SeerSucker (1st, store champ, Jan 2015, Montreal)

Introduction:

Andromeda is a strong early game runner, but I find that she can run out of steam when the corp has set up taxing servers everywhere. To counter that, she needs a way, an engine, to keep her momentum going all game.

Engines:

Some Andromeda decks use Mr. Li, but he is inefficient in that he only filters card quality and doesn't net you extra cards or credits. Others use John Masanori, which is good against corps that don't protect all their servers, but risky to use against unrezzed ice. Kati Jones is also situational, best used against durdly decks but too slow against fast rush decks. Professional Contacts is efficient, but has a high start-up cost, and is removed easily by NBN's tagging. Its efficiency seems wasted in a deck that should be running often.

Oracle May + Motivation:

I think Oracle May + Motivation is strong as it gets 1 more credit than Professional Contacts, arguably making it stronger than any of the other engines.It is especially good in Andromeda as her ability makes it much more likely for her to see both in her starting grip. Playing both only costs 1 credit total, and makes it easy to play the rest of the cards in her starting grip (so as to not have to discard). Only 1 Oracle May is required in the deck, as the Hostages can tutor for it. Using Oracle May only uses 1 click per turn, so you have the remaining clicks for running. Keep in mind the downside that you have to reveal the card you get from Oracle May. But you can always draw it normally instead of using May, if you want to keep it a secret, or use May at the end of your turn (so the corp has less knowledge during that turn). Motivation is somewhat playable even on its own (you can look at the top card, then play Special Order or Hostage to shuffle, so you can draw a different card), but I probably wouldn't suggest using Oracle May blindly.

Other card choices:

The Hostages can also look for Kati Jones (to be fetched versus slow decks) and John Masanori (to be fetched versus decks with unprotected servers). Express Delivery is a fine way to search for Oracle May, Motivation, or whatever is required at the time. Mimic is strong against Architect. 2 Datasuckers is fine, as you never have the memory to play all 3 anyway, and they're not necessary, since the only fixed breaker is Mimic and we have Faeries and Femme Fatale as alternatives. Zu's low strength, and Femme's high cost to raise strength, aren't a big issue because we have Datasucker. Passport is a backup in case ZU.13 Key Master gets Power Shutdown-ed. Crash Space is played over Plascrete Carapace because we want to protect our resources, so we have to clear tags. We don't fear permatagging via Midseason Replacements because we generally have a lot of money.