Free Martian Government (Dutch Nationals Cache Refresh 4-1)

RvdH83 686

So there we are. Another no-so-great Weyland ID, right? They even had to errata it to make it work, a little. The 40 cards is great, but the 12 influence is not. And even if you have to pick only 44 cards, those are still Weyland cards.

In the past I tried to make this ID work using Prisecs and other forms of meat damage, but that's not the type of game you want to play. Advancing ice is a slow process and you want them to take a meat damage every turn. So a glacier type of game suits this ID more.

Terminal Directive finally gave Weyland some usable pieces of ice. And The Red Sands cycle brings Mass Commercialization and Red Planet Couriers. Fast advance glacier, since Cache Refresh has no Clot. My goal of the day with this untested deck was to score at least one Government Takeover from hand.

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Round 1: Loss against Mopus Gauntlet Kate. I lost a High-Risk Investment just before I wanted to fast advance it. I also scored a Hostile Takeover early in the game and that bad pub was probably not in my advantage. I dumped another High-Risk Investment in Archives, which the runner eventually found for the win, before I found Government Takeover in R&D.

Round 2: Win against Smoke. I iced up all three centrals pretty early all with advanced ice. The runner lost several cards to Mausolus and the Weyland ID. I waited patiently, scored a Hostile Takeover and the first Government Takeover of the day for the win.

Round 3: Win against another Smoke. I lost the Government Takeover on an R&D run, but then scored a High-Risk Investment (naked install), Hostile Takeover, and another High-Risk Investment for the win.

Round 4: Win against Los, the only Criminal player I encountered the entire weekend. A 3-advanced Hortum fired when it couldn't be broken by Mammon. And the ID took Special Order from the runner's hand. Oops. I picked Biotic Labor and Government Takeover for Hortum's second subroutine and scored out a few turns later for the win. Just in time, because the runner just found Abagnale and had a hand full of Siphon recursion.

Round 5: Win against yet another Smoke. I scored an early High-Risk Investment. The runner also found one, and two Hostile Takeovers. I had the Government Takeover in hand for a long time, but it took awhile to find Red Planet Couriers for the win.

So all in all the deck went 4-1 with 3 Government Takeovers scored. A really fun deck to play and a solid build against Smoke.

Notes:

Don't score Hostile Takeover too early. The bad pub really works against you. If you can score an early High-Risk Investment instead, go for it.

Space Camp is a great card, because you can just dump it in Archives and not ice up Archives at all. No runner empties their Temüjins if they know there are Space Camps in Archives. So you can just focus on icing-up HQ and R&D. This in turn meant all runners had real trouble paying through all the ice you can put on the two central servers.

Colossus is bonkers. Two advancements and it is crappy expensive for Dagger or any other sentry breaker. A 3-advanced Ice Wall is also painful for Blackstone. Builder doesn't look too great, but most runners will want to break it anyway, so it's taxing enough.

Matrix Analyzer is a card.

BOOM! was there if runners went tag-me. And in general to fear the kill if they see it. CVS was there to counter any Parasite-crap. I never used them though.

Shipment from Kaguya is great early game. It allows you to get advancement counters on relevant ice very early.

Maybe switch IPO for Beanstalk Royalties?

9 comments
15 Aug 2017 Jakuza

All the points for 3x Space Camp.

16 Aug 2017 Tolaasin

Yup, that Hortum fire basically shut me down - my weakness the whole weekend was not thiniking enough about 'what ice could this be?'. Kudos on making such a successful deck - really enjoyed our games.

16 Aug 2017 stoppableforce

Played against this a little last night (we built some CR decks and brought them to our weekly meetup due enthusiasm for the format but a dearth of actual events). Builder of Nations gets a lot better when not everyone and their brother is packing Employee Strike, eh?

IPO over Beanstalk seemed relevant considering I kept putting this deck on the back foot long enough to set up with little more than a Rubicon Switch and a Magnum Opus. Mass Commercialization is pretty good, though, for the 'econ from 0' spot. Another thing to consider, once another pack drops, is perhaps Priority Construction? It vastly accelerates your 9 advancements, while also helping set up a scoring remote for pushing 5/3s out of.

The real MVP of these decks is Colossus. There's just no easy way to break it for most decent decks these days.

16 Aug 2017 RvdH83

@stoppableforce Mass Commercialization is indeed a fantastic card in this deck. Gaining 10+ credits while being on 0 makes many a runner shake their head in disgust.

Colossus is indeed such a great piece of ice. When building this deck I never realized how good it was until I played it. When I didn't have two installed, I always hoped the next ice was another Colossus. Maybe drop the Builder for it.

Priority Construction seems a fine card, but I never built a remote when I played. If you can focus yourself on just building a strong HQ and R&D server, it's very tough for the runner to get in more than once a turn.

I think another Preemptive Action or an Archived Memories would be nice to have (or another Biotic Labor for that matter).

16 Aug 2017 Saan

It seems like it might be worth it to ditch Order and Chaos in favor of Data and Destiny just for Global Food Initiative. You force the runner to either find the Takeover or to score a minimum of 4/7 agendas. Fire Wall is kinda meh anyhow, and I couldn't imagine Space Camp speeds things up enough that running Food wouldn't slow back down. I do like the kinda archive protection if gives you, though.

Anyhow, just my thoughts.

16 Aug 2017 RvdH83

@Saan Government Takeover is also in Order and Chaos. Since this deck runs only 7 agendas, GFI doesn't really help. Plus you just don't have the influence. I would rather spend my influence on an additional Biotic Labor.

16 Aug 2017 RvdH83

Also, an unadvanced Fire Wall costs 4 to break for Paperclip, Corroder, and Blackstone. It's a good piece of ice in the Cache Refresh meta (i.e. Smoke).

This deck requires patience to play. Having 3+ ice on HQ and 6+ ice on R&D is not unusual. Space Camp allows you to play this way. Runners that want to lock R&D are going to need a crap ton of money every turn. Almost all runners will sooner or later have to click for credits. They cannot afford not to.

18 Aug 2017 Krasty

Isn`t better Graft than High-Risk Investment? Or some combination? How offen you used HRI?

18 Aug 2017 RvdH83

@Krasty Maybe Graft is better than High-Risk Investment. I guess it depends a bit on the meta. I expected people to tryout Siphon-Counter Surveillance decks, so I went with HRI. Graft is also fine, but often awkward since you have to reveal the cards.

I used a High-Risk Investment token once in Round 5. In Round 3 I didn't, since I was trying to stay below 15 credits (Beth).