Decklist of the week

Meat Sweats

Description by the author: Xandorius 67

DON'T TOUCH THAT MEAT!

This is the most stable iteration of the Weyland Consortium: Builder of Nations deck that I've been testing over the past couple weeks. It's running an approximate 65% winrate on jnet across about 50 games. There's been tweaking along the way, but the core realization was discovering that the Hard-Hitting News kill package works really well in a smaller 44 card deck.

WHAT'S THE MEAT PLAN?

The gameplan for this deck is to kill the runner. That's goal #1 in the time honoured Weyland Tradition. To that end, seeing Hard-Hitting News early is good, often having one in your opening hand is worth keeping. Make the runner sweat by threatening a lot of MEAT all at once, or a steady stream of MEAT whenever they run.

If the Tag-n-bag looks like it's not really working out, this deck can also score out. An early Project Atlas helps to serve both goals well. The deck runs taxing ICE both through taxing credits, and more importantly taxing cards out of the runner's hand. Frequently runner's won't want to risk trashing key early game pieces to damage, so they won't run until they're more set up. This can create windows to let you score early agendas.

WHY NOT A MEAT GRINDER?

This is the biggest question I get in the deck. Why not run 6 agendas, glacier-y ICE, and try to tax the runner down to 0 cards and an inevitable win? I've probably played a couple hundreds games with Weyland Consortium: Builder of Nations now, and I've found that the 6 agenda suite tends to stall out at 6-6 with the runner eventually winning through a remote lock in the late game. Also, Buffer Drive can eliminate your ID's ability to bring the runner to 0 cards which limits the success of this kind of grinder deck.

The 6 agenda suite will typically be 3 SDS Drone Deployment and 3 City Works Project - Although City Works synergizes with the grinder plan well, it is a real liability if stolen out of R&D or HQ, especially early.

Finally, you usually want to cheat out the 7th point somehow. Gene Splicer is typically the best choice for this, but it's expensive, slow, and requires a fair bit of card support to make reliable.

CARD CHOICES - TOO MUCH MEAT IS BAD FOR YOU

Agenda Suite - The 7 agenda suite allows for scoring out much easier than the 6 suite due to Project Atlas being able to bluff as Wall To Wall or Rashida Jaheem. The controversial choice is running a single SDS Drone Deployment. That means that there is 3/7 odds that the runner wins out by stealing SDS. The benefit to SDS is that it defends against early steals decently well and it frees up a valuable card slot. The biggest defense is the runner encountering SDS in the first few turns, especially if they don't have a program install yet. Forcing them to spend a and s to install a program just to sack it for the steal buys you precious time and tempo.

Assets - NGO Front is money, bluffs an agenda, and will frequently prompt the runner to check on it, which means running your remote and losing a card. It combos great with a 3 advanced Akhet since if the runner checks the Akhet will put a token on the NGO right before you trash it for cash. Wall To Wall is great for advancing ice and moving your gameplan forward. Rashida Jaheem does the same thing. I found the most success with 2x since the deck runs fast and doesn't require the same amount of draw as a larger deck does.

Ice Suite - Akhet is great for triggering your ID. If the runner face-checks it then it puts a token on itself. Masvingo does the same. Mausolus taxes Black Orchestra much more than Hortum and it has the potential to tag the runner, so it's the preferred pick. Oduduwa is kinda spicy and it puts a token on itself for your ID ability and if you pair it with Masvingo you can create very expensive servers. Thimblerig was a pick for the last influence point and it turns out to be pretty useful to swap around your servers as you need. Colossus was the most useful sentry pick. It has a very edge case of defending SDS if it fires and trashes the program the runner would need to steal.

THE PAYLOAD PICKS

The biggest amount of tinkering in this deck went into the operations. 1 BOOM! and 2 High-Profile Target is the most flexible package to potentially kill the runner. 1 Consulting Visit adds additional flexibility, with a scored Project Atlas increasing that potential to get the cards you need. Hard-Hitting News is the typical tag generating pick.

1 SEA Source turns out to be a useful include. Late game the runner often has only a few cards left in hand, so you can create a SEA-HPT combo for the kill. It also enables you to take out Citadel Sanctuary. SEA Source - trash resources - HHN can be a killer turn, landing 5 tags and making things much more difficult for the runner to deal with.

1 Best Defense is for targeting Misdirection which is the biggest counter to Hard-Hitting News. The deck often fires one HHN to bait the runner getting Misdirection out, then money's up and plays Best Defense with a second HHN to seal in the kill. #Simulchip can disrupt that plan, but either way it can create a big tempo hit to the runner. If you don't suspect Misdirection being in play, Best Defense also targets anything that costs 0, which is often a pretty flexible amount of choices. Occasionally you can pair it with SEA Source to trash something else.

Mass Commercialization is usually better than both IPO and Too Big to Fail so pairing it with Hedge Fund was the best choice overall when testing the deck. Economic Warfare is hugely valuable as many runners after seeing the HHN will always stay above 8 thinking they can just clear tags. EW-EW-HHN can be a game winning turn.

Weyland Consortium: Builder of Nations hasn't been a Tier 1 deck in a long time, if ever. I think taking advantage of the 44 card deck allows for the kind of consistency that you need for the kill package. With the ID also chipping cards out of the runner's hand, you create a situation where if the runner goes poor you can kill them, if they run often you can grind them out. Having the two win conditions has been better than going all-in on either plan.

Thanks for taking a look at this deck! Any suggestions/ideas are always welcome. A solution for Buffer Drive might be worth finding, and rejigging the deck to make more money to land those HHN turns. 1 Wake Up Call might be the solution for late game Buffer Drive destruction, but what to cut is a tough question to answer.