Meat is Murder: 1st Place Uroboros Cup 2015 (67 Players)

NicoleyMoley 1039

This is an updated version of the Blue Sun Government Takeover deck I've been working on for the last few months, and which took 1st place after 6 rounds of swiss in the Uroboros cup in Birmingham.

It went 5-1 on the day, with wins against Hayley, Kate, Valencia, Reina and Andromeda, and one very close loss to Kate in the final round.

The recent changes I've made include:

Daily Business Show : It works really well by helping find your kill pieces and economy faster (runners often leave it there to avoid the 4 credit tax and successful run threat),

Adonis Campaign : Works really well in Blue Sun as you can bounce it and use it endlesly. and it gives the deck more money to keep up with the robust runner economies.

Executive Boot Camp : Helps search for Adonis, Jackson, DBS; whatever you need, and can help shutdown Blackmail in Valencia.

Snatch and Grab : Useful to kill Kati Jones and Professional Contacts which are seeing a lot of play these days, but it's a bit of a meta call so you could swap it for a 2nd EBC or a Crisium Grid, whatever you like.

Changeling : A strength 4 sentry can be very useful in certain situations, especially versus Kate where it'll often force an install of Atman at 4, which is pretty much useless against every other piece of ice in the deck. At worst it's still a strength 4 barrier which isn't bad!

That's all the main changes, the deck is a beast and even if you're experienced in playing against it it can still put you into unwinnable situations. I've been playing a variation of this deck for months competitively in Ireland and it's performed extremely strongly, despite pretty much everyone I play against knowing exactly what it does. It's placed 2nd in the Dublin Store Champs, won a GNK and come 4th at the Irish Regionals, and now won the Uroboros cup. I think it's a very strong build that has made a number of improvements over the original list and I'm really happy with it!

18 comments
1 Jun 2015 shanodin

I'm sure I'm missing something obvious but how does Executive Boot Camp help against Blackmail?

1 Jun 2015 rotage

@shanodin it allows you to rez ice when your turn begins so if/when they use Blackmail you have ice rezzed on that server

1 Jun 2015 shanodin

@rotage ahhhhh.... easily explained when I RTFC.

1 Jun 2015 Shulmey

Both myself and a friend ran decks EXTREMELY similar to this one on Saturday at the Rochester regional. We were first and third seed after swiss. Unfortunately, we had woken up at 4:30AM to drive there, so by the time elims rolled around, we were both making misplays all over the place. Snatch and Grab is genius and would have made my day MUCH easier I think. It never even entered my mind. The one include I had that I would almost call my MVC was 2 Capital Investors. I put it behind a tollbooth or curtain wall (or both), and then the runner either has to pay a ton to get in a trash it, or you can just stock up on credits. I started using it in place of Adonis, which freed up 2 influence, and I've been pretty happy with it.

1 Jun 2015 ThisIsAzrael

Boom! Love the deck Nicole and your continued dedication to playing, refining and destroying faces with it! Good work on the win and consider this totally stolen for some OCTGN fun! :) Az

1 Jun 2015 JimmyDeemo

Grats on the win. Was the Government Takeover ever a liability? Did you find that Daily Business Show was enough to filter it if needed?

@shanodinYou can rez ICE on your turn using EBC thus avoiding the fact you can't rez when being Blackmail'd.

1 Jun 2015 NicoleyMoley

@Shulmey I really like the Capitol Investors idea, I will definitely try that out and probably replace the Adonis influence with an Archived Memories. I played this deck at UK Nats as well but I had travelled from Dublin and had been up since 4am so I too made a number of mistakes that cost me a few games!

@HalfDayDeemo Government Takeover is what makes this deck work. The 6 agenda density is essential imo, and having the runner repeatedly make multi-access runs and see nothing at great cost sets you up for most of your kills. It will cost you the occasional game if you get unlucky but I am definitely of the opinion that it wins more games than it loses. It's all about timing, if you see it with no money or Punitives you should DBS/Jackson it away, but if the conditions are right...try to score it or feed it to the runner for a handy punitive kill ;)

1 Jun 2015 FarCryFromHuman

Two silly things:

Turntable: I'm pretty sure this can't dodge the Punitive Counterstrike kill. You can swap it for a smaller agenda, but the agenda you actually stole is still worth 6. Also you are leaving " for 3" in the hands of the corp until you can steal another agenda and re-swap it for the win. I hope some of these plays happen in some game, somewhere, some day.

Film Critic: Totally shuts down all Punitive plays, but also just straight up takes Government Takeover with no fuss. I don't think it will be heavily played, but this deck will want to kill that card with fire. Or Corporate Town.

1 Jun 2015 NicoleyMoley

@FarCryFromHuman I don't forsee Turntable being a problem, Film Critic could be tricky but we'll see how it goes when the card is released!

2 Jun 2015 Kopiok

Have you tried Taurus? I've got it in mine and I have had really good success with it in destroying Plascretes. I have a remarkably similar list to you (and have also changed it up based on the discussions here!), but I slotted in 3x Snare! in the place of 1x Tollbooth (replaced with Wormhole) and the 2x DBS and 1x Adonis. This is a recent change and I'm curious on your thoughts?

2 Jun 2015 NicoleyMoley

@Kopiok I ran Taurus in the deck at the beginning but took it out because I found I was rarely if ever pleased to see it. I found the popularity of Eater meant it rarely fired anymore and although it is a pain for PPVP Kate to deal with, it still didn't do enough for me in those match ups for me to consider it worthwhile. I think Shattered Remains is a much more useful and reliable method to trash hardware, because often you need to bait a run through your remote to drain the runner of cash. Moreover, most runners only pack 1x Plascrete and I have found the best way of dealing with that is to score a Cleaners and just Scorch through it!

I also tried the deck with Snare!s but I found they were too high variance to be worthwhile and never accomplished much for me. The DBS and Adonis have improved the consistency of the deck dramatically, and having 2x Tollbooth is great as it's a significant tax for all runners and can't be Femme'd in Blue Sun.

2 Jun 2015 Kopiok

@NicoleyMoley Thanks for the reply! Dropping the one Tollbooth was very difficult to do. My rationale was the Snare! was just another way of hitting through a Plascrete Carapace (end their turn with 3 cards in hand). I've been having the damndest time getting comfortable with the deck. I've even ended up taking out the Punitives since my local group has a strong PPVP Kate meta and they're generally difficult to keep up with economically (I also have swapped agendas with you, 3x High-Risk and 2x Cleaners, for this reason).

I think that maybe I haven't been putting enough emphases on economy cards outside of Hedge/Restructure/Oversight, so I am going to try out the Capital Investors setup that @Shulmey mentioned. I feel like I'm ranting now so I will stop... Anyway, again, thanks for the reply!

2 Jun 2015 NicoleyMoley

My meta is very PPVP Kate heavy too, but I've found that once your deck is tooled properly to keep up with her the match up becomes much more even. I understand the logic behind Snare! but I find unless it hits at the exact right time where you're ahead economically and have your SEA/Scorch combo in hand it does nothing other than drain you of 4 credits, which is why I ended up taking them out.

Definitely try playing with some extra economy, Adonis works really well because it's clickless allowing you to bounce ice and reposition with your clicks but I can see Capital Investors being good too. DBS can help you find your economy much faster too while Kate is still searching for her PADs and events. I don't know that I'd swap a Cleaners for a High Risk because I've found the early Cleaners much more useful for guaranteeing a kill around Plascrete and I've Had Worse, but if it works for you that's cool! Best of luck with play testing :)

2 Jun 2015 Shulmey

@Kopiok Kate is the reason for Capital Investors. Even just behind a Curtain Wall, it's 9 credits and 2 Lady tokens to get in and trash. Add a tollbooth onto that, and lots of runners will have to let you get 10-20 credits from it over a few turns, which sets them up for the SEA Source.

2 Jun 2015 Chimpster

All about installing 3 Plascretes Nicole ;)

2 Jun 2015 Rabscuttlet

I was very pleased to take a game off this deck at Uroboros - I think the Makers Eye had to hit one of the 4 agendas / 20 (??) to get me second place as a timed win wouldn't have!

Fun deck and I'm going to take it to OCTGN now - many congrats for taking down the tournament :)

3 Jun 2015 NicoleyMoley

@Rabscuttlet Yeah that was a really close game! Very much enjoyed it :P Have fun playing with the list on OCTGN! :)

7 Jun 2015 tomdidiot

@Rabscuttlet You should be praising your Blue Sun, not your opponent's Blue sun! :p