City Works Spike v1.0

Hello everybody

Well, this is purely a combo deck, it performs well until the runner doesn't know what's coming but it is not that bad even if the runner is aware of the game plan. What is this game plan? Easy: put your opponent in a lose-lose situation and flatline whatever he/she does.

I have always loved janky decks because there is a lot of satisfaction when they finally work, for this reason few weeks ago I decided to try a Neurospike deck outside the most exploited combo with Reeducation.

The first choice was Precision Design with Show of Force but the deck had few drawbacks, firstly runners tend to be more aggressive against that ID, and HB in general, to avoid it rushing and that gave me less time to assemble the combo, secondly I had to IAA show of force, hope that it would stand for a turn and then Seamless Launch + Neurospike + Neurospike.. Really too janky to work.

Then my girlfriend gave me a better idea saying I should try it with City Works Project and here we are

How does it work: Like many combo decks the most important thing is to find the combo and protect it, so in the first turns we just make money and ice massively HQ and R&D, a single ice (better if it is Akhet) in a remote is usually enough to protect Wall to Wall which then can put the required advancements on Akhet and on the ices of the centrals.

The goal then is to find the perfect hand composed by City Works Project, Dedication Ceremony, Punitive Counterstrike, 2x Neurospike. Everything else in the deck is just money and protection, Global Food Initiative should be discarted and put back in R&D via Spin Doctor, we don't want to make runners feel they are in trap and force their hand by scoring.

If everything goes according to the plan the runner will be cautious, making just few tries on centrals and waiting for us to make a move, as soon as the combo is ready it is time to take back Wall to Wall and install City Works Project, advance (which gives back 2 ) and Dedication Ceremony, now the agenda costs 6 damage to be stolen (7 if there is Akhet in front of it to put a fifth advancement), considering that we want to put ourselves in this situation while we have no scored agenda the runner will probably let these first 3 points go to win later on, that's all we need, they will die next turn through advance Neurospike Neurospike.

In case they decide to steal the agenda we can punish them for the win.

Of course there are some issues in the gameplan: it is possible that the runner is richer and we can't use Punitive Counterstrike, moreover there are few cards that mess with our strategy such as Citadel Sanctuary, I've Had Worse or No One Home.

Card choices and possible upgrades:

• Wall to Wall is crucial in the strategy, it provides few credits and makes the ices stronger but most importart it provides an additional card each turn to find the combo quicker. Always choose the card as first trigger

• Global Food Initiative is good here because avoids the runner winning with 2 agendas + Mad Dash, in addition it triggers well Punitive Counterstrike if the runner ia able to sneak it out of HQ or R&D

• Weyland Consortium: Built to Last has been choosen just because it is 40/15 and allows us to play just 6 agendas

• NGO Front is great with Built to Last and doesn't mess with Wall to Wall

• No Consulting Visit because we can't afford a double operation in the Neurospike turn, so it would be good just in case we miss the Punitive Counterstrike, not enough to be included

• Malapert Data Vault is actually the fourth Neurospike in the deck and can be installed on a rezzed Wall to Wall, the runner probably won't check it

• I thought about the possiblity of moving the deck in Argus Security: Protection Guaranteed because runners are even more cautious against Argus and we can threaten them with 2 additional damage but I don't like the idea of putting more agendas. In addition Argus wouldn't trigger more then twice playing 5/3 agendas

Hope you liked