MaxX's Mill Race

MTUCache 59

Looks like with O&C coming out many of us have had some similar inspiration to get MaxX up to speed.

Yes, at first glance, a 70 card deck is ridiculous. I completely agree. I'm looking to trim this down, but I'm wondering if it wouldn't function as-is since all of the cards do seem to synergize towards the same goal anyway.

With this version of the Mill Race, I'm hopefully getting 6+ clicks per turn, drawing 5-6 cards per turn, trashing 3-4 cards per turn, and econ should be pumping enough to (hopefully) let Eater and Crypsis be the only breakers necessary for 1-2 runs at centrals. Yes, the brain damage will eventually set in, but by then an Archive run (or Hades Shard) will access enough agendas to win (or the Corp will be decked).

As always, there's too many good ideas in this deck. 4 or 5 tricks is too many to do efficiently, but they're all so damn good that cutting it back to 2 or 3 is going to be difficult. I'm really hesitant to lose the Joshua B/DLR combo for milling, but I'm concerned about the tags leading to trashed programs. The +hand size cards enable the extra draw, but these are susceptible to the same.

2 comments
29 Jan 2015 Mateus_ex_Machina

I can offer a few suggestions here. First off, Demolition Run combos poorly at best with Eater, since the former requires you to actually access cards first, and the latter prevents you from doing so. You'll be restricted to Crypsis when using Demolition Run. On a side note, any cards that allow you to access more cards from R&D or HQ might combo really well with Demolition run. Heck, I'd say the thing isn't incredibly useful on it's own. Medium installed on some Memstrips may be the order of the day to make that useful. Beach Party seems useful only in the sense that it keeps your hand size up, but if you take a tag from Joshua B., or really anything, the corp can trash that no problem; besides, it reduces the number of clicks you have to spend, and Public Sympathy also increases your hand size without that drawback. I understand you need the extra hand size given that you're running both Stim Dealer and Amped Up, but if you're going to play such a risky strategy, then for goodness sakes don't make it so that your hand size buffer can be easily trashed by tagging yourself. Either the DLR/Joshua B. combo has to go, or you need to cut down on self-inflicted brain damage. Honestly, I'd ditch the Joshua B./DLR combo first. The moment the corp player remembers they can trash resources if you're tagged, they can destroy DLR, breaking your combo. If you need the extra clicks, go with Rachel Beckman. With your econ, her cost shouldn't be a problem. I'd remove Express Delivery. Also, trim the Resources. Also, I feel your choice in Runner is not optimal for the strategy you're running. For a trash-based deck, I'd go with Whizzard. A good deal of the cards in your deck seem focused around mitigating MaxX's self-inflicted discard, and, while they can be useful in other scenarios, it seems like the primary reason for including them is based on your use of MaxX. The cards I'm talking about specifically are Deja Vu, Retrieval Run, Clone Chip, and of course Levy AR Lab Access. Same Old Thing is still viable, since it lets you play some of your trash-focused events more often. I'd maybe put in Aesop's Pawnshop, 2 or three of them, so you can trash Stim Dealer the moment your Brain Damage level gets too dangerously high. Of course, I prefer to play things safe when I can, so that's more personal preference. Hemorrhage, and Memstrips to give you the MU to use it, might further your "trash everything" strategy. Adding another copy of Crypsis might be good, since it is the only breaker you have that you can use if you want to actually access cards, and Surge could help you get some more mileage out of it. Similarly, another Eater would probably be helpful, since it is the breaker you're going to be using the most with Keyhole and Demolition Run. All-Nighter could be useful to get you some more clicks, which seems to be a focus of your deck. Other than that, just remove anything that doesn't directly help your strategy. For example, you seem to have a lot of econ cards, and that could possibly be cut back. Same for card draw cards. A final note, Beach Party probably won't be out for a while, so including that does prevent you from building this deck as it currently is. I'm sorry for the wall of text, and sorry if I come across as overly critical. My suggested changes, especially the change in ID, could really miss the point of what you are trying to achieve. I'm only trying to help.

29 Jan 2015 Mateus_ex_Machina

Oh, and one more thing: any deck that revolves around being able to dig into a single central server has one really hard counter: strong and/or copious ICE protecting that server. Crypsis is not a strong breaker, and any significantly large stack of ICE protecting Archives will keep you out of there. Eater won't help, as even if you get in there, using Eater precludes you from accessing cards, as I'm sure you know. I know the perils of concentrating on a single central server from experience. I run a Shaper deck focused on pulling as many cards from R&D as possible. I have two key advantages though: a strong breaker suite, and misdirection; by misdirection I mean getting the corp to use the majority of their ICE, especially the good ones, to defend R&D, leaving remotes and HQ wide open. The former isn't in your deck: you're running Crypsis, which is weak but versatile, and Eater, which is relatively strong but has a serious drawback. The latter, however, might work to your advantage, albeit in a different way. By trashing stuff left and right, you force the corp to distribute their ICE more evenly across their servers. Of course, the corp will still probably focus on Archives, and Crypsis can only get you through so much. Also, one card that may help you that I forgot to mention: Imp. That should give you more power to trash all sorts of stuff, including pesky ICE or good Agendas.