Sara & the Vaults-Crosse Keys Winner 20 person GNK

rusefus 487

So a lot of you will be going; what the hell is this, you made up this Identity, why aren't you playing Mti? To which I would say I prefer to walk the path less travelled and possibly by the end of this I'll have you think twice before choosing Mti.

Having said that Mti and Sara can be seen as sister Identities in a way. In the simplest terms both act as an extra click which can only be used for certain cards. At this level you might say Mti storms ahead of Sara since most decks run 17 ICE and they cant be trashed or stolen by nosy runners in normal circumstances.

For Sara player this can be countered with the cornerstone of the deck; Bio Vault. Normal glacier have run Vault in the past but since Sara advances it and agendas at double speed this card really comes alive in this deck. However the big advantage Sara has over Mti is with Employee Strike. Mti has to leave itself vulnerable to Strike to make use of its ability and often can have plans completely scuppered by it. Sara on the other hand doesn't leave itself vulnerable to Strike, and if the Runner cant strike early Sara can easily score through it. I personally feel so relaxed about Strike I don't even run currents to counter it.

Sara also has great synergies with already great cards like Celebrity Gift, where you can play it and still install advance an agenda, or Fast Track, which Sara can use to fetch, install and double advance a 5/3 agenda, something no other Identity can do.

So with all these obvious advantages, is Sara better than Mti? Probably not, but Sara is still queen for me.

6 comments
10 Feb 2019 Council

Intriguing deck idea, but doesn't the inability to rez the assets/upgrades severely impact your ability to use them? Both NGO and BV only come online the turn after their install, which seems a little late, especially in the prior case.

10 Feb 2019 Council

Also, Celebrity Gift? In a deck that relies on guile? What kind of debauchery is this?

10 Feb 2019 rusefus

@DonLoverGateso the initial use of Sara's ability wont turn on bio vault its true, so i wont advance it further till the next turn. In the mean time the bio vault acts as bait for the runner, quite often soaking up a Falsified Credentials and maybe even forcing them to run which is a waste of time and credits for runner.

Gift can sometimes be a liability since it spoils the surprise, but the amount of tempo you just gained when you gain 7 creds and install advance an agenda in one turn totally makes up for it.

10 Feb 2019 Sanjay

I certainly understand the appeal of using Saraswati on Bio Vault... You either get the ETR next turn or you bait a hopefully expensive run... How often do you use it on NGO though?

10 Feb 2019 rusefus

@SanjayNGO is a harder one, I generally only use it NGO once i have a server built. If they run it great, since i value their loss of credits more than my own credits. If youre very poor or in the early then I just normally advance it

10 Feb 2019 emilyspine

Congrats Rufus. Another inspired build.