Australia's best Cybernetics Division

This is the Corp deck I took to 14th at Australian Nationals (3 wins, 2 losses). I had been playing around with SYNC and BABW in the leadup to the tournament but after a run of dismal games the night before, I ended up building this deck before heading out for breakfast on the way to the event. Thanks to Lyndon for grabbing me water and snacks while I rushed back to the airbnb to bump up the ICE count! I’ve been messing around with the idea since Urban Renewal came out, but this is the build I’m most happy with so far.

The deck aims to land one or more brain damage before getting a kill with Urban Renewal. It is quite capable of scoring out too, but it is the threat of the kill that will open up scoring windows while reducing the number of runs possible on centrals. I expected a lot of Val and Maxx, and picked up a win each time I faced them. Turntable is useless. Stimhack just puts me closer to my wincon. Conspiracy breakers can’t keep up with the number of runs required to stay alive. No clot means safe Fast Advance scores with MCAAP are possible.

Game 1 (Win): Maxx

Tight game. I believe we both got to six points, but I lock him out of the remote and he is killed by Urban Renewal before finding a winning agenda.

Game 2 (Loss): Khumalo

I get to six points early and land brain damage but probably expend too many resources making that happen. Urban renewal and Gene Splicer are trashed out of RND and I get them back with Distract the Masses. Prayed to RNGesus on the click 3 RND run into a BLC. Unfortunately the 1/3 brain damage misses the apocalypse so that seals the game with me decked over the next few turns.

Game 3 (Win): Val

Fairly straightforward game up until the point I was at six points and put an NGO in the scoring remote with Hired Help already rezzed. They trashed their only agenda to check it. I got that Ikawah back into RND with Distract the Masses then proceeded to chain IAA in the remote safely. Lost an SSL but they then ran into the winning Gene Splicer with one card for a flatline.

Game 4 (Loss): Hayley

Got Kuwinda into the remote early and setup while they continued to pay the trace. They ran after paying trace 4 to find a Black Level Clearance protecting Kuwinda. They took the brain from BLC and cleared out the remote. I got up to six points but over several turns of drawing just couldn’t find an agenda, Gene Splicer, Urban Renewal, or Executive Boot Camp to close it out. An indexing finds an agenda and Freedom Through Equality seals the game. Great recovery from a difficult early position by my opponent.

Game 5 (Win): Maxx

This game was a lot of fun. Maxximum! Punk! Rock! Hippo caused me some early issues – was very glad it’s an RFG. Stabilised and ended up scoring out by using NGO bluff and tempo loss caused by levy.

Card Choices

Agenda Suite: I’ve played around with versions of the deck that used Self-Destruct Chips, Remote Enforcement with NEXT Diamond, etc. The remote is often taken up for large periods of time so low density suits perfectly. Get the hand size reduction through other means.

Brain Damage: Kuwinda, Batty, and Black Level Clearance have proven the most effective in landing the brain damage necessary to switch on Urban Renewal. Most of the other available cards give the runner an option to avoid the brain. Kuwinda in particular is amazing in this deck. Black Level Clearance is often dependent on a taxing server with Urban Renewal/Kuwinda/IAA card at the bottom, or a high impact central run event so the right server depends on matchup and game-state. Batty is versatile but use him for brain damage if it’s the first (or second if Employee Strike suspected).

ICE: This could probably use the most work. Enigma should have been Gatekeeper – just an oversight from rushing the build. Switching in a single cobra might create a situation where Batty could land a kill in some games. The NEXT suite could possibly work but I wanted to take something known to be reliable on the day since I didn’t have time for any test games.