Acme Deck for President Roosevelt (FDR!)... and other people

The decklist for an Acme deck I used against FDR. A rather straightforward deck with not many frills but a surprisingly large number of answers for almost everything in the game at the moment.

Game plan is simple: force forks with no winning options. Endless EULA is downright brutal when active (I've had someone outright tell me it was their new most hated ICE), IP Block/UCF is just mean, HHN is HHN and even worse with MCA AP, Underway Grid is an instant win against certain Crim and Sunny decks if you can surprise them, and Psychographics is much the same. It creates windows for scoring which can be prevented only by the Runner being horribly inefficient against a painfully cost-efficient deck.

Agenda suite is a common NBN suite with Explode-a over Corporate Sales Team. 2 Overadvanced Beale/GFI+15 Minutes or 3 2-pointers+15 Minutes are the preferred goals. GFI over SSL since the deck is cheap and while CST is great for helping you out of a hole from scoring, EaP is much better for this deck since the deck's preference for low cost but high efficiency cards means that money now is much more valuable than bigger-in-the-long-term drip. I'll often drop an EaP naked and hope they run it to fuel ICE rezzes. Can't do that with CST.

Speaking of ICE, all the ICE used are absurdly efficient once online. Bandwidth is a standout since it's often an amazing gearcheck as a 0-to-rez, 5-strength Code Gate ensures no ICE below 4 strength (barring UCF) which makes this deck more or less hell against decks which rely on Aumakua. Nothing is as satisfying as forcing a Runner to install a Black Orchestra to spend 6 credits on an ICE that only cost the Corp 1 or 2 creds in total to install. Well, nothing except for ruining Runner wincons using Data Ward+UCF. A Data Ward behind UCF is a very good answer to near every major Anarch wincon. DW+UCF on Archives gives the Corp two or so turns to recur Agenda. UCF on R&D stops Counter Surveillance. An online UCF anywhere is often a better ETR and on rare occasions only just an ETR.

Everything else exists to enable this game plan. 5 Currents because Employee Strike kills this deck as it often does to many others and News Hounds because you might as well. You can replace SoR if you feel it's unfair. Doesn't really change much since UCF basically does the same job. The clearest losses I've had are often due to the Runner constantly recurring E-Strike via Same Old Thing, Hunting Grounds or even Trope in one instance which to be fair will screw over many decks regardless. Best bet is to find Data Raven/Bandwidth ASAP. Drudge Work is an amazing card and I refuse to hear otherwise. This kind of deck wants the game to go long since UCF dares the Runner to go solitaire. People underestimate Drudge Work not realizing how incredibly efficient it can get and it can and has won me games all on its own. It also helps soften blows against Clan Vengeance. If you see a fully charged Clan Vengeance on the board and have an unrezzed Drudge Work, rez it after their second click. Runner options become run Drudge Work (one less click for Runner to build up since Corp will dump Agenda back to R&D), pop it on the Runner turn (which nets Agendas but leaves a card in hand for Corp to use) or pop it on the Corp turn (clearing hand but allowing for Corp to pull Agenda back to R&D along with some creds). Not great options but better than no options in the matchup. Wish I could find room for another one but it works fine as a one-of.

2 Rashida Jaheem instead of 3 since it floods HQ too often at 3. MCA is an alternate wincon and combos with HHN (I don't see this too often and I can't help but ask why?). Cyberdex just hates on Aumakua even more along with the occasional Khumalo deck. Preemptive for a bit of recursion, usually HHN, MCA, and/or Drudge Work. Psychographics because Runners will go all or nothing against Acme and it's either this or High-Profile Target against tag-me. Gutenberg is an option for ICE but many of the ICE are positional already.

Ice placement is Bandwidth/Data Raven anywhere but innermost, News Hound innermost whenever possible and ETR/UCF outermost. People say Pachinko sucks in Acme but I don't see it here. It's pretty good as an early ICE and decent in the mid to late game. Hard ETR is a bit light in this suite so every little bit helps. ICE is cheap enough to rebuild after an Apocalypse easily even at zero credits. Assets and Upgrades make for fun shell games given how costly servers in this deck can get.

Games against this deck are rarely unfun. Data Ward is dickish but not necessarily unfair and I have lost against decks that didn't even run E-Strike. UCF is painful but it's not like it wasn't telegraphed by the ID. There are a lot of magic numbers in this deck such as 4 subs for Data Ward, 4 strength for the Sentries and 5 strength for Bandwidth which makes for interesting matchups against many common breakers.

This deck always feels like a mountain when it doesn't brick its opening hand (which given the ICE suite happens a fair number of times but not as bad as other decks) but when it works it makes for some of the most intense and thrilling games I've ever had in ANR. There are more games I've had with this deck that came down to the wire than blowouts on either side. Almost every game I've lost I can say with certainty I lost entirely because I misplayed at some point and I just know the Runner felt good beating this deck because there are no cheap tricks that you shouldn't already see coming, except maybe Underway Grid (which was mainly a tech for Inside Job that happened to hard counter certain decks). This deck is just good ol' fashioned Man vs Mountain.

See you at the top then, FDR.