#9 A fresh start.

Ventrikel 28

The deck is thought to operate at relatively low amounts of cash. The most expensive ice is Guard and Datapike at 4. Toshiyuki Sakai will hopefully mainly be used with Thomas Haas (or Haas Arcology AI), but can also act as a trap with Junebug or Cerebral Overwriter. Most agendas require me to advance three times, so they will be on the table frequently just like my advancable assets.

Maybe I'll need much more money than I think, considering how many cards I have to advance. But I find it hard to squeeze in more economy cards - with quite limited protection for my assets; and without switching out my whole Toshiyuki thing, which leaves the deck kind of empty?

3 comments
26 Mar 2015 FarCryFromHuman

Number nine huh? Let's see...

The Pros:

Got some serious mindgames here. Haas Arcology AI is in no deck ever, so that is going to be a shocker when you rez it. I don't think you'll get many ticks off it before it's trashed though so maybe only 2 advancements max before you flip it. All of your 3/X agendas are scoreable from hand for 4, so that's at least a single scoring window and if the runner doesn't address it next turn you can score two agendas back to back... yuck!

I think you are right about being able to run relatively low econ, especially if you score a Gila Hands Arcology right off the bat. You can do a lot with 3 in this deck.

The Cons:

Thomas Haas with Toshiyuki Sakai... are you planning to dump Toshi's tokens on Thomas, and then immediately rez and trash him for creds? I don't think there's a card rez window there so that combo might not work.

Your ICE seems like it will cover you early game with great efficacy (being both cheap and punishing to a runner without a quick rig). However, once the runner is set up he's not going to struggle much to get in. You have 4 traps, and ideally up to 6 net damage worth in agenda steals, but creating scoring windows might be difficult if your traps don't hit.

Private Security Force only activates when the runner hits a Snare! and keeps his tag... you might want to reconsider that. There are some pretty sweet options for agendas here (Fetal AI is a standard in PE for a reason).

Net damage: you might not be doing enough? PE either aims to kill the foolish runner, or just mill a cautious runner out of the game (either by leaving him with no tools or by causing him to draw so inefficiently it creates scoring windows). You have some kill options, but I don't think you have enough net damage (mostly looking at your sentries and code gates here). Pup might be fun for you, and Neural Katana is always unpleasant to face-check. Rainbow seems meh, and would free up 3 slots for better ICE.

27 Mar 2015 Ventrikel

You're great at making me think about things :)

With Toshiyuki Sakai, since it gets bumped up to HQ if they access it (right?), I can use it several times in a game. What I want to swap it for will depend on if they want to check or not, if it turns out many enemies want to check it I'll be using Snare! (Did I interpret it right: I can use it, though it wont benefit from the advancement tokens?), Project Junebug or Cerebral Overwriter. If they're afraid to check out the swapped card frequently, I'll place a Thomas Haas or Haas Arcology AI - and that way at least not lose an agenda if they do check. If I buy trace amount, Fetal AI will under certain circumstances be a good one to swap down instead. I'll have the option of gambling and placing an agenda there too...

I took Private Security Force to counteract Account Siphon which is a card I face a lot... Didn't think it through too much though - 1-3 damage wont make much of a difference at all.

About the Ice... Rainbow is kinda meh I suppose, the reason why I took it is because my only other ice above strength 3 is a bioroid - so it wont take much for the runner to get through. A problem I had with Bioroids was that even when I had great variety so they wouldn't have the right ice breakers, the enemy still got right through if they just spent a few clicks. That's why I now have End the run. everywhere. But with my weak ice, it wont take them long to get through anyway.

Anyways, I'll have to depend on them to not run on and access every remote with advancement tokens on it - at least not the first round it's installed. Maybe that's something the net damage ice would do better - instead of forcing them to find a way through, it will make them want to prepare more for doing the run (thus running there less frequently)..?

29 Mar 2015 Ventrikel

Played this with a couple of alterations (only ice I think, it's saved in my update above) a few times today. Toshiyuki Sakai never saw play, neither did Thomas Haas or Haas Arcology AI. I can easily change those for Snare! and something else... Private Contracts was allowed to stay in play "because it is so crappy" which suits me perfectly. I guess I can use the occasional trap, though! Maybe a few more pieces of ice too..? Trying it further tomorrow, I'll have to change Toshiyuki Sakai before then because I just don't think I'll have the time to use that dude. Also Mushin No Shin was harder to use than I had realized.