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unitled 468

First pass on a Cybernetics Division deck!

Thematically, I'm really happy with this deck. The Cybernetics arm of HB would naturally have some brutal bioroids to protect themselves, plus the horrific hound of Fenris chasing down intruders. What is their plan? Create new robotics quickly and control the population through their cybernetics; and who wouldn't want them when you could look like an Adonis? It's even got a bit of a Blade Runner feel to it, what with the Archived Memories and the False Lead (I maintain the picture on that card shows a Voight-Kampff test machine...).

I think this deck wants to run unadvanced cards to bait the runner into taxing runs on a scoring server. By rushing out those early agendas, you can make the runner run before they are ready and hopefully bait them into Brain Damage. Once they've taken 3 Brain Damage (or some combination of Brain Damage and Self-Destruct Chips, they're in easy range of the EMP kill. And even before then, they're in kill territory if they're careless.

Inazuma means killer-only facechecking is still risky; those Fenris are a great early bit of Brain Damage, and the dream play is for Inazuma into Heimdall as it's done half your job for you. They turn back on your sentries; a turn one Mimic is going to really ruin your day otherwise. False Lead also works great with this tactic: if they hit a Heimdall at any point you can make one brain damage stick.

I didn't go for some staple Brain Damage cards here; Sentinel Defense Program while good, simply doesn't fit in with the deck needing an extra advancement. The one I'd really like to squeeze in is Edge of World, but I think the deck is likely running very tight on econ considering the Heimdalls.

I'm not sure about the econ package in general, the HB in faction econ draws you cards which I don't necessarily want with a smaller hand size. I just think the whole thing is going to run very poor!

Card to look to in the future is maybe Defective Brainchips; thematically, it fits in very well, and if you can get it early it makes pretty much everything terrifying. Obvious worries with the deck are people using hand-size increasing cards, as I think will become more common in the SanSan cycle. Note that IHW does absolutely zip against Brain Damage!

Okay, this is pretty much a best guess for an ID that isn't even out yet. Maybe another key card for it will be released in the same pack, or the metagame will have massively changed. Happy to hear more ideas or discussion!

7 comments
24 Feb 2015 unitled

As has been suggested to me, -2 Beanstalk and +2 Successful Demonstration would free up 2 inf, then maybe dropping a Neural EMP would give another 2 inf to allow 2 Edge of World to be added. But that needs an extra card slot!

24 Feb 2015 sruman

The beanstalk royalties stuck me as strange as well. I find successful demonstrations too situational as late game runners will only run if they know they will succeed. An equivalent switch might be green level clearance which nets you 2 credits and 1 card so econ-equiv . Or blue level which is slightly better but may be too many cards if you have a full hand often.

24 Feb 2015 unitled

@sruman Yeah, GLC was my first thought; I think when it came out, every HB deck that was running Beanstalk swapped straight over! I guess my worry is with a hand of 4 cards, you're going to be up at that limit more often, so as often as not you won't want the extra card.

Also, I was loathe to put them in, but maybe the Viktor could be a Gyri Labyrinth? That way an EMP kill is much closer, you only need a single Brain Damage on them.

Finally, again as has been pointed out, IHW means EMP is a much less effective kill card. I'm coming round to the idea of Edge of World instead.

24 Feb 2015 HolyMackerel

Thought: Cerebral Overwriter? HB Brain Damage seems like the kinda deck that wants that sort of thing.

Also, I'm not sure about that Agenda suite. Since you have a smaller hand size and deck, I think you might want to include Hades Fragment or Priority Requisition to have fewer agendas, since it seems this deck gets Agendaflooded easily.

24 Feb 2015 unitled

@pang4 Honestly, I deliberately passed up on the 5/3 agendas and advancable traps; I feel the two really go hand in hand. And to be frank, that might be the way to go with this ID. Run 5/3s, and then complement with stuff like Cerebral Overwriters, Mushin and Punitive Counterstrikes. I have a friend who is going to do exactly that, and he had great success running an all 5/3 (+ 2 Breaking News) NEH deck.

If you don't run the larger agendas, the runner is going to know anything with counters on it is a trap (or an overscored vitruvius) and will usually avoid. Jinteki has Trick of Light and Weyland has Blue Sun to help with those situations, but outside of using Isabel McGuire I don't know what HB does!

24 Feb 2015 x3r0h0ur

try's hand makes brain damage stick a lot when runners are clicking through your bioroids (particularly the 2.0s). If you want more BD, thats a great source for you...if you can rez the big boys.

24 Feb 2015 unitled

@x3r0h0ur Your original Purple Jinteki was really influential for me, you can probably still see the skeleton of that here! I've never seen Tyr's Hand in play ever, actually, is it quite effective? How does it stack up with Ryon Knight?