Adaptable Fast-Advance

Zetan 151

It's still a work in progress, but I suppose most decks are. This is the current version of my Near-Earth Hub deck.

No, it's not your typical NEH. There's no Biotic Labor, meaning at least one of my agendas needs to be scored the "real" way (behind ICE) or at least with SanSan (which also has to sit behind ICE for at least a turn). The advantage of doing things this way is that it isn't as reliant on "score from hand" tactics, and has a better chance of surviving a metagame which now includes Edward Kim.

Sure, sometimes I still get lucky and ride the Astro-train to victory. But when that plan fails, and the runner gains control, this deck is good at wrestling control back. It has a few nasty ICE, like Heimdall 2.0 and Archer, neither of which anyone will see coming in an NEH build; most of them don't have the influence. 3 Architects may be too many... only time and testing will tell. Reversed Accounts, Will-o'-the-Wisp, and Self-destruct (especially with a Jackson in another server) have all proved to be harsh surprises that can reclaim tempo.

The deck does marvelously with economy; I generally don't start scoring until I have at least 10 credits and 2 more coming every turn. More than that if I have ICE that might need rezzing. The enemy is expecting a rush, so they don't know what to do when I just keep building. I don't score until I have the resources to reliably score every turn for the rest of the game, and that patience usually pays off.

3 comments
4 Feb 2015 Bananifier

Heimdall 2.0 is pretty fun with Troll ;) (it also works well with Eli, but it's far more boring). At worse, it's a 1-2 credit tax that cost you 1.

Apart from that, I believe your deck suffers a lot against Desperado + Security Testing. You're lucky both cards are sub-par and not played a lot. Oh, wait a minute... :(

5 Feb 2015 Zetan

Hadn't thought much about Troll; that's a really great point, I'll have to find room for it.

Surprisingly, I haven't been running into a lot of criminals... maybe it's my local meta?

5 Feb 2015 Zetan

Thinking on it more, in a criminal-heavy meta, I'd probably switch back to a more operation-heavy economy. Before NEH came out, this deck used to be Making News with cards like Green Level Clearance, Beanstalk Royalties, and Restructure, which worked quite well. I don't know if I'd switch identities back, but if I was expecting to face a lot of criminals in a tournament, I might switch the econ back.