Hunger Pains

jmbostwick 91

For years now we've had NoiseShop -- a deck that focuses on installing viruses, getting some sort of use out of them, and then selling them off for cash to Aesop's Pawnshop to make room for more viruses. Added to that recently has been Faust, a breaker that frees up deckspace for more viruses and speeds up the aggressive power of the deck.

Now, with the release of Data and Destiny, we have another powerful all-in-one breaker: Endless Hunger. And Endless Hunger requires just one thing for fuel: installed cards. Thus, instead of turning installed viruses into cash to then use to break ice, we skip the middleman and turn the viruses themselves into breaker bits, and smash through anything in our way.

Turning to Endless Hunger requires (obviously) some changes to the deck. First and foremost, the deck needs to deal with Endless Hunger's main drawback: memory space. To do so, we've got two Grimoires (like those were going to get left out!) and two MemStrips, givings us up to 8 extra memory even after accounting for Endless Hunger. To fill that memory we have a standard assortment of viruses, plus a small Breaker suite for cleaning up whatever ice Endless Hunger doesn't catch. We've also added in some Feedback Implants to help increase the versatility of Endless Hunger. D4VID is gone, because most of the high-strength ice you need to deal with falls to Endless Hunger -- just be sure you watch for Destroyers.

The deck is designed to play super aggressively: once Hunger is on the table, your job is to feed the beast consistently with as many viruses as you can cram down its throat. Clone chip them back, Deja Vu them back, and do it again, milling and running all the while. Do your best to keep Datasucker full of tokens, as your main problem will be high-strength Destroyers like Grim or Ichi. Keep a Parasite handy to deal with smaller ones like the stray Rototurret.

The main concern with this deck at the moment is economy -- Cyberfeeders help a ton in getting the viruses out onto the table, and nothing in the deck costs too much, but it's still a low-econ deck with the absence of the credits from Aesop's. Further testing may prove that Armitage isn't enough and that more economy might be a worthwhile addition to bolster that weakness, but we'll see.

5 comments
27 Oct 2015 AV8R

Wow, I just thought of this basic idea (Noise: Hacker Extraordinaire + Endless Hunger) yesterday, and built an idea around it, but feel like it isn't quite right, so I decided to look for other people's ideas, and yours is the only one. I'm stoked to move toward your ideas a bit more and then try it out once my box is delivered. Woo!

28 Oct 2015 jmbostwick

@AV8R Please let me know how it goes! I've yet to get a copy of D&D, so I haven't been able to test it out much, but I think there's real potential here.

30 Oct 2015 AV8R

I tried this on OCTGN a couple times the other day, and managed to win, but oddly enough without using Endless Hunger at all, either game. Not being able to install Endless + anything until after at least Grimoire or MemStrips is a bit of a weakness, but obviously not insurmountable. I just confirmed you can't trash cards off of Street Peddler with Endless, so I'm not really sold on it, although maybe I'm just missing the econ value of Street Peddler in general.

1 Nov 2015 jmbostwick

@AV8R Thanks for the report! Street Peddler actually exists mostly for the ability to install something mid-run. That could mean a breaker the Corp doesn't expect you to have, a Parasite to deal with an unexpected piece of ice, any other virus to mill a card, or (with Endless Hunger) an extra subroutine broken when you need it.

I'm glad to hear you won, though obviously it's sad to hear that Endless Hunger didn't help much. The fact that you won without ever breaking a barrier subroutine is intriguing, though... Clearly more study is required.

2 Nov 2015 AV8R

@jmbostwick Lol yes, very Sentry-heavy corps and some easy pick-ups from the mill.