Friends in Dead Spaces

I've been waiting for this new MWL to drop for a while before posting this, since nothing had really changed since Dead Space 2, runner side. Corps got a lot of new tools as far as asset spam is concerned, but runner meta was stagnant and predictable.

But now we have a new meta, and a resurrection of Dead Space. Some alternate win conditions, such as EoI, have been dropped in favor of a more consistent BOOM! wincon, backed with significantly more recursion and economy.

So let's take a look, starting with...

The Core:

• Wincon: Mumbad City Hall, the holy grail of tutoring. With MCH>Consulting Visit, you're often able to throw out a Hard-Hitting News after almost every runner turn once you've set up an econmy. Using it to toss out Museums to recur Consulting Visits allows you to refresh your tutorable pool quite reliably, and maintain pressure by delivering 2nd and 3rd HHNs when the runner tries to trash a Zealous Judge. Furthermore, even though MCH is only a 1x, any Tech Startup can reliably chain into it, allowing you to set up your threat very consistently.

• Econ: Indian Union Stock Exchange, Turtlebacks, and NASX combine to form a rapidly accelerating and strong economy when consistently backed up by recurred Friends in High Places. Tech Startups can begin to net you up to 9 credits with each install, and 28 cards in the deck become either free or turn a profit on rez. Commercial Bankers Group is of course included, but I've found in my experience that it's far too easily handled without additional support, which we have in the form of both the ID and Encryption Protocol. The driving force behind an asset based econ is to provide you with a non-capped number of credits, and to tax the runner a greater amount than you invested when they try to stop you. Friends and Encryption serve this function to great effect.

Tricks and Tech:

• Sandburg can allow you a pseudo-glacier strategy if tagging fails, and can really help in locking up centrals. Without Sifr, a Tour Guide-Sandburg server creates a major problem that is either unsolvable for the runner (when taking your credit gain into account), or taxes them heavily enough to open tagging windows.

• Zealous Judge allows you to assuredly tag the runner after an HHN, so should usually be protected by and ICE with the aforementioned Sandburg somewhere on the table. Usually after a run on a Judge, you can Jackson Howard to put Consulting Visit and HHN back in your deck, and tutor it out the following turn.

• Elizabeth Mills: NACH and Slums exists. Also Valencia I guess.

• Best Defense allows you to destroy key breakers to lock in Sandburg, or snipes stupid bullshit like DLR.

• Freelancer allows you to further deal with DLR a bit better, and also has the potential to pay you while you do it. Even Consulting Visit>Freelancer isn't a terrible play when you have Indian Union.

The Common Plays:

• At it's core, you want to achieve Mumbad City Hall into Consulting Visit-HHN, then follow up with a tutored BOOM!. This combo is strengthened by Zealous Judge and Museum of History, but the second turn can be patched up with a Jackson Howard.

• NASX can lead to some serious shit. Depending on how many econ pieces you have you, you can wrack upwards of 15 tokens on this before popping it, all in one turn. Additionally, once it's been tutored out, it gives you a consistent profitable target for Friends.

• Recurring Tech Startups with Turtlebacks and Indian Unions on the board is an aggressive and profitable way to rapidly advance your boardstate. They also give you consistent targets for Friends, similar to NASX.

Troublesome Runners, and How To Deal: