[Startup] Ob Except It's Killing You

parchmentEngineer 29

At long last, and after designing nearly a dozen different decks, I've finally done it - I've created a deck that I can win with more than 50% of the time! Jokes aside, I'm really proud of this deck. It uses some cards that don't see a lot of play in Startup and uses them in Ob to do some very interesting tricks.

The goal of this deck is to get enough damage on the table to kill the runner in a single turn. This is mainly done with four different cards: Punitive Counterstrike, Reaper Function, Clearinghouse, and Azef Protocol. Outside of that, you want to be getting economy and playing a shell game with your agendas. There's not a lot of ice here, so be bold and don't be afraid to leave key servers unsecured.

Punitive Counterstrike is surprisingly the easiest to use for me. If you have two of them in your hand and the runner has two or less points, you've basically won once they steal their next agenda. Even one of them can still lethal using a combination of the other cards. Reaper Function is the other star of this deck. It is easy to leave on the table and fire it when needed, and if you think it's at risk you can pop it early and get a Regolith out of the deal. Clearinghouse and Azef Protocol are slightly harder to use, given that you need to double-advance them, but since the punishments are different for each of them hopefully you can confuse the runner enough to get them to leave them on the table for just barely too long.

Defense in this deck is extremely slim. Since you're leaving so many remotes exposed, Hostile Architecture is going to be your main deterrent to forcing runners to not touch your cards. This works very nice with your economy: very few people are going to be taking 2 damage just to trash a Regolith, and you can get even more money out of the deal by using Extract and Yakov. Another tool is ZATO City Grid, which lets you get a few hits on the runner and makes servers look scarier than they are.

Speaking of ZATO, let's talk ice. At the time I'm making this deck, Startup is dominated by the Endurance, so I've decided to forgo everything except a few essentials. Tithe is a good 1-credit taxer and can be fetched by Regolith when needed. Swordsman is here only to deal with runners who run only the boat and dolls as their breakers and force them back a step. Finally, Stavka is just a good card to combo with Ob when needed. None of these ices will ever secure a server for you, but you typically don't need to worry about that. Just play shell games with everything, and set things up so that when they do steal an agenda it'll be the last thing they'll ever do.

6 comments
18 Jun 2023 Oddball

Thanks for sharing your list! I like the unusual kill combo.

Have you thought about using Crisium Grid instead of ZATO City Grid?

19 Jun 2023 Satoshi

Hi! I enjoyed playing against this the other day.

One idea I have looking at the list is, maybe a Svyagtor Excavator is worth it, because you can try to summon a Reaper Function at start of your turn to get a kill. Maybe Stavka can be trashed, or you could run Hortum, which can also be decent AI hate?

19 Jun 2023 whaffles

@Satoshi If Svyatogor is used to Ob a Reaper Function, Reaper Function doesn't see its start of turn trigger and would be on the board a whole extra turn.

19 Jun 2023 parchmentEngineer

@Oddball That's actually a very nice suggestion! ZATO was originally in there to fuel a kill-combo with itself, Karunā, and Anemone, which didn't have anywhere near the consistency I would have liked and cost too many resources. Right now, I can sometimes snipe a program using ZATO and Stavka, but maybe subbing one or two of them for a Crisium Grid wouldn't hurt.

@Satoshi I remember that game against you! You gave me a lot of good tips about how to refine this deck and helped make this deck what it is. I actually did have Svyatogor in this deck, however, I couldn't really do anything with it. There was enough other economy in this deck, if I really needed to trash something I had Extract, and as @whafflessaid there's no way to combo it into start of turn damage with what I have here. I don't think I ever used it for its card text while it was a part of my deck.

22 Jun 2023 Satoshi

I see thanks, didn't realize that

22 Jun 2023 Satoshi

I guess the kill combo with excavator has to be

Reaper Function triggers -> Svyatogor Excavator extracts Tithe to install Drago Ivanov -> advance -> advance -> End of the Line