No Free Boat (5-3, 5th at EACC)

Kikai 1695

With thanks and love to all of the 99 players that chose to spend their weekend at their computers playing the best of competitive netrunner, to all of the Tournament Organisers for keeping Organised Play alive, to Unband for the great testing games (and the endless renditions of yu-gi-oh abridged songs), and to the Burleigh Arms Grid for cheering me on.

Results

5-1 in Swiss, 0-2 in the cut

Wins against Trieste Asa, Gunboat Ob, Glacier ACME, Trappy Ob, Skunkworks Ob

Losses to Asset Spam Ob, Asa, Precision Design

Tournament Afterthoughts

Individual match reports at the end of the write-up

It's a solid list, and it plays very well, but it is also a meta call. There are some matchups where Adam has a very tough time (asset spam), but there are other matchups where Adam is favoured (sports).

If I were playing another tournament tomorrow, I would probably play Hoshi-boat, because that list is sexy af.

Adam vs Lat

I think it's interesting to compare Boat Adam and Lat, because they are similar (but different). Adam has the central pressure in Neutralize All Threats and Find the Truth that I think Lat is lacking, but Adam is missing answers to other problems (Misdirection, Paricia and Clot). Both have drip draw (in Safety First).

Overall, I think Lat is more powerful and more consistent, but I chose to play Adam for a few reasons

  • turn 1 central pressure
  • being more comfortable with aggressive crim play patterns than clever shaper play patterns
  • expecting other players to be more practiced against Lat
  • expecting there to be lots of Sportsmetal: Go Big or Go Home and not a lot of Urban Renewal

Of a total 99 players, there were 23 on Sports on the day, and (I think) 6 on Urban Renewal.

I played against 0 Sports, and 2 decks with Urban Renewal. I did manage to get into the cut though, so it's fine.

Can we just ban boat?

Can we functional errata it to be limit once per run instead? that could be cool.


Premise

I prefer to play Crim, but I wanted to play a deck with Mad Dash, and that's a tough card to slot in Crim atm. I took the NWE Adam list from worlds 2021 and made some tweaks for rotation and it was good but Engolo and Brain Chip means that it has some memory issues in the early game. @Sokka234 made a recommendation for the boat adam list that he played on stream, which (thanks to T400 Memory Diamond) has no memory issues whatsoever (so we can even play Stargate).

Emergent Creativity and Femme Fatale allow us to tutor and play Endurance for "free". 75% of the time this works 75% of the time. If my maths is right, we have something like a 57% chance of drawing Emergent and Femme before we draw the boat (ignoring mull/keep decisions). Installing the boat the hard way isn't terrible, though -- and neither is installing femme to bypass particularly unpleasant or tricky ICE like Data Ward.

Matchups

vs Sports

We have turn 1 Central pressure, and we can use Find the Truth to make sure that we only steal the agendas we want to in the early game (Vitruvius, Luminal, GFI -- never Megaprix). Be careful about running HQ in the early game because we really don't want to steal Megaprix, and we don't necessarily want to be forced to trash anything either. In the mid-late game we can stargate+mad dash, or we can hammer HQ, or we can do both. We do need to to think about what order we attack centrals, though -- and remember that an agenda steal out of HQ can trigger a Corp draw. We should be heavily favoured in this match up.

vs Trieste HB

Logic Bomb and Femme Fatale give us answers to any Trieste/GANKED! shenanigans. The major threat is getting rushed out. Although it sets us back, I think pressuring centrals early is still a good line because it forces the corp to either slow down (and protect centrals), or (hopefully) we steal some points and then the Corp has to dig to find agendas to score. I took this line and lost in the cut, so I could be wrong though.

vs ACME

We have good answers to most of ACME ICE, but there are a couple of threats to consider. ACME has enough ICE to ICE centrals, which can lock us out of getting boat counters and force us to have to dig for breakers. ACME can also rush out before we are set up (if they get the right draw). Once we stabilise we are fine, but getting there can be rough.

vs Asset Spam (Ob/NEH/CtM)

These are our worst matchups. Cards like Urban Renewal and Amani Senai force us to run, which is a real problem, because No Free Lunch is not a sufficient answer to Hard-Hitting News. This is where this deck is weakest. There will come a point where we need to go tag me and start maximising accesses, and I think that point comes sooner in the game than we are ever comfortable with (potentially when both players are still on 0 points).

vs PE

Our reduced handsize puts us at greater risk of dying to clearing house, or being locked out of an Obokata steal, but all in all I think that this matchup is fine. We have Find the Truth and Stargate, so we can safely get our points out of R&D.

vs AgInfusion

Didn't play this match up in the tournament and didn't test it, but Anansi is 9 credits to break with Femme Fatale and that's a real problem.

vs Precision Design

There are pluses and minuses to this matchup. We have great HQ pressure, which is fantastic against PD, but if we hit a Tranquility Home Grid then we are forced to trash it (which sucks). We have Logic Bomb to challenge remotes early, but it's fairly useless against Anoetic Void or Border Control. Mad Dash is clutch, and it's very difficult for PD to afford to ICE all centrals, so this is eminently winnable, but if we don't find boat early the game can quickly get away from us. There are so many options open to us (all of which are "fine") that I think the trick (and maybe this is the trick for all matchups) is to plan a strategy for where we (hope) we are going to steal agendas from (for example -- 2 points HQ, 2 points from R&D, and 3 points from a mad dash) and then play to that strategy.


Card Choices

No Free Lunch

0 cost installables are fantastic in Adam, because they smooth out our opening hand and allow us to get those crucial Safety First triggers. Money is good. Having money on a card is good because being poor plays around the downside of Neutralize All Threats. Mostly, though, being able to clear a single tag at instant speed helps us because we are more worried about losing key resources (like Find the Truth) to a single tag than we are about being hit by something like BOOM! (which hopefully we can trash out of HQ).

Notable Exclusions

Misdirection

This is a meta call -- but if we are expecting lots of Hard-Hitting News then I'm not sure that Adam is the right runner choice in any case.

DJ Fenris

We don't particularly want to install Fenris until the mid game, so it can really jam up our early game hand. I feel like Adam has enough HQ pressure anyway, but I could be wrong.

Rejig

Cute, but awkward.

Alternatives

Stoneship Chart Room

Drawing cards is good. Puts a counter on boat for if we get locked out. Can draw up to help against Urban Renewal etc. Could be better than No Free Lunch, not sure. I think both are fine.

Scrubber / Paricia / Fencer Fueno

Of the three I think I prefer Fencer Fueno, and I could see playing 1x, but although it's a 0 cost installable it's not a 0 cost installable that we necessarily want to play turn 1 (so it's still a bit awkward).


Piloting

Mulligan for a hand that has 3 cards in it that we can play turn 1. Plan our turn to maximise Safety First triggers. Every so often that means taking a turn to overdraw so that we can discard junk that we don't want to play, just so that we can install next turn and start firing Safety First again. If we find ourselves doing this more often than every few games, we need to go back to deck creation.

Run archives to disable Neutralize All Threats, or run HQ when we have only just enough credits to trash high value cards like rashida or spin doctor. Take notes and keep track of what's in HQ, as well as what the Corp drew , and start to figure out what might have been installed where. Adam has an incredible ability to track (and anticipate) the board state. As we start to run we will look at our notes and we will realise things like "okay, so this ICE here is XXX, that means that that ICE over there must be YYY!". With that information we can make really good decisions about our runs, and force very difficult decisions for the corp. This will win us games, as well as making us feel very smart and clever.

Savvy corp players will put a Border Control on R&D to protect against Mad Dash -- install Stargate and put the agenda in archives, or force the issue and Mad Dash anyway (we can always get the next one). In either case, remember to check the board for Spin Doctor first.


Match Report

R1: WIN vs Qris on Asa

7-3. Free boat on turn 3.

My opening hand is emergent creativity, sure gamble, dirty laundry, jailbreak, and earthrise -- this is a super smooth opening hand with lots of mid game potential. HQ is left open turn 1 (to push a rashida) so I dirty laundry in and steal 2 points.

Turn 3 I find femme and I'm able to emergent creativity the boat. I'm poor from trashing naked remotes (spin and trieste) on turn 2, but I have a boat, and archives is still open, so I feel okay. I proceed to run archives every turn, getting a boat counter and a Find the Truth until it's ICEd and I switch to HQ. At this point I know every card that Qris has drawn, so I'm able to "blind" overclock a naked remote that has to be skunkworks + trieste. I'm not able to threaten the scoring remote (yet) and a GFI is scored (putting us at 2-3).

Qris goes too low on credits to rez ICE, so I use a 2nd overclock to clear out another skunkworks from the scoring remote. They are also too poor to rez ICE on centrals, now, so I go back to running archives for boat counters and FTT triggers (keeping the pressure on). This is exactly the game the criminal player in me likes to play. A jailbreak into HQ while the corp is stabilising finds me a luminal putting me on 4-3.

Logic Bomb saves me from a Ganked! + Ansel ruse in the remote. FTT on the Ganked! run sees an Ikawah that I am 99% confident is immediately pushed into the scoring remote. It's not advanced, though, so I play it super safe and check HQ until I am 100% certain that it has to be in the scoring remote (and then I win).

R2: WIN vs CountZer0 on Gunship Ob

Classic round 2 Cambridge pairing. 7-0. No Free Boat.

I keep a hand which is pad tap x 2, daily casts, logic bomb and mad dash. Good opening hand - with a very smooth first turn, and the chance to surprise the Corp with a secret mad dash.

Countzer0 ICEs centrals and a remote, but isn't able to find much in the way of econ (eventually popping Mavirus to find regolith) so I click for credits while casts and earthrise tick and I set up. Turn 4 I install boat the hard way, and turn 5 I start poking centrals, figuring that some of the ICE must be formicary (which Countzer0 won't want to rez). He does rez it, but I can let the net damage fire because I have too many cards in hand anyway (including my second mad dash).

A click 1 jailbreak finds another formicary protecting HQ -- this time the net damage does hit one of the mad dash in hand -- and sees Spin Doctor (trashed) and 2 x SDS. It also draws me an emergent creativity. Click 2 and 3 is emergent creativity for rezeki, click 4 is mad dash HQ (3 cards in hand, guaranteed steal). Putting me on 4-0, with 3 points in HQ. I find another rezeki off a Safety First draw and go back in next turn to pick up the other SDS.

R3: LOSS vs Bridgeman on Spammy Ob

Unband testing partner. BOOM!'d . No Free Boat.

I never even got close to winning this matchup in testing, so I'm going into this game expecting to lose (not a great mindset really).

I mulligan into stargate, jailbreak, earthrise, casts and rezeki. Not ideal, but playable.

Bridgeman makes a triple remote opening. I play casts and rezeki, click for credits, and am glad for the money. Remotes are urban renewal, marilyn and spin. Turn 2 a drudge work comes down and shuffles back an atlas from HQ, and a 5th remote is created. In hindsight, and with the benefit of watching the replay, this would have been a reasonable point to say "screw it, if you have urban renewal and HHN in your opening hand you just win" and trash urban renewal and jailbreak HQ. 4 more points get shuffled back into R&D through drudge work, but I've decided to play passive and I'm busy drawing up for T400 to survive the impending 4 meat damage from Urban Renewal. I find an emergent creativity by the skin of my teeth (which is essentially paying 4 credits and 2 clicks to just "not lose").

Next turn my economy has stabilised, and there is only 1 card in HQ (I assume BOOM!), so I figure that it's safe for me to run it and trash it. I see a GFI on top of R&D, so I run R&D to steal it (this was a mistake). Bridgeman shuffles BOOM! back with spin doctor and so instead I see ... Hard-Hitting News. Rashida + wall-to-wall draws Bridgeman into an econ warfare as well, and now I am tagged to hell. I find 2 points in HQ before Bridgeman ICEs centrals and I back off (another mistake). An extractor trash of wall-to-wall tutors spin doctor, which draws the BOOM and that's gg.

R4: WIN vs guiot on ACME

7-4, Free Boat on turn 7.

I keep a hand with 2 x No Free Lunch, Sure Gamble, Emergent Creativity and Earthrise Hotel. This is a hand that plays well first turn, and has half the combo for a free boat.

Guiot pushes a rashida and protects HQ as a priority. I sit back and set up. Hedge fund stabilises the Corp position, and Guiot pushes a Tomorrow's Headline. If I didn't have No Free Lunch then they might have been tempted to try and trash some directives, but I do, and they don't.

R&D gets ICEd just before I find stargate (although early stargate is usually a losing line anyway), and my hand starts to clog with Jailbreak and Overclock that I can't use. Without any threat to the scoring remote (apart from one breaker - Unity - and a single logic bomb), Guiot is able to seamless launch an Offworld Office, putting him on 4-0 and 20 credits, and I start to get nervous.

I draw like crazy trying to find a femme I can use to tutor boat, knowing that it will only have 3 counters on it and that that won't be enough to get me past what I assume is Data Ward on the remote. Unbeknownst to me, Guiot has the bellona they need to win in HQ, but (I assume) they don't feel safe pushing it, and are waiting for either a 2nd Bellona or an NGO so they can double push and waste my logic bomb. I find the femme on Turn 7, get a free boat, and in my haste to steal agendas before they are put in the remote I immediately jailbreak into HQ. Unfortunately, it's protected by a Data Ward, which I feel compelled to logic bomb (losing a click in the process). I cleverly trash a no free lunch to put me on 7 credits so that I can steal Bellona. First card is Daily Quest (force trash for 3, putting me on 4 credits). Second card is Bellona. A smarter player would have popped both no free lunch. An even smarter player would have clicked for a credit before jailbreaking. I now have no logic bomb, only one no free lunch, and only 4 counters on boat, and the winning agenda is in HQ. Not ideal.

Safety first draws me another Logic Bomb (thankfully), and Guiot bluffs an NGO as the winning Bellona. I bite, using Logic Bomb to get past Data Ward and paying 4 credits for F2P. Instead of jamming the Bellona right after (which I could just about manage to steal), Guiot uses Rashida and Daily Quest to stabilise (and further ICE R&D, now 3 ICE). I think this is questionable, but I also understand why they did it. Without a 2nd 5/3 to push immediately afterwards, it's rough to have the winning agenda stolen. Still waiting for the 2nd 5/3 to show up, Guiot clears pad taps while Daily Quest ticks. When two more ICE are installed on the scoring remote, and HQ drops to 4 cards in hand, I know that it's time to go. I femme the Data Ward on HQ and Jailbreak, seeing 2 x Bellona (but narrowly missing the Offworld Office, I find out later)

The next turn Guiot IAA's the offworld office (which I am convinced is the winning 5/3), into a remote that I am convinced that I cannot afford to get into (having just installed femme and stolen 2 x bellona). In desperation, I dirty Laundry HQ and find the truth sees 15 minutes on top of R&D. GG.

R5: WIN vs Baralai on Trappy Ob

8-0, No Free Boat. Make sure to wear your best sick rips t-shirt.

Absolutely wild Ob list with all sorts of meat damage and instant speed shenanigans. Very "you've activated my trap card" vibes. I decide that if I need to worry about traps, then I don't need to worry about Hard-Hitting News, and I decide to play aggressively.

I keep a hand with Daily Casts, Earthrise Hotel, T400 Memory Diamond, Sure Gamble, and Dirty Laundry. This is just a solid hand that you would keep in any game, but seeing the T400 in the starting hand is particularly great for this matchup.

Baralai sets the pace of the game with a first turn Urban Renewal and Excavator and an ICE on HQ. Turn 2 is a single advanced Cerebral Overwriter, which I run after making safe by checking that the excavator isn't a surprise Moon Pool. I'm not thrilled to take 1 core damage, but I can trash the urban renewal so I feel okay about it.

I find some more drip (in the form of rezeki and pad tap) and a logic bomb, while Baralai ICEs up R&D (stargate in hand) and clicks for credits. I hit a prisec in a remote, but I'm overdrawn so I don't feel too bad about that, and FTT sees an atlas on top of R&D which I can safely mad dash because Baralai is only on 3 credits (and so can't rez Border Control).

Spin Doctor draws Baralai into an Atlas (with a CWP already in hand). They build a remote with a single ICE, but they are only on 5 credits, so I use overclock to trash the excavator (so that they can't get back into the game). A formicary goes onto Archives, and Baralai is still having to click for credits. I'm also low on credits, though, and my hand is getting jammed with mad dash and overclock and jailbreak and stargate. A second remote gets created, and a card is advanced. Even if this is an agenda, I'm 3-0 up, so I figure this is a good time to jailbreak and prevent a follow up agenda being scored, and also disarm any traps. I logic bomb past the ice wall on HQ, and steal the 2 agendas in HQ.

R6: WIN vs Pinsel on SkunkWorks Ob

7-4, No Free Boat

We both play kind of wonky in this game for reasons that I won't go into.

I keep a hand that is No Free Lunch, Emergent Creativity, PAD Tap, Mad Dash, Paperclip. My plan here is to Turn 1 use emergent creativity to install Stargate, trash an agenda, and then mad dash archives. This is a bad plan, even if you fully commit to it -- it is a truly terrible plan if you only half-commit to it.

Pinsel pushes a rashida behind an ICE and installs another remote (a wall-to-wall). I suddnely realise that stargate is a terrible line here (that remote could be spin doctor) and so I draw for a card click one (wtf am I drawing for?!?), before deciding I have no choice but to stick to the plan (which is now even worse because Pinsel has a whole turn the find spin doctor (if he doesn't have it already). I do stargate an agenda (offworld office), and Pinsel does find the spin doctor on the rashida draw, but he doesn't install it (presumably because he doesn't know that I have mad dash in hand?), instead prioritising double ICE on R&D and a single ICE on HQ. Next turn I mad dash archives, which is good, because the stargate line is dead to me from here.

Another Rashida goes in the scoring remote, and I trash the wall-to-wall (because that card is much of a threat than you might think). Rashida finds Pinsel an above the law and seamless, he puts the above the law in the remote and waits 3 turns before eventually using seamless launch to score it, trashing a fully loaded Earthrise Hotel (rude) and using the spare click to install a formicary on archives. Pinsel is, obviously, an incredible netrunner player, but even watching the replay I still don't understand this play. Anyway, it's pretty obvious that there is an agenda in the remote the whole time, but I'm so set back from using emergent to install the stargate turn 1 that I have no chance of contesting even a single ICEd remote. Pinsel uses the time in between installing and scoring the above the law to manage his economy, filter his hand, double ICE the remote, and do all the other sensible things that good players do.

After the Earthrise is trashed my hand is jammed, so I have to manually draw (and install) the boat, which sets me back economically, but at least I can contest the remote now. I run HQ and bounce off a sandstone, with a plan to break it with paperclip the next turn. In retrospect, I had no plan to run any other servers, so breaking it with endurance would have only been net 1 boat counter and would have been the correct play.

Pinsel puts an atlas in the remote, single advances it, and uses extract to turn the sandstone on HQ into a skunkworks (in the remote). I don't think there are any agendas in HQ, but I also don't think I can contest the remote (yet), so I jailbreak HQ to be sure that it's clean, and let the atlas go. Pinsel over advances and scores the atlas, putting a third ICE on the remote and a formicary on HQ. This puts Pinsel 4-3 up, with a remote that I'm not completely comfortable contesting (because it's five ICE deep with probably 2 x formicary on the board), and an atlas counter to tutor the winning agenda. I don't feel great about this, and I've not even remembered the formicary / skunkworks interaction (yet).

Knowing that the ICE on archives and HQ is formicary at least means I know that I can make free runs for boat counters and FTT triggers, and this nets me a GFI steal off the top of R&D. The ICE on R&D is rezzed -- Stavka into Hortum. Pinsel could have trashed NGO (or skunkworks) to Stavka to force the R&D shuffle (or popped the atlas token), but chooses not to. I wonder if the ICE had been the other way around, whether he would have trashed Hortum for the same effect. This puts me 5-4 up, with us both playing for match point.

This is where it gets crunchy!

Next turn, Pinsel uses the atlas counter to find GFI and IAA in the remote. At the end of his turn he has 9 credits. The remote is 3 ICE (innermost triple advanced), plus a rezzed skunkworks, plus 2 x unrezzed formicary. I have 4 cards in hand (mad dash, overclock, femme, logic bomb), 10 credits, 2 boat counters, an installed logic bomb, and a paperclip in the bin.

With Pinsel on 9 credits, I'm pretty sure that my line is to force rezzes on the remote (even if I can't get in), to buy time and win off HQ or R&D. I'm worried about Envelopment into Border Control, so I overclock the remote, installing paperclip to break Border Control, and expecting to take net damage from one formicary and break the 2nd formicary with boat. I pay 5 for skunkworks, but completely forget about the skunkworks/formicary interaction. The first formicary is rezzed, so I take the net damage. Pinsel pops Border Control and (after thinking for a while) uses Ob to install and rez an Afshar on R&D (this is another play that I don't completely understand).

The remote is now 2 x unrezzed ICE, a rezzed formicary, a rezzed skunkworks, and there is another unrezzed formicary on the board. I am on 4 credits, Pinsel is on 3 credits. I still have my 2 x boat counters and my logic bomb (plus a paperclip). I have 3 clicks and 1 card in hand. I know I can't get into the remote again, but I also know that in order to keep me out Pinsel needs to rez the 2nd Formicary, which means they won't have enough credits to score GFI, and which will buy me a turn. So I draw a card, and I click for a credit, and I go in again - taking net for the first formicary, paying 5 for skunkworks, forcing the 2nd formicary rez, and letting the run end.

I like to think that, if Pinsel hadn't drawn an agenda the next turn, that I could have contested the remote again (even if he clicks for credits). But he does draw an agenda, and he only has 2 cards in hand now, and he knows that I will run HQ eventually. So he draws up (to protect the agenda), giving me the opportunity to walk into the remote and steal the win.

R7: ID vs MrBuggles on PE

It's been a long day, and we've played a lot of netrunner, and we are both relieved that we have made it safely into the cut.

Top Cut Game 2: LOSS vs Tugtetgut on Asa

7-3. No Free Boat

I keep a very questionable hand with Mad Dash, Femme Fatale, Earthrise Hotel, T400 Memory Diamond and Dirty Laundry. This hand does not have a smooth start, but it does have a surprise mad dash, and it does have half the cards needed for a free boat. It's a hand that you are happy enough to mulligan into, but it is not a hand that you should keep. But I do, and we start a very clunky game (for me).

TugtetguT, on the other hand, draws the nuts. His opening turn is hedge fund, double install rashida and an upgrade and an ICE on the remote. This is the dream Asa opening. I dirty laundry into HQ, hoping to at least snipe an agenda, but all I see is Trieste (which I have to trash).

Another rashida is pushed turn 2, and an ICE on R&D. It's not a good sign that HQ is left open, but I run it anyway, just so that I can track what cards are where. 3 More remotes are created turn 3 (nico, nico and marilyn) and at this point Asa is running away from it. HQ is still wide open, but there are no agendas to be seen. When Fully Op does draw Tugtetgut into a luminal, he immediately jams it into the scoring remote (now 3 ICE deep, and still with a skunkworks). Bear in mind that this is turn 4. This is the power of Asa.

Unsurprisingly, I see nothing in HQ, but FTT does find me an offworld office on top of R&D that I can mad dash and steal with logic bomb... except that the ICE on R&D is border control. No problem, presumably that is an agenda in the remote waiting to be scored, so maybe I can pick the office up out of HQ next turn. Except, of course, the agenda in the remote is luminal, so that gets scored and then the offworld office is immediately jammed (after playing another fully op for good measure, and putting a new ICE on R&D).

I run HQ, but there is still nothing there. I do find a second logic bomb and a second mad dash, though, and so this time I am able to mad dash a GFI off the top of R&D.

TugtetguT slow rolls the Office in the remote, and filters a second offworld office using spin doctor. I start digging like crazy for boat or any of my three emergent creativitys but I find nothing. And then I tilt. And then the Nisei Streaming team join the game. And then I start misplaying. First misplay is to femme a random remote, thinking that maybe TugtetguT can't find GFI, and can't protect HQ, and so is trying to push two agendas at once (one in the side remote for now, one in the scoring remote for later). It isn't -- it's a spin doctor that I feel very silly paying 13 credits to trash. My second misplay comes quickly after, when I run a rezzed spin doctor that I don't even have the credits to pay the trash cost for. All of which is captured for posteriety on the Nisei twitch stream. I can only apologise to the viewers at home.

In the meantime, TugtetguT has found the GFI he was looking for and has won the game.

Top Cut Game 3: LOSS vs YsengrinSC on Precision Design

7-3. No Free Boat. No Sick Rips.

This whole game was captured on stream, and, unlike in the previous game, I only misplayed a little, so that was good.

I mulligan into Jailbreak, T400 Memory Diamond, Dirty Laundry, No Free Lunch, Earthrise Hotel. Not the most exciting hand, but perfectly playable, and I'm happy to see Jailbreak because I think HQ multi-access is going to give me the edge in this matchup.

Ysengrin plays a hedge, rashida, ICE opener (seems good), I dirty laundry into HQ -- ducking the tranq trash cost, and seeing an Architect Deployment Test on top of R&D (which I steal). Safety First then draws me mad dash, which is slightly irritating, but whatever.

Rashida finds Ysengrin two more agendas (luminal and ADT), and he pushes the luminal with a tranq grid behind a single ICE. I've no way to challenge, and (at this point) Ysengrin's credits are looking okay so I set up and let it go. Luminal allows Ysengrin to recur Hedge Fund (nice), and gives him the clicks to push ADT on the rezzed Tranq (also nice). He doesn't play the Hedge Fund, though, choosing to double ICE the remote instead, and putting him on 8 credits. This is an overextension that I think I can punish.

Earthrise finds me a logic bomb, which in hindsight I very clearly should have installed before running the remote, but I am tunnel visioned on clicking through fairchild 3, so I run click one instead. I hit a gatekeeper innermost (which fires), install logic bomb, and go back in. This time I hit a drafter outermost (which fires) installing a void in the remote -- a void which he drew off the gatekeeper fire on click 1. The install on tranq grid also gains Ysengrin the 2 credits he needs to score the ADT next turn. This is all a huge misplay on my part.

On the plus side, scoring the ADT puts Ysengrin on 1 credit, and he has to discard 2 cards. The ADT puts a rezzed Fairchild 3.0 onto HQ, so I'm pretty that's where I want to get into. I click for credits to hard install the boat, poke R&D, and Ysengrin responds by ICEing R&D and installing and advancing an NGO. I take the bait (there is only 1 NGO in the list), and run the remote. Fortunately there is only 1 Void in the list as well, so Ysengrin is forced to defend the remote with Void (even though it's NGO).

Next turn, Ysengrin uses the NGO and a hedge fund to stabilise and pushes a rashida in the remote. At this point there are only 4 cards in HQ, and I am confident that at least one of them is an agenda, so I jailbreak clicking through FC3 and logic bombing past gatekeeper. I see 3 cards, find an offworld office, but completely miss the GFI that Ysengrin needs to win the game.

The GFI gets pushed next turn, and it's 4-4, and there is nothing I can do but either mad dash HQ (clicking through FC3), or run archives and hope to see an agenda on top of R&D. I decide to run archives, but see nothing, and that's GG.

ETR

4 comments
5 Sep 2022 Baa Ram Wu

10/10 deck list name!

5 Sep 2022 Melyr

This is a fantastic writeup, I've been playing Adam for years and I still learned things from it! I definitely need to take more notes when I play him.

5 Sep 2022 Baa Ram Wu

Also - now I’ve had time to read the whole thing 20/10 for this write up!!!! The level of detail you go into in astonishingly and I feel like I learnt so much from just reading it!

(It also really made me want to go and immediately play some Adam!!!)

16 Sep 2022 FreqKing

Most excellent write up, appreciate your efforts