Helios v3.0

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Derived from
Helios v2.5 - Top 16 NorCal Regionals
Inspiration for
Helios v3.5 - 1st Place Berkeley ANRPC Qualifier
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llama66613 753

Helios

This is the latest iteration of the deck I took to regionals a month ago, with a bunch of tweaks and changes to help it out. My overall win rate with this deck and the version before on jinteki.net is exactly 75% across 48 games. Haven't gone to a tournament with this one yet, but I hope to make an appearance at some upcoming ANRPCs.

Keep hands with ice and economy. Don't worry about seeing SEA Scorch in your starting hand, but it doesn't hurt. Start preparing a remote, and try to rush out Oaktowns while you do so. Other agendas can wait to be scored until you're more sure you have a scoring window.

If they are too aggressive, you'll often be able to Scorch them before they can get enough points to win. If they back off, you should be able to Atlas train a win in just a few turns. If you can't find Atlas, Oaktown and High Risk Investment will also do just fine and Posted Bounty can win you the game singlehandedly with double Scorch. All three have won me games.

I have found this deck's economy to be just enough. The ice is cheap enough that you are rarely hurting for cash, and SEA Scorch opportunities usually open through the Runner repeatedly trashing Assets.

Because you have essentially 3 different entirely viable paths to victory, neither Clot nor Plascrete are a major concern. Clot in particular will barely slow you down, and Plascrete will simply make you redirect. The worst is playing against Anarchs and not knowing if they have I've Had Worse in hand, so make sure to check their heap!

Changelog with commentary:

  • -3 Firmware Update, +3 Oaktown, -1 High Risk Investment, -1 Mark Yale

So, I really like Oaktown Renovation, a whole freaking lot. It's honestly amazing. I wrote a whole rant on reddit about it here, but I'll talk about in comparison to Firmware Updates specifically here. If you ignore the Titan token both get (since Mark Yale can capitalize on them either way), the choice is one of 9 credits, eventually, if you draw a Mark Yale, versus 8 credits, immediately, before you even freaking score it. Considering 4/2 get you a lot more agenda points for your trouble anyway, I'll definitely take it. It's too bad, however, that High Risk Investment had to be a casualty of this change. I really liked having 2 and it's just not the same with 1, but cuts have to be made. Since Mark Yale is less necessary he got brought down to 2.

  • -1 Chimera

Wasn't pulling it's weight. Super expensive on a central, and doesn't help against any tricks on a remote. It was useful for rushing out agendas, but it becomes completely useless against Test-Run Femme, AI breakers, Inside Job, Parasite, or any other technique people use to get in, including just having a full breaker suite.

  • -2 Private Contract, +3 PAD Campaign, -3 PAD Campaign, +2 Subliminal Messaging

I removed Private Contracts because they're sort of a lackluster econ card, and tried out a lot of options before settling on what I have. For a long time I had PAD Campaigns, and they worked pretty well. You set them up early, they tick away and make a profit, and they're a nice little speed bump if the Runner trashes them. But they were kinda annoying, because they didn't help you Score or Scorch right now, if that's what you needed. So instead, I tried Subliminal Messaging, inspired by the original Supermodernism deck, and I think I like it better. They are absolutely never a bad draw, unlike PAD Campaign, but sometimes a "meh" one.

Oh, and a neat little bonus to watch out for: say you're playing against some kinda bullshit Reina/Maxx Siphon spam deck and your opponent is feeling real clever and siphons you down to 0 credits, keeps the tags, and ends their turn with 3 cards in hand, smiling smuggly like the bastard they are. Wipe that smile off their face by using Atlas to tutor for Sub, play it for 1, click for 2 more, and and third click Scorch 'em to bits. Trust me, they won't see it coming.

  • +1 Corporate Town, +1 Crisium Grid, +1 Cyberdex Virus Suite

All of the other shuffling around opened up some deck space, so I threw in a few silver-bullet-y cards to help me out.

I increased the number of Crisium Grids to help deal with all those Siphons out there nowadays, and do just moderately help deal with Maker's Eye against Kate.

Cyberdex provides an answer to Clot, but more importantly laughs in the face of Datasucker runs on archives.

Corporate Town is an interesting card, because it is used in so incredibly few match ups, but in more match ups it gets trashed for 5 preemptively, which is very nice, and in the matchups where it actually gets rezzed? It does super work. Just totally demolish their resource econ. It's so much fun and I'm sentimentally attached to it, but if cuts have to be made in the near future, it'll have to be the first to go.

9 comments
2 Jul 2015 konradh

I've been experimenting with variants of your Helios recently and it's very fun and flexible deck!

There are few things I'm uncertain thou.

  1. I decided to ditch Posted Bounty and up the number of High-Risk Investment to keep the number of agendas at 10. How do you feel about 12? Isn't the RD too leaky?

  2. Ice Destruction. With high popularity of Anarchs and various Kate's, isn't ICE suite to weak? Most of the pieces just die in a second from Parasite. Heck, two days ago during weekly league in Warsaw one Gabriel Santiago: Consummate Professional destroyed my Rototuret with random Parasite :( This is why I decided to switch Wraparound to Eli 1.0 and put some Meru Mati to keep only one Ice Wall. Im thinking about keeping to in-faction barriers and make a influence for one Architect.

  3. Late game - with so weak ICE you either win fast or die in flames. Any plan B? What to do when behind in points?

  4. Stealth. Against Stealth Andy or Hayley Kaplan: Universal Scholar Archer is almost non-factor. I'm scaaaareeed!

I tried to keep one copy of Elizabeth Mills in my version, but without Executive Boot Camp is kinda pointless. But still playing against Valencia or giving runner 2 bad pubs can be problematic.

Anyway, your deck convinced me that Power Shutdown is such a great and versatile card.

2 Jul 2015 llama66613

@konradh Glad you like it! I'll respond as best I can.

  1. R&D does feel kinda leaky, it's true. And I would like another High-Risk, that's also true. But you really must not underestimate the incredible power of Posted Bounty. You could IAA High-Risk, score that, and gain 3 points. Or, you could IAA Posted Bounty, and win the game. ...however. Looking back at the 48 games I've recorded, only twice in that time did I actually record a win by Posted Bounty. So, maybe you're right, and decreased agenda density is the way to go! I'll try it out.

  2. Nooooooooooooo you got rid of Wraparound?!? Wraparound is the absolute best! It deals super well against Parasite, because Wraparound basically holds up a giant sign that says "No tricks. Install a fracter to get through." Sure, if they have a fracter then parasite will kill it instantly, but if they have a fracter it's not worth parasiting! It is absolutely my favorite ice in the deck. Architect is interesting, but it fills a similar niche to Caduceus that Caduceus IMO fills better by being cheaper and often paying for itself.

  3. Late game is all about SEA Scorch, Archer and SanSan. The game is far from over if they have a complete rig, because at this point you probably have the full SEA Scorch Scorch in hand. Bate them into a run on a remote where they have to get through 2/3 pieces of ice, only to access a SanSan, which they have to trash your you'll score an Atlas next turn, then SEA Scorch them if they do. If you can land an Archer, the game is basically yours. This set-up is largely the difference between Helios and Supermodernism, as I stated in my write up for v2.1: "It uses the rush scoring style of Supermodernism, but extends into the mid and late game with SanSan FA and SEA Scorch." If they have a full rig AND plascrete? A bad situation to be sure. See if you can get them to be stupid and end their turn with 3 cards, or land an Archer.

  4. Stealth is all about Power Shutdown. Power Shutdown makes it super easy to keep their recurring creds in check into the midgame. In the late game, put Caduceus in front of Archer and watch them grumble (or scream if they weren't careful).

Finally, Valencia is annoying, no doubt. Try to bait out Blackmails with assets or SanSan, make sure you have a solution if they're packing Keater Siphon. I haven't played against it a whole lot, to be honest.

2 Jul 2015 konradh

Thanks for the tips, ill see what I can do with them in the field.

I was thinking some more about Rototurret in this deck. Why we use it? To have some solid sentry based ETR on remote, in most cases. 0 str ICE for 4 creds is not a very good deal. And it could be Inside Jobbed around.

Enter Guard.

Same cost, can't be bypassed with Inside Job, and doesn't die to instant or jackout-install-run again Parasite.

With that one influence point freedup I managed to compose my barrier suit with 2 Wraparound, 2 Eli 1.0 and 2 Meru Mati.

Caduceus is great, but Im afraid we will see more and more 2 link based Criminals, and with Bad Pubs floating around it's getting less and less reliable.

2 Jul 2015 llama66613

@konradh

I could definitely see using Guard. It seems pretty decent. Obviously the reason I run Rototurret is to trash breakers early on, but I won't deny it's tricky to land. But I really think you're going to regret cutting any Wraparounds. They're so useful pretty much every Anarch matchup. Meru Mati is also just not worth the extra cred for the modest strength bonus on HQ.

I've felt Caduceus waning, which is sad, because I like it a whole lot. I could see cutting a copy or two for Guard, but it makes me sad.

2 Jul 2015 konradh

Currently Im having two Wraparounds so I should hopefuly be able to find it at right moment.

For months I've been playing my Weyland decks with only one SEA, but you finally convinced me to play two copies. What was I thinking the whole time?

6 Jul 2015 hi_impact

I played a deck similar and much older to this when Titan first came out, and you need the Wraparounds. They really slow down Eater Keyhole, which just demolishes you otherwise.

12 Jul 2015 konradh

After some futher testing Im starting to think that Mark Yale doesn't make much sense with this agenda suite. Best case scenerio, he will earn us 2-4 creds with tokens from Hostile Takeover and Oaktown Renovation.

In most cases he is as good as another copy of Beanstalk Royalties. And in many situations I just paid click to earn cred and make runner lose a click.

In old versions of this archetype, with Geothermal Fracking instead of marvelous Oaktown, he was much more reliable. Currently I'm testing Beanstalks in his place.

12 Jul 2015 llama66613

Oh man @konradh, you've been shorting yourself. Every agend counter you sell to Yale gives you 3 credits, because his passive applies to his active. Thus, with a scored Oak or Hostile, he becomes a Hedge Fund, that works from only a single cred, secretly. He's really good, even sans Geo or Firmware.

12 Jul 2015 konradh

Maybe it the case of the random draw, but for last eight games all I achieved with him was just wasting runners click. He has some very good "best case scenarios" but it requires setup and doesn't make him reliable in all situations. Or maybe I'm just spoiled by the good old "rez Mark to get 12 creds" days.