Jackson Howard's Space Camp for Wayward Runners

Boughner 251

1 comments
3 Apr 2015 Anima

I'm making a couple assumptions about how this deck is meant to be played, and immediately I dig the playstyle - throw space camp into the archives so the runner is no longer able to run there and "turn off" your ability and you don't need to ice it up as a result, tossing agendas / assets into your remote unadvanced and using your ID ability + 3 advances to score them next turn, and using Trick of Light to score those agendas when then runner doesn't let your ID fire. If all that is accurate, I can think of a few things that might help this work better.

Agendas - If scoring agendas from unadvanced in a single turn is your goal, it makes sense to use agendas that need 4 advancements and reward you in some way for using them, like Nisei Mk II or Medical Breakthrough, rather than Future Perfect or the smaller agendas. House of Knives and Chronos can still be excellent utility agendas, but just having fewer agendas in your deck may be better. Also worth consideration: single copy of Philotic Entanglement.

Assets - Having both Shock and Space Camp feels like overkill, since a runner will generally stop running archives with much frequency once either of those two ends up there. On the other hand, having some assets that can really hurt a runner for checking your unadvanced remote card could be really useful. I recommend dropping the Shocks entirely, and putting in some copies of Snare and Edge of World. Even if the runner never hits them, just knowing that the threat of flatline is there will make your unadvanced remotes much harder to run.

Upgrades - I like Crisium Grid, and it's ability to make your ID power go off more often is a great thing, but I think the influence would be better served going elsewhere. A similar effect can be achieved by putting Caprice Nisei on your central servers, and she can optionally serve to protect an emergency agenda when you just can't draw a Trick of Light and the runner won't give you your ID power.

Operations - Medical Research Fundraiser looks tempting, but your deck ultimately relies on taxation to stop a runner from hammering your servers every turn, and giving the runner free money doesn't help your cause. On the other hand, between your ID power and space camp (and some manual advancing), some of your ice should be gathering a pretty fair pile of advancements. Commercialization begins looking pretty attractive in a big hurry, and is a reasonable place to put the influence that was in Crisium Grid.

ICE - Ice Wall and Fire Wall are ICE choices I like quite a lot, and Pup does a good job of being taxing without breaking the bank in the early game, so I'm quite happy with those choices. I would argue for all 3 copies of Ice Wall if possible, and 3 Pup would not be wrong either. The other ice I'm less in love with, for various reasons: Chum generally provides the same tax per encounter as Pup, but is just miserable to see in your opening hand without two other ice; Pop-up is decent enough for generating money, but your deck is more concerned with taxing the runner heavily for each access than collecting a fee when runners run, and the influence could buy ice that does that job much better; Enigma makes for very good early game ice, but doesn't quite live up on the taxation side... this one I could see going either way; Susanoo is large and taxing to get through, but his relatively low impact, unique nature, and high rez cost make him less appealing to me... 1 copy of him might be okay, but I can think of other Jinteki ICE I'd rather have.

ICE alternatives - As for alternatives I do like, I'll just mention a few and give reasons I think they would be useful. Weyland's cosmic ice (particularly Nebula, but also Wormhole) is asking for influence that I'm not sure this deck can spare, but is a fantastic way to be taxing on the runner while benefiting from both your ID and your deck so far (space camp). Jinteki natives Lotus Field, Tsurugi, and Komainu all provide excellent taxation at a moderate-to-high cost, and are where I'd look instead of Susanoo for solid ice in faction. Another Jinteki native, Inazuma, might be worth consideration as a replacement for Chum: yes, it still sucks to have in your opening hand, but it has a much higher upside on the taxation end, especially if Nebula and Komainu are in your deck, so 1 or 2 copies is worth a thought.

Random thoughts - If you can help it, boosting your card count up to 49 would be beneficial, as would having a higher ICE count. Futzing about with agendas could help some, or perhaps getting rid of some upgrades.