Arrogance Weylad (Make Weyland Hate Again variant)

Introduction

This is a variant of the Make Weyland Hate Again list by MarbleMunkey, so credit for the idea goes to him.

For those unaware, the core idea behind this kind of deck is to Fast Track Government Contracts in the opening turns, Casting Call it behind some ETR ICE and attempt to brute force score. Or, if that fails, murder the Runner via Punitive Counterstrike or BOOM! (absent from this variant for reasons explained below). It works all the time, some of the time. Is also very fun.

After a few weeks of tinkering with the original list, and following the advice of my local playgroup, I have made several alterations to how this deck is meant to operate, which I will now attempt to explain.

Identity

The original list's use of GRNDL: Power Unleashed seemed reasonable at first: the early game economic boost of that identity is substantial, and this deck, is usually, all about early game. Literally. There is no other game.

At least that was the theory. The problem with GRNDL, as we all know, is not even the Bad Publicity, but rather low influence limit - which, in a deck that devotes six points of influence to Casting Calls is downright crippling, especially with the well known tendency of non-Barrier Weyland ICE to be less than stellar. Therefore, the change to Weyland Consortium: Building a Better World. The identity provides a significant economical benefit for deck that has no economy other than Transactions, and additional influence allows to import good, yellow ICE which makes arrogantly Fast Tracking GT on turn 1 that much easier.

Deck Size

The original list ran 45 cards - again, makes sense in theory. However, this turned impractical for two reasons.

First is, obviously, agenda density. The difference of four cards may not be that significant, but it makes your R&D even safer - with seven agendas total in the deck, some of which are likely to get scored/stolen very early on, I have seen situations in which 10+ card R&D digs failed to fish out a single agenda, much to the Runner's frustration. Although the original list attempted to make R&D safer through Global Food Initiative inclusion, this ate away influence which, as mentioned, I thought could be better used on other toys.

The other reason is kinda trite: I always had a bad tendency of including more stuff in my decks than I've had deckslots. Here, I could at least justify it.

Agenda Selection

The lack of GFIs was explained above. An interesting thing about agendas in this deck is that sometimes you don't actually want to dig for GT, and instead try to rush a 5/3 in the first few turns, then immediately Fast Track another one and attempt to rush it too - basically, your early game clicks are so valuable that spending them on Fast Track or attempting to draw into it is often inferior to just slamming down a piece of ICE and an agenda behind it.

Utopia Fragment is an unsung hero of this deck - people tend to forget how it works, and if you manage to score it turn 2-3, it makes it easier for you to brute force another 5/3.

Hostile Takeover are self explanatory - you use them to win after scoring GT or two 5/3s.

Operations

Transactions galore! Green Level Clearance actually synergizes both with the identity and the idea behind the deck: it allows you to draw into stuff such as Dedication Ceremony or ICE you happen to need. On a general note, the Transaction economy of this deck is meant to provide you with enough credits to rez bigger ICEs this deck packs and still have enough left over to advance. The GRNDL version often felt like it just ran out of scoring money, and if you find yourself in a situation where you have to click for credits with this deck, then you have pretty much already lost.

The lack of BOOM! comes from very prosaic reason of me not liking to play with proxes and not yet having purchased the Flashpoint cycle. One PC will be swapped in for BOOM! once I have them.

One notable cut from GRNDL version was Election Day - another case of a card which works well in theory, but in practice very rarely work. You usually tend to have at least one or two cards in your had you want to hold on very dearly - Dedication Ceremonies and Consulting Visit are most likely culprits. Discarding them down rarely feels like a good choice - and so, ED got cut.

Ice Selection

Big changes here. In general, I moved away from using super cheap ETRs such as Vanilla or Paper Wall in favour of slightly more sturdy ICE such as Spiderweb or Little Engine. Since this deck can actually generate solid bursts of money early on, it turned out that it is better to just overspend somewhat on more solid ICE. Most of the choices should be self-evident. I tried out Hive but it actually falters when you score a 5/3, which happens regularly enough for it to be an issue.

Mother Goddess deserves a special mention as an amazing tool against decks that lack AIs or tutoring. It stops many runners dead in their tracks, buying you an extra turn or two of time as they frantically search for an answer. It also pairs really nicely with Wraparound for AI hate.

In general, while playing this deck, it often pays out to create some sort of miniature glacier-like remotes with 3 or 4 pieces of ICE. Even when trying to score GT, you often find yourself in a situation where you don't want to spend all three of your clicks advancing (because, for example, there are four advancement tokens on it, or you just used Dedication Ceremony to boost it), so the rest is well spent on boosting your economy and spamming more ice.

Closing words

I don't really think that this is a good deck - it is inconsistent, although less than the original GRNDL incarnation. There are certain decks and cards which just wreck it without contest. However, it is very fun (and surprisingly tricky) to pilot, allows you to be very cheeky, wins surprising amounts of time, and allows you, if you manage to score GT, to spend an entire turn gleefully clicking for three credits per click. And that is just amazing.