Urban Warfare

umbralAeronaut 804

A fairly standard Reina rushdown deck using a mix of Anarch pressure tools and Caissa to force an attack. The idea is to ramp up gradually from Knight/Parasite to a Darwin/Cyberfeeder/Bishop/e3FI late-game rig that can keep pressuring the opponent.

Darwin here is a replacement for Overmind from previous versions of the deck. Darwin gets the nod now because this deck is less focused on forcing telegraphed multi-access runs and instead is happy to poke around the weak spots of the corporation's servers with Hemorrhage rewarding otherwise-fruitless runs of opportunity.

In terms of program choice, the Caissa suite is great for Rook's obvious synergy with Reina's ID, but also for some more subtle reasons. By running more Caissa (rather then more Viruses) you keep the corps' Virus Purge DEFCON low and also incentivize the corp trashing their own ICE, which this deck loves. Bishop gets little love normally but in this deck it provides a surprise factor that Datasucker lacks (it's like getting a free Surge on the turn you install a Sucker) while also playing into the previously-mentioned strengths.

Hemorrhage is the 'win condition' program of choice because it fits into Reina's opportunistic attack strategy. An early Hemorrhage provides immense pressure on the corp, usually the first things to fall out of HQ are ICE and utility cards followed by Econ events. Every card bled out of HQ in this way makes it harder and harder to replace ICE lost to Parasite and the Caissa suite.

2 comments
21 Oct 2014 ktfod

I'm curious as to why you chose Inject here. With a 50/50 split of programs and everything else, wouldn't this be only good in the late game since you have almost no recursion options? I'd be inclined to cut Lucky Find for Sure Gamble and use the extra influence to replace Inject with Diesel, but I'm really interested to hear your thoughts on this.

21 Oct 2014 umbralAeronaut

Inject is a tricky card to use, I agree. The way I believe is best to look at Inject is as an economy event. While a runner has Diesel in their hand, they aren't gonna click for a card. You just use Diesel instead when you want to draw. But I will often click=>draw with Inject in hand, if what I'm looking for rig pieces to attack a server or exploit a weakness. When I play Inject, it's because I specifically want to dig for an LF or Armitage or piece of Hardware or something similar. So it requires a different philosophy.

If I were to do anything, it would be to run Diesel alongside Inject so that this deck has a reliable draw engine. However I haven't felt the need yet, part of the necessary challenge of learning an Anarch deck (imho) is figuring out how to make the many unique tools of each hand you are dealt work for you. Decks like this have a multitude of ways to inflict pressure which can come together in interesting new combinations every game. It's never about having "that one card I need" unlike say, Shaper.

I do agree that Inject is NOT right for many Anarch decks, Noise especially. But in this case I like it. No single program, not even Darwin or Knight, is absolutely necessary to the deck's game the way Cache is for Noiseshop.

Sure Gamble is simply a card that stays dead in my hand when I'm running Reina. What's most important about Lucky Find is not the 6-credit return, it's the 3-credit buy-in. After Turn 1 having 5 or more credits is a luxury I can rarely count on with Reina, and I have a deep personal dislike of clicking up for credits so I can burn a Sure Gamble.