Fortress HB

rojazu 1339

This deck tries to build an impenetrable remote using ICE that leverages your board state and in testing has been solid so far. Sorry mate, you're not coming in.

Firstly lets look at ICE: The idea here is you have some tool which will either negate their suite in some way to make your remote impenetrable (in which case, just rush), or just obnoxiously taxing.

By using an ETR of each type that is impossibly taxing, we can lock the runner out of our remotes and centrals. A 9 sub Ashigaru is impossible for one Lady to break, incredibly taxing for Corroder and virtually locks out Faust. A 9 strength IQ is more expensive to break than a Tollbooth with Zu/Gordian, its only weakness is D4v1d, bonus marks for rezzing in the early game. An X sub Tour Guide is incredibly taxing (my record is 13 subs) for any Sentry which isnt Switchblade, for hardly any investment. It baits out parasites, which protects your more expensive ICE but weaker strength ICE (namely Ashigaru). The ubiquitously taxing Turing, ELi, Architect round out the suite. Even if they get through there will be an Ash waiting for them.

Assets: The deck is built around Cybernetics Court and in testing I have found it requires little or no protection (unless you are facing Whizzard or Imp). Most runners will ignore it in the early game and will only consider trashing it once they see your ICE. By that point it costs 8 to trash and you normally have another one in hand (or you can sponser it back into play with the scoring window trashing it creates). It solves Agenda Flood, buffs your ICE, allows you to stockpile/hide Agendas in HQ, and synergises with Sponsership really nicely.

Encryption Protocol - another staple in this deck, it increases the tax on the runner and the number of subs on tour guide, for free. Once you have a few of these on the table, most of your assets are untrashable, and you probably have already won.

Team Sponsership is an all star in this deck. It recurs any trashed assets, more importantly it brings back Tour Guides, as they only have so many clone chips. If they dont have parasite, this becomes prohibitively expensive. Team Sponsership offers huge synergies here - you can score 3 research grants in 1 window, you can score a Pri Req and install an ICE before triggering it, you can more quite safely trigger ABT or just beef up your towers further with Ash/ICE. Its probably the most powerful corp card printed since Jackson.

Agendas

3 ABT is Mandatory with Sponsership in the deck and a Jackson thats hard to trash. 3 NAPD to increase the tax on the runner and as you are not looking to fast advance so you can score these glacially if you need to. 3 Research Grant for the Sponsership combo basically makes this agenda a 3/3+, whilst 1 Pri Req and 1 VV to round out the suite.

Cybernetics Court gives you a decent shot at pulling off the Research Grant combo but some serious consideration should be given to +1 Pri Req -3 Research Grant freeing up 2 deckslots for Hedge Funds / Eve etc which could be more effective in setting up in the early game.

In testing I have found that runners are not prepared to face this ICE suite, and the synergy of the deck is impressive. I love the way that the Encryption Protocols buff the Assets, which in turn buff the ICE (via str/subs/recursion). Whizzard is the toughest matchup but I have found it to still be winnable as he is a bit slow and you have all 3 types of ETR to gear check with.

Good luck, have fun!

6 comments
17 Sep 2015 FarCryFromHuman

I'm not sure if you were trying to say this, but I don't think the window created by scoring a Research Grant with Team Sponsorship on the board will allow you to score other RGs from hand/archives. When the effect of the scored RG goes off, all "when scored" triggers go into a list, the order of which you can choose, but no further abilities can go into the list. This means that any RGs on the board go into that triggered list, but ones in HQ/archives do not (as they are not in play). You can use TS to install RGs, but their effects are probably not valid.

17 Sep 2015 TipsyGamer

@FarCryFromHuman I don't think that's correct. I saw a ruling by Lukas that they worked. (http://twitter.com/RukasuFox/status/643453476010393600). You control the order of the triggers, so if you trigger Sponsorship first, you can install the second Grant, trigger the first Grant to score the second, trigger Sponsorship again and install the third, then score it as well.

17 Sep 2015 rojazu

Hi it is a good question, as intuitively it seems that the research grant should already be scored before the next one is install. However i think the combo is valid using the ruling on cascading triggers.

ancur.wikia.com

In the same way, you can install a beefy ICE from hand or the bin and trigger the pri req scoring ability after the sponsership install.

17 Sep 2015 FarCryFromHuman

@rogedavi: For some reason I thought the ability worked the opposite way; you are completely correct. You can score a Research Grant, install a Research Grant from HQ/Archinves using the trigger from Team Sponsorship, and then resolve the scored RG to score the newly installed RG at the same time. Interesting discussion though, thanks for correcting me!

17 Sep 2015 rojazu

Indeed, early testing shows this deck is legit (am yet to drop a game). I have a slight preference for the version with the 2 pri reqs, although this makes team sponsership less likely to trigger im finding opponents are trashing it on site anyway. Freeing up slots for 2 additonal eves simply overwhelms the runner and this deck explodes to 30+ credits allowing you to easily rez the ashigaru/IQs and still have plenty in the bank for Ash traces. the Ice count optically seems a bit low, but similar to IG your jackson often sits on the table for awhile and you can use his primary ability to drawup to 9, allowing you to find the pieces.

20 Sep 2015 Phoenix

Played this deck last night on OCTGN and my opponent conceded and left the game after I used 3 Team Sponsorship to reinstall 3 Encryption Protocol for the second time....