There are few ID abilities more evocative of the thematic origins of NETRUNNER than SPARK AGENCY. During the golden era of cyberpunk, advertising was still non-diegetic: it interrupted your favourite TV, annoyed you with its ceaseless repetition, and insinuated itself into your very memories, replacing real experiences with jingles and slogans.

According to this classic 1980s and 1990s formulation, advertising in a cyber future was to simply become more like itself; louder, faster, more repetitive, and more addictive. Little did the dreamers of cyberpunk know that in twenty years advertising would become something else, perhaps something darker: a voluntary activity performed by nearly everyone, free of charge, on behalf of nothing in particular.

In short, advertising was no longer the domain of fast food, plastic toys, housewares, and Don Draper-like media professionals. What advertising became was the de facto pattern of communication. Advertising was no longer something someone tried to sell you, it was simply how you thought and behaved. It became how you treated others, how you spoke and acted, and how you made friends. Don't forget to like and subscribe!

Game Plan

Lightly ice your centrals and start spamming out SENSIE ACTORS UNION, LAUNCH CAMPAIGN, and PAD CAMPAIGN. Try to rez an advertisement every turn before your turn ends and another as your opponent's turn begins. Eventually, build a TOLLBOOTH remote and get a SANSAN CITY GRID online. You will find scoring opportunities, combined with NAPD CONTRACT and other promotional material. It's important to keep spamming out advertisements. Try to leave the assets in the bin and use JACKSON HOWARD to recover your FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES instead since you'll get more value this way. Of course if someone is intent on destroying your ice, use FRIENDS to get ice back instead and use JACKSON HOWARD to put assets back in R&D. Even a TEMUJIN-rich runner can be worn down by the constant ad bombardment. Oddly this deck can also be quite resistant to ACCOUNT SIPHON.

Ice

ICHI 1.0 is excellent here, and one of the only cards that interacts with the runner's board state rather than their credit pool. TOLLBOOTH is the MVP in this deck and your opponent will swear there are 6 copies. If I get an opportunity, I sometimes stack them on R&D or on a remote. POP-UP WINDOW is a no-brainer and MOTHER GODDESS can rush your first agenda out the door. The weak card here is RESISTOR, I feel, since it soon becomes a VANILLA—or worse, an outright liability if POWER TAP is around. I simply don't know what to replace it with. ENIGMA?

Other Ingredients

PRODUCT PLACEMENT is great. Stack them on a central. Rez one right away and one at the start of your opponent's turn. A single run on this server can help you bounce back from low credits.

REVERSED ACCOUNTS, RED HERRINGS, and BIOTIC LABOR are slots I have tinkered with. Initially I ran MUMBAD VIRTUAL TOUR which I realized is a trap. The goal of this deck is to keep the runner below five credits in the early game anyway. RED HERRINGS is excellent.

Potential Changes and Tough Match-Ups

WHIZZARD is really tough for this deck, there's not much you can do about that. Just turtle up behind your ice and don't go wide. You're going to lose this match-up nearly every time.

I am pretty happy with the list overall. I would consider swapping out some of the bells and whistles for a current or two. TARGETED MARKETING seems thematically appropriate, but I'm not sure it would actually do more work than RED HERRINGS. Maybe the REVERSED ACCOUNTS would get cut...

I am still looking for a replacement for RESISTOR, if anyone has any ideas...