Bioroids Never Felt So Strong

FourLeaf 94

Concept

Welcome to my 9th iteration of Stronger Together. I've been playing this ID since I started the game. When I originally saw the ability of Stronger Together I immediately thought of some of my favorite tribal and weenie decks from MTG where a bunch of small things add up to a big problem. I had to use this ID to replicate that concept in a different game.

I knew that to make this concept work I had to have a few things. I first needed a bunch of ice that would be taxing and also have some stopping power. I then needed in my head 70% of them to be Bioroid to make use of the identity, or I'd just use ETF. Lastly and most importantly, I wanted ice that wasn't that expensive to rez. Unfortunately there is no "Weenie" style for Bioroids. They're all mid costing for the most part. I was left with a bunch of options that actually played out better than I thought it would as glacial is going to pick up again, and corps will slow down (a little) post clot.

The Build

It is a glacial style tax build, running 18 ice and intends on icing up R&D and HQ before making a scoring server.

Agendas

I run 9 instead of 11 on purpose. One thing that ST suffers from is flooding with no Jackson in sight, and no where to safely put agendas. Our ice doesn't protect them. I generally will bury Project Wotan always with a dbs or try and shuffle it back in. I score four 3 pointers for the win (I suggest not going to 11 UNLESS you splash SanSan City Grid). it feels really good to feint them as assets and works sometimes, but if the runner keeps you honest, there is no where to put agendas safely. Legwork also just completely ruins us.

Influence

  • Celebrity Gift is one of the most economically powerful cards corp uses in the game. Our ice is expensive to rez in general. Nothing costs less than 3. I want money to be able to rez ice, fire ash traces, rez eve's, etc. This is even stronger than it looks on paper for the same reason ST decks are splashing Private Contracts. I used to believe this was the solution since ST always has a "I need money now" issue. Let's evaluate Private Contracts:
  • 3 to rez
  • 1 click to lay it
  • 7 clicks to empty it.

Lets assume each click is a credit since we can click for one. It takes 8 clicks and 3 credits = 11 credits/clicks spent for 14. A net gain of 3, but it supplies on demand credits. I will almost always Gift for the full 5, which is a net gain of 7 credits for 2 clicks. It fixes our "money now" issue and doesn't tie us down for the following turns, while being more bursty than Private Contracts out of the gate. This is single-handedly the biggest and best change I've ever made to Stronger together. Try it.

  • Daily Business Show This card is ridiculously good. We will use this to bury agendas early since we can't score behind bioroids. It accelerates our early into mid game and is a delicious 4 credit tax. This card is amazing.

  • Jackson Howard stays in here as 3 because he is always good and we can abuse ABT by just pulling the trigger with no regards if he is on the table.

  • SanSan City Grid is really powerful of a card and is completely viable in this style deck. I chose not to run it because I'm running 9 agendas, but if you're not into the Giraffe, it's a competitive route for sure.

Assets

I feel like this is a really important part to talk about. The decks design is such that I have 13 assets to put out in remotes. The cheapest one to trash is 3 and the rest are 4 or 5.
The idea is that runners can't afford to trash everything and get through the ice. Everything in this deck is expensive. If they pay credits to trash assets and click through ice, we're ahead of the game and the plan is working. This heavy asset tax can be started early game by putting a single piece of ice over an asset. I ALWAYS assume Adonis will be trashed automatically upon sight. I purposely run extra econ assets to tax the runner.
Don't stress about losing an Eve or Adonis. If the runner trashes 3 of those two combined, we still have 9 other econ cards in the deck and Celebrity Gift makes 1 less credit than a full Adonis in a single turn.

Playing the Deck

The style is pretty easy to pilot.

  1. Spread your ice across the central most important against the faction you're playing.
  2. Get a remote set up for economy first, later scoring. Make this 1 ice deep to start. If they want to double click past an eli and pay 5 to trash an eve, let them. That's good for us.
  • Mid-End game build up your servers and make scoring windows. This deck plays slow. I generally have 3-4 ice deep on at least one of my centrals, 3-4 on my scoring server, with the rest being 2-3 unless they aren't interested in archives (no Sneakdoor or Noise).

Choices and Flavor

  • Markus 1.0 I originally thought this card was bad. It's not, it's downright useful for taxing out lady's options and still costs corroder 4 to break.

  • Brain-Taping Warehouse I have a feeling this is going to put ST in a better spot. I don't think this will make this deck a top tier deck, or even a competitive one. This will fix something that ST has always had problems with and that's money. To rez anything but Eli in ST, the corp ended up too poor half the time to rez an Adonis or eve or even the 2nd layer of ice protecting something. this should alleviate that issue a lot imo.

  • Daily Business Show Use this to bury agendas and dig dig dig. There is nothing you want to see more than additional econ and ice. If you have a double-iced server like Eli & Ichi, feel free to threaten a scoring window if their rig isn't full. I often Jackson for DBS, it's really good. I want a 3rd in the deck just not sure where to fit one.

  • Eve Campaign I play her completely unguarded if I already have an adonis in a server and let them check it. If they trash it, I just taxed the runner 5 credits, if they let me have it, I rez it. I will only guard this if I have extra ice or something small like victor 1.0

  • Crisium Grid standard protection against keyhole, eater, and siphon. Only a single of because DBS being so good.

The Future of Stronger Together

I'd like to think that I'm onto something here and that this ID is meant to be played with a weenie style concept. I ran it in this fashion before Brain-Taping Warehouse became a card and it seems to make sense. I actually tried to run it like this before Markus 1.0 even came out. It's kinda cool that it's migrated to this fashion. It's as I always envisioned how the deck should run.

Thank you for reading my long description. If you have suggestions or questions, feel free to list them. I know there is room for this deck to improve. Not many people play ST, but it's a fun deck. Feel free to message me on Reddit "Four_Leaf" if you'd like to talk about ST. Thanks again everyone

4 comments
7 Apr 2015 Jashay

Hello again, sorry I didn't comment on the last one; dropped out of the grid for a while!

Well, this has changed since I last saw it... Wall-to-wall bioroids now! Having any issues with Account Siphon and The Maker's Eye? I tried full-bio and ran into that problem; not sure a single Crisium is enough to stave it off.

I agree; Brain-Taping Warehouse is going to be excellent; no-one runs last click, but even a 1 discount is stellar on the Bioroids. I'm going to try 3 straight out; the 4 tax is amazing for a 1 rez cost, and they stack.

Celebrity Gift, eh? I've dropped the Caprice Nisei from mine recently, but I didn't chuck all the influence into them. I'm still using Subliminal Messaging; I can't remember if you ever tried it? Works very well, although perhaps not compatible with your more horiziontal style. I'm considering Medical Research Fundraiser, actually. Also, The Root proved pretty damn efficient, but it needs guarding. Much better than Eve Campaign.

Something else I gave a shot was Housekeeping; honestly, I think that would be good in almost any deck. If you play it early, (turn 1-2) it annoys runners no end.

Daily Business Show looks nice; I'd never considered it. Do you have a problem retrieving your agendas once you've buried them?

And finally, out of interest, what prompted you to drop Enhanced Login Protocol and Heinlein Grid? They seemed to fit the theme well.

7 Apr 2015 FourLeaf

I get siphoned a lot and will often hold a gift in hand to bounce back, or I'll just rez my eve / Adonis / dbs etc. I actually eat siphons knowing it's coming. I try and keep my credits so that I can rez ice over HQ and an asset to leave myself with 2 or less credits early on when I'm weak. Building my ice around this has worked for me decently so far. A single crisium isn't enough to keep them off of doing the multi access. I was actually debating making that a Daily Business Show as my 3rd copy of.

I used Subliminal Messaging in my last variation that had Wall of Static and Enigma and some other ETR. As you've said, my build is a lot more horizontal and people spend clicks running at w/e I decide to put out so I never get the subliminal proc. If I didn't run so many assets, I'd run sublim, hands down, no questions asked. It's amazing.

Medical Research Fundraiser is pretty good if you want to give them a little bit of money as well. It also saves on influence which is important. I've considered this as well.

The Root is pretty good and I might consider it over Celebrity Gifts eventually. I'm still on the fence about economy. I think I'd rather have straight credits than pseudo because of siphons, etc.

Housekeeping is good, but I have no influence atm.

Daily Business Show is bar none one of my favorite cards. It really fixes the "I'm flooded with no Jackson" feeling more. It buries early agendas which is really important for me since I don't run anything but bioroids. To answer your question, I only bury so many agendas. I run 9 so I'll always bury the 3 pointers, and I know I need 4/7 of the 2 pointers. I just count and bury what I don't need or want depending on board state. Working well for me.

Enhanced Login Protocol and Heinlein Grid got dropped for Ash 2X3ZB9CY. I still really really like both, and I'm sure that ELP would be really strong with my horizontal asset build, but is it worth getting rid of anything? I think the first would go would be 2 Eve Campaign, but I'm not sure at this point in time. Eve is a lot of my tax, or she pays me out nicely.

6 May 2015 trevorburnham

@Four_Leaf I've been working on a build with some similarities: Project Heinlein Thoughts on it? I started out trying to do ST, but at a certain point I decided it was easier to boost ice strength (with Lag Time) than it is to get that consistent trickle of credits.

7 May 2015 FourLeaf

The thing about ETF is that it is so good, it's hard to replace. What makes ST good is the fact that bioroids are already encouraging people to click through them and even more so with a static 1 extra strength.

In my iteration here (which is outdated btw), I have a ton of economy so using ETF felt unnecessary to me. The utility of Heinlein Grid isn't to be ignored. It makes a 2 bioroid server serious business. I run it in and out of variants of the deck. It was in before Daily Business Show.

Your single of Lag time doesn't seem consistent enough to make it stick or even come up often during a game. I think running ETF bioroids has to incorporate trap assets / upgrades like you're attempting to do.

I'd also throw in at least a singleton of a Heimdall 1.0. Brain-Taping Warehouse makes this affordable, especially in ETF. Ichi 1.0 is another you want to bump to 2 or 3. You're running Heinlein Grid. Put them in a really awkward spot. Eli and Markus are easy decisions when you flip a heinlein. They'll just end the run if they don't have an answer. Flip an ichi that they don't have a breaker for though. Do they click through and lose all their money, or don't and lose programs? Best of luck with your deck!