Shockingly Fast Advance

greyfield 3915

One thing that's always confused me a little about the IG decks is how slow they always are. This is a deck that willfully decks itself in order to keep its core cards in play, and then further turns up the glacial pace in order to either score out agendas slooowwwly or just to grind the runner in similar fashion. Often, to manage all that extra necessary bulk, they pile in more cards, diluting their influence further. That seems weird to me. If you're ahead, rather than letting that lead stagnate, why not just, y'know, win?

I've been amazed at how well this deck plays. Everyone knows how good Sundew and net damage cards have worked in IG decks, but when you take the tempo lead and paranoia instilled by those cards, and then force your opponent to cope with 15-credit-to-trash SanSans threatening defeat in three turns, the runner can feel stretched beyond their limits. Combine that with locking Archives down and untrashable Snares making multi-accesses unreasonable, and you've got yourself a real monster.

Some individual card choices:

  • Allele Repression: Kind of like a fourth Jackson Howard, this card is primarily for buying back trashed SanSans or, if your opponent really wants to pressure HQ for some reason, a fistful of Snares!

  • Caprice: The ol' trump card. Where she goes depends on where you need her most - on HQ against Vamp decks, on R&D against Keyhole decks, in Archives in most matchups, and sometimes on SanSans against Imp decks.

  • Two Cyberdex: Because Clot and Imp are two big problems.

  • The ICE package: I figure this deck can't win a long slog against runner breaker suites, nor do you really want to - the only server you truly need to keep them out of is Archives, and Shocks + Caprice + fear do that well enough. Instead, I've loaded up on taxing ice - in damage, credits, and clicks - to further slow your opponent down and stunt their growth. If you do hit them with a surprise Cortex or Komainu and break something important, so much the better. Himitsu Bako is here principally as insurance against Siphon spam, though if you really want hard insurance I could even see adding Chimera instead. I really like Eli, though you may want something a little more permanent and threatening. At least with FA, you're less reliant on oddballs like Ashigaru.

5 comments
21 Sep 2015 FarCryFromHuman

Team Sponsorship seems amazing here, and in conjunction with Allele Repression means you will reliably have at least one SanSan City Grid in play at all times.

21 Sep 2015 ANRguybrush

This is pretty cool. I enjoyed IG grinder decks, but time limits prevented me from playing them on tournaments.

Second on Team Sponsorship. I play this card in all my decks atm because it's amazing.

22 Sep 2015 Dheraz

What do you plan on discarding face down to fire off your identity ability? I find that most of the impact of the IG ability comes from cycling agendas in and out of archives with Jacson which isn't conducive to fast advance. Speaking as someone who adores playing IG I still feel this deck would be better run out of an identity that has a consistant, controllable tax such as RP.

Also: are celebrity gift and hedge fund alone enough economic if you end up needing to rez more than one sansan?

As a final suggestion, I notice your only hard etr ice is 2x Himitsu-Bako. You might benefit from adding some ETR code gates such as quandary or enigma.

27 Sep 2015 greyfield

@FarCryFromHumanAfter substantial testing, I have concluded you are very correct. I was a Team Sponsorship skeptic, but I have now seen the light. All hail the one true sponsorship god. Right now, I think I'd cut 1 Pup, 1 Allele, and 1 Crick and move the Elis into harder ETR slots, like 2 Quandaries and 1 Lotus Field.

I'm also thinking of shifting the other Ice into something more formidable, because I've also discovered that Archives needs to be protected; it's not enough to just throw some Snares and a Cyberdex in there and twirl your mustache, and Komainu is too expensive for an ice that gets blown up by Femme and Clone Chip Parasite.

@Dheraz Sundew has performed quite nicely as an economic engine. Once you've made emptying Archives frustrating enough to not be worth it most of the time, just dumping several Sundews onto the board is enough to drive the runner a little bonkers. Most games I've had money issues have come from simply not drawing them. Though more hard ETR ice would help against the other problem, i.e. Siphon, but the core of the deck has worked fine.

13 Oct 2015 rumirumirumirumi

IG FA has always been strong, but the changes you've made here (with maybe the addition of Team Sponsorship) has made it viable by shortening the game length. Huge fan of this deck and others like it.