Meru Wrap of Ice & Fire

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Repartition by Cost
Repartition by Strength
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Titan Walls
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tuism 310

I threw this together almost on a whim to test some theories, and it worked surprisingly well. Barring crap agenda draws, it slaughters most criminal decks, plays quite evenly against Anarchs. As luck has it I haven't run up against Shapers yet but I suspect Shapers will be its toughest matchup.

The idea is killing programs and taxing the runner as much as possible. Who kills programs anymore, right? All the recursion makes the strategy crap, right? Well, it's really performed surprisingly decently.

11 Barriers

Why? Because:

  • Weyland rule at Barriers.
  • Corroder is the prime Shutdown target.
  • Crims over rely on their Corroders.
  • Shutdown also kills Faeries, which enables Archers
  • Lady tokens are limited. Stack Barriers.
  • Stacking barriers also obsoletes Quetzel.
  • Superior Cyberwalls - ok no it's really gimmicky. I haven't really been able to score one and use either its cash gain or + strength super effectively yet, but it's a decent synergy when it does pay off.

Removal

  • 2 Will o the Wisps - great for never advancing or staking out HQ for annoying Siphons, Wantons, whatever.
  • 3 Archers and six 1-pointers. Nuff said, works with Shutdown/Faeries. Watch out for Davids and Shutdowns. Though it's not hard to render most crims unable to get into HQ by focusing on their Corroders.
  • 2 Wendigo is kinda like removal, its 4 str makes it anti-yog. Or tax more Lady tokens by morphing.
  • 3 Shutdowns - prime targets: Faeries, Datasucker, Corroder, Corroders, Knights, Clone Chips, SMCs.

Tax

  • Never advance works mostly, and will make taxing runs. Barriers ALWAYS cost money. Except Morningstar. Noone runs Morningstar. When they do, you can usually advance something a Fire Wall or something beyond its reach. Though Datasuckers suck. But you can probably shut those down.
  • The Argus tax is great. Most people know not to keep tags, and often need to take the 2 damage if they run last turn. If they keep tags? 3 Scorched Earths keep your teeth real.
  • Taxing Lady tokens by stacking is great.
  • Enhanced Login Protocol surprisingly works really great in this, despite 12 agendas.

All suggestions and comments welcome :)

18 comments
26 May 2015 Face

Hey, I really like this deck... I'll be giving it a play over the next few days. I love Encrypted Portals so keen to see Superior Cyberwalls in action. Plus Power Shutdown is my favourite Weyland card.

A couple of questions;

26 May 2015 Face

I also feel this deck might be light on ... what has your experience been? Alot of clicking for credits?

26 May 2015 tuism

Clicking for credits happens a lot, yes. But it's not a bad thing, necessarily.

  • Higher agenda density means I don't want to pull too many of them. It's also a matter of conserving your 2 Jacksons.
  • Even if the runner steals agendas, you're forcing them to slow down by untagging or risking Scorch.
  • Most of the ICE in the deck are either cheap (Wraparound, Meru Mati, Ice Wall, Wendigo) or pay for themselves (Caduceus and even Archer).
  • Econ looks light but still clocks in at quite a good portion of the deck: (Hedge Fund, Gila Hands Arcology, Sweeps Week, Caduceus)
  • Sweeps Week both give good burst econ the first time or two you play it, and if they play around it they're inviting Scorch death. So I'm happy either way. Also lots of popular handsize increasers around these days: Box-E, Logos and sometimes Public Sympathy.

The goal of this deck is both rushing the runner into mistakes and taking out their Fracters, or dragging it long as there's a lot of tax in here, and they'll just be broke eventually running fat stacks of barriers. Again, Shaper recursion/econ is harder to contend with, so I'd love to see what people come up with against that.

  • No I didn't really miss Jackson #3, but I am consciously playing slower.
  • Other barriers... Either they're Bioroids which defeat the purpose of boosting them, or they cost too much (in creds and/or influence). Wraparound is great. Eli 1.0 takes one Lady token with or without its two subs, and is clickable. Same with Markus 1.0. If I wanted any barrier it would be Ashigaru, but that's expensive.
  • Chum - nah. It's bad enough that Wendigo relies on stacking, Chum does so with influence spend. I'd rather take Wendigo.
26 May 2015 dante77

Great idea! Must try.

26 May 2015 Badeesh

I think Hostile Takeover is a flat out improvement over Gila Hands. Who care's about a little bad pub when you have no barrier breaker at all. And your Archer's will love you for it.

26 May 2015 tuism

That's a good point, though I've found that BP really hurts when against Shaper who will ALWAYS have something to pull their shit back.

In theory, I'd rather fight one weakness against an already weak matchup than strengthen what I don't really need to.

26 May 2015 Badeesh

Yeah. In that situation I think tactically it's probably still best to rush them and the immediate income might help. So I think it will improve the shaper match-up. Theorycraft is exactly that though, worth a shot imo.

26 May 2015 dante77

Thanks to your idea i create a similiar deck Titan Walls. Not kill runner but taxing and annoying as hell.

26 May 2015 dante77

Correct link Titan Walls.

26 May 2015 dante77

Plz delete my comment. Something wrong with my links.

26 May 2015 tuism

@dante77 I think you need to set your deck to shareable, or publish it. I'm not sure where the option is though.

26 May 2015 tuism

@Badeesh for a while I did run Hostile Takeovers, and I found that criminals loved it (turns on Desperado, Security Testing) and kills Caduceus, not to mention feeds Eater bullshit which is dangerous anyhow (Knifed everything and Knight everything else, have to double stack everything).

This deck came from another that took and removed BP, and yeah... BP is bad news, I find, over the long term, which is what this deck does. It doesn't rush. It's a mid/long game deck.

26 May 2015 DrunkenGineer

@dante77 the option is found in your profile settings.

@tuism how does this deck not have Blacklist?!

26 May 2015 tuism

@DrunkenGineer that is a very good point, I guess dedicating one remote with a single barrier on it should in theory stop recursion bs from getting breakers back. In theory. Now to find space for it...

26 May 2015 Badeesh

Fair enough!

26 May 2015 tomdidiot

No Sea Source? At all?

27 May 2015 tuism

It's not about going for the kill! And I've been experimenting with Snare!s. Pretty good so far. Sorry Sweeps Week :(

29 May 2015 DarkTsunder

I like what you are trying to do here. Might try testing and see where a Chronos Project fits in. Don't forget about Subliminal Messaging for decent econ, or even Restructure or Beanstalk. Power shutdown is great against Faries, but there is a ton of cheap hardware being played nowadays. If you throw some more money in, you might try for Power Grid Overload. Yes I know it is jank, but it lets you target without losing cards.