TagInfusion

Tired of your beautiful ICE getting sliced to pieces by blades that move at Mach 2?

Confused about how otherwise strong ICE seems porous?

Come join me as we surprise and delight with all manner of happy cards!

As a long-time AgInfusion enthusiast (ID hipster credentials here and here), I am disheartened by the current state of the meta. The presence of efficient breakers (1c to break two subs) plus the aforementioned jet engines to boost strength makes me depressed about the game. If I pay 8-10c to rez some big ICE, should I really expect that I need to also slot Rime to prevent the runner from breaking for 2-3c?

I tried messing around with a mid-range tempo Ag, as I don't have have the patience to run Ag as a pseudo-prison deck. But the quality Anarch lists, most with Turbines, just wrecked the midrange.

So, some misdirection. Appear at first glance to be a standard Ag List, but move to kill. Essentially import all the bad feel / bad touch cards, the ICE that only exists to do 2 net damage on rez, and the La Costa shell to advance some new murder agendas that feel like some rogue Jinteki corpo subcontracted with some Weyland factory.

Card Choices:

Authenticator - Strong strength to rez ratio and if the runner takes the tags, great. Didin't work out this way on they day as the runners had Buzzsaw / Turbine and broke for 1c.

Snare! - Useful with Bacterial on multi-access runs. Net damage and tags. What's not to love?

Charlottes - Money, cards, camouflage.

End of the Line - The kill card to pair with See how they run. Double advance to make the agenda look like a Bio Vault, then let it sit. Worked well in one game, but that was against Anicam Lat, which pretty much had 5 to 6 cards in hand and Aniccam protection. (More on that in a bit.)

Pivot - Murder requires flexible consultants.

Public Trail - Opponents ran broke against Ag because they weren't expecting this card. Got me one win.

ICE - These are taxing choices that came from some recent PE lists.

Results:

The deck went 2-1 for the day.

Murdered Mercury deck on a Divide and Conquer run. Had a Spin Doctor on the table, Pivot in hand, and a Snare! in hand. Bacterial in the bin. They ran this last click, and I was able to use Bacterial to choose which cared they accessed off RnD, force-feed another Snare! from the deck to land the tag and then Pivot the End of the Line. (Sad note for the Merc player: they accessed the Pivot from HQ, but were only on one credit. So they couldn't trash. Lucky > Good. And a lesson for me: they can trash Pivot, so fill the hand with everything from Bacterial if you need Pivot to win.)

Killed Kit running broke and with few cards in hand on a Public Trail / End of the Line combo. Had to burn a lot of ice bouncing Burner runs away from HQ.

Lat was the one that got away. Player was on Anicam, and I thought I had the kill but forgot about Anicam firing when trashing agendas on their turn. Lost to a Deep Dive after I couldn't get them to run the Snare! disguised as the final agenda. (Had to jam it when we both knew he could get his double Turbine engines anywhere he pleased for about 4 credits).

Answering Some Anticipated Questions:

Isn't this better in PE?

Yes, probably. But the surprise element here is what I was going for. People expect murder with PE.

Why no Bio Vaults?

Slots. And I wasn't opposed to losing some points with Bacterial to get kill pieces.

Thoughts on Tributary Ban?

Would have been fine if they also banned Turbine. As a longtime Jinteki player, I'm frustrated that many of their new cards seem to jump right onto the ban list.

A big thank you to my local community for overlooking my tendency to yell at clouds all the time.

Last Plea:

Let's get some aggressive, meta-stimulating bans going here. If we're not getting new cards for a year, we should make people dust off some older IDs and ICE breaking strategies.

My suggestion:

The best IDs and card effects push the game into unusual or unexpected play patterns. The worst just give you more value for playing the game. That's the main issue with Hoshiko and Sports. They add value for doing things (accessing cards, scoring agendas) that you would normally do anyway during the run of the game. Sports would be way more interesting (though probably not viable in competitive space ) if you only got cards / credits on your opponent's steals. Or your opponent got to choose cards or credits on their steals.

That, or perhaps a system for bans like Flesh and Blood that mixes things up by banning the uber-successful IDs.

All that whingeing aside, I am grateful that the game is still around and thankful for all the people that make it possible.

Always. Be. Running.