Project CROW 5

Welcome to the fifth iteration of the Project CROW mini-campaign for beginners familiar with System Gateway and System Update 2021. It consists of a set of duel decks that are upgraded over three stages. We start at the first stage mainly with cards from System Gateway + System Update 2021, but introduce a few key cards from the Standard pool (see here for further information on the tournament formats Startup and Standard). At stage 2, we open up the card pool to the Startup format, but also add some more necessary Standard cards to teach some further elements. Stage 3 are the two decks Frog off, Keeling! and Calibrating...TUCANA! that @percomis and myself brought to the 2023 EMEA Continentals placing 16th and 30th respectively (out of a total of 145 players).

New cards

We start with a basic Built to Last list. Cards from outside the System Gateway + System Update card pool are:

• Azef Protocol - This card enables Weyland to play a 7x 3/2 agenda suite, which lends itself well to a fast-advance plan (i.e. scoring agendas in the same turn you advance them).
• Rashida Jaheem - This card is a staple of Standard and accelerates any deck it is played in. Best use is to have this + an end the run ice on turn 1 and just catapult yourself into the game with 3 new cards to use and 3 credits to kick-start your economy.
• Slash and Burn Agriculture + Tree Line - The Expendable mechanic in the newest set "The Automata Initiative" makes for some very flexible cards, where you can use them either for their usual card text or for their expendable ability, discarding them in the process. Especially the agenda is interesting, as you can use it to fast-advance your other agendas at the cost of now having 2 points in your Archives ready for the Runner to steal.

Description

The main feature of this deck is the fast-advance strategy. Put a 3/2 agenda into a remote, advance it once (netting a credit from your ID ability) and then use Trick of Light to shift 2 further advancement tokens from some of your advanceable ice to it. Almost all of your agendas are scoreable from hand, with the exception of Slash and Burn Agriculture, which acts as a fourth fast-advance tool at the expense of placing 2 points into Archives.

Your game plan is protecting HQ while creating a scoring remote to put Rashida Jaheem and Agendas into in the early game. Once the Runner is capable of getting into your remote, aim to score the remaining points directly from hand instead. To enable Trick of Light, either manually advance your ice or expend Tree Line as a more efficient alternative.

Overview lists

These links show you all the necessary cards to build all three stages of the lists and give dedicated in/out lists for each stage transition.

Corp Overview | Runner Overview

Decklists

Corp 1 | Runner 1

Corp 2 | Runner 2

Corp 3 | Runner 3