do they know you'll draw 20 cards in 3 turns and then score out. Turns out you can take any card and add "clicklessly gain 6 credits" and it would be a good card. When you do that to Biotic Labor, you have one of the best cards in the game.

My overarching advice:

• Be more aggressive than you think you should be. I lost two games before the cut and both games because I was too scared to take the right lines.

• Never forget that you can score a Vacheron. Just because it has the most powerful defensive ability, doesn't mean it's not worth 3 points in your score area.

• Once you score two 2 pointers (not Megaprix Qualifier), there are only 7 points live in your deck.

Our Enemies

We have a couple enemies:

1. Clot. This is the deck clot is built to hose. We have Cyberdex Virus Suite and Red Level Clearance, which we can use to clicklessly purge virus counters and score in the same window. Similarly, the one game I won in the top 8 cut was the result of Biotic Labor, install CVS, Vitrivius and use Audacity. You aren't favored against a Shaper with Clot, but you can try to fight by forcing them to use Simulchip and SMCs early. I can't stress enough how important the gear-check plan is to making your fast advance live.
2. Stargate. Multi-access is scary, keeping agendas in Archives and denying our ID ability is worse, and stealing Project Vacheron for 3 points is game losing. Our plan against Stargate is to overscore Project Vitruvius so we can fetch agendas from Archive at instant speed. As long as you can fire the occasional Rashida Jaheem or Violet Level Clearance, you can draw through the R&D lock. Otherwise you have to click to draw 3 and pray.

Our Best Matchups

If the runner doesn't have Clot or Stargate or a really good Anarch ID that shall remain unnamed (hint: it's one of the two that trashes Audacity), we should be heavily favored.

I think it surprises people, but we actually love facing Criminal, even Leela Patel: Trained Pragmatist. The key is that they can only keep us off 1 credit for Audacity for so long, and they have no counter-play to Vacheron, which means we'll always be able to fast advance eventually.

Tech and Card Choices

• IP Block. This helps against 419: Amoral Scammer and Aumakua, which otherwise threatens to crush our Vanillas and Guards.
• Macrophage. Helps against Turtle, some Anarchs, and could help you tax out a Shaper with Clot.
• Red Level Clearance. One of the best cards in our deck. Can fast advance with Bioroid Work Crew and Calibration Testing. Can draw through R&D lock clicklessley. Can give us +1 credit in a pinch, which matters a lot more often than you think.
• Advanced Assembly Lines. It's a nice combo with Tranquility Home Grid. Helps us effectively never advance by installing Calibration Testing or Bioroid Work Crew if they don't check the server. All of that is great, but it's also vital for dumping cards from hand because we often start with 10 or 12 cards in hand. Getting some credits for our trouble is nice.
• Spiderweb. Our Boomerang tech. It's a flex slot.
• Guard. A few people still know that Inside Job is a powerful card.

I will try to find room for 1 x Game Changer and 1 x Archived Memories. There were a couple games where I had money and just needed a lot of clicks. I think with Game Changer this deck could be the real deal.