Worldender (6th@ EU/AFR 1st at APAC) Undefeated 10-0

Bridgeman 2157

This is the Maxx list that I brought to Euroafrican continentals, my buddy rustryder also brought a variation of it.

In a meta where you have to be able to beat both sportsmetal and PD I was struggling to find a runner...

Over time a theory formed that stargate in combination with fast access to breakers would be enough counterplay to have a decent matchup against sports.

Vs PD I wanted fast access to breakers and some way to get around anoetic + manegarm remotes.

Once I realized that these are the criteria the idea to play apoc Maxx was born.

You will get access to all your breakers fast.

You will have stargate, which already fits well into the archetype.

And you will have access to apoc which gets rid of pesky unassailable remotes and never advance threats.

And for good measure, you will lategame have access to the exact tools you need with labor rights.

You can apoc 12 times with this deck should you wish to do so :D

This all fit really well with my deckbuilding philosophy, to find a deck that is just good in general, but just happens to also beat the top decks, rather than one super teched against the top decks. This way you are less likely to lose to some unexpected deck that you did not tech for.

The list looked quite different at the start of testing, but through the process of jamming a bunch of games on jinteki and indepth testing with Sokka and TheKing it became more, and more, and more refined.

Eventually the deck felt incredibly strong, crushing at least the known PD lists every game and having a seemingly favorable matchup vs sports.

Coincidentally the deck also does pretty well against ice heavy sports decks since you can reset the board with apoc.

So lets talk about the includes and try to justify them!:

  • Much of the deck is just economy and draw. This makes sense because we are basically just trying to money up for an apoc turn or draw into tools to be able to apoc later. Moshing sticks out here as a particularly sick include. As TugTetGut stated it is "literally VLC but orange". Between moshing, ive had worse and maxx you go through your deck at lightning speed, and finding breakers is almost never an issue.

  • Despite the virus hate going around we are on two fermenter because we really want low investment econ cards in this deck, and it often gives enough value to be justified. You can either pop it before a sandbox is scored, or you can just steal the sandbox. Virus suite is not really a problem as you will rarely access it and if they want to force the purge it costs them 3 creds. Worst case we apoc our fermenter away and it becomes aesop food later on.

  • We are of course on three of each breaker since our whole deal here is being able to get into any server fast before a PD or sports can tempo us out.

Vs PD you sometimes run the remote over and over until they commit a second ice. If they cant get an agenda scored their tempo and economy is severely hurt.

Now for the influence:

  • 3 Apoc. Duh! You need to draw one to threaten apocs early, get a full playset in there.

  • 1 Rebirth. Also duh! Of course really nice to have when your deck runs out to avoid milling the cards you labor rights, and of course it upgrades your ID to a not blank one. If you get it before then you sometimes go for it early to land an easier apoc with Omar, to avoid trashing a playset of breakers and getting them lockdowned, or perhaps just to not mill your whole deck vs some jinteki deck.

  • 1 Out of the ashes. There is very often a moment in the game where you are thankful to have an extra click. Since you are Maxx it will eventually show up. This makes it really hard to stop the apoc from happening.
  • 1 Aesops pawnshop. You will often be installing breakers and other cards only to later have them turned facedown with apoc. Aesops with these cards on the board becomes a bloo moose on steroids and replenishes your funds. With labor rigts in the deck you can almost always get your aesop back for the late stages of the game. Vs sports trashing and reinstalling your mk ultra every turn turns him into a rezeki that doesnt cost MU. A super neat trick that further justifies including aesop is that after you get ark lockdowned aesop can trash your facedown breakers to stop you from getting locked out. This means that in the matchups where you can get lockdowned you simply have to apply enough pressure for your breakers to get installed in order to be safe from a later lockdown.
  • 1 Deuces Wild. Just econ and draw, but with the twist that it on apoc turns can let you clicklessly remove a tag, which can be relevant vs some nbn decks.

Sokka saw the promise that this deck was showing and decided to take it to APAC, only swapping a fermenter for a day job and the aesop for out of the ashes. He went undefeated with the Maxx and took 1st place. One week later I took it to Euroafricas and it once again went undefeated, landing me 6th place.

In the tournament it beat PD, AG, Palana and two sports(two swiss rounds were IDs).

A lot of time, blood, sweat and tears went into this list, and I´m so happy with how it turned out and the results it has shown :)

Big thanks to GilesDavis and Rustryder from my team Unband for the support and testing for the tournament! And a special thanks to Sokka and The king for countless hours of invaluable playtesting and discussing.

And as always, thanks Nisei for organizing the tournament and keeping netrunner alive, this game truly is beautiful!

A highlight from testing on friday night was Rustryder being reminded of a study where they offered kids a donut right now, or more donuts later and the kids would chose the one donut. Rebirthing into kim was like taking the one donut according to him xD

/Bridgeman

8 comments
23 Aug 2021 gilesdavis

I agree with those kids, delayed gratification is overrated :)

Congrats again on the finish dude <3

23 Aug 2021 Sokka

@gilesdavisheh actually the moral of the donut story is that you should delay gratification

23 Aug 2021 TugtetguT

I see your Kim Rebirth and raise it with Alice because archives, unlike HQ, has no ICE on it ^^

23 Aug 2021 Bridgeman

Good call Asger :D Alice actually works out really well sometimes :P

23 Aug 2021 Bridgeman

And so does kim too of course, it´s just even more rare :D

23 Aug 2021 percomis

Congrats on the finish! I wonder about the Fermenters. Without Cookbook and Hivemind, was it really worth it? Anything else to consider in it's place, like Wildcat Strike/Day Job?

23 Aug 2021 Bridgeman

Thanks!

Short answer: yes it was worth it :)

Longer answer: You often find the time to let this tick to four counters, at which point it is definitely worth it. And depending on the situation you can milk it for even more.

Because you have a lot of cards in the deck that you want to keep in hand, you often start your turn with 6 cards and then try to draw into econ pieces to play right away.

This is why I shy away from day job and wildcat strike. Day job wont be able to get played until next turn in those cases, and will take up the entire next turn. Wildcat strike will just turn into a way for your opponent to make you overdraw, and while it is good to dig for cards sometimes, you often just want more money in a guaranteed fashion.

I tried wildcat strike for a bit, but it felt bad. Day job is a decent slot but I still think fermenter is better because it is easier to play and has a higher ceiling.

I actually removed wanton destruction and amped up for the same reason, they just do a lot of sitting in the hand and dont help you develop your threats.

23 Aug 2021 Bridgeman

A card that I havent tried myself but that might be good is Hippo. Rustryder tried it as a 1 of in this deck. Makes it cheaper to go trash crisiums for example and can punish the corp for underdefending servers.