Slow Advance 1.2

Waltzard 404

The previous deck made 14 wins out of 20 games last week, which is good for me. Notable modifications:

  1. Agenda changed from Building a Better world to Argus. The loss of tempo for Argus (whether because they are clearing tags or drawing their hand back) seems more valuable than ~5 credits over the course of a game. Initially I thought Film Critic would make Argus a blank agenda, but its far less prevalent than I imagined it would be.

  2. In the same theme as above, toss my scorches (heresy!) for punitive. I have 4 hefty agendas, I should have punitives. Film Critic is thin enough on the ground that I feel like it works.

  3. Ice rearrangement: Not much really going on here. Hive out, Spiderweb in. Got rid of my checkpoint tried to generally keep the ice cheap, varied in type and all of it ending the run. Archer and Orion for those times when they work.

  4. Finances: Got rid of several Back channels (one way or another, the traps tend to leave the board. Only managed to use it once, and they cluttered up the hand the rest of the games). Cut down to one Underway Grid (only my remote needs the protection). Added some Restructures, a paywall implementation (that card looks amazing).

I feel like this deck's flatline threat, between the traps and the punitive, and just being Argus, is greatly increased. Hoping for good performance in the coming week.

2 comments
9 Oct 2015 tiedyedvortex

Argus is definitely not the right ID for this deck. Argus' ability only fires when they steal an agenda--with 2 Vanity Projects, Government Takeover, and a Government Contracts, it is extremely likely that they will win on the second agenda stolen.

Furthermore, you aren't running Scorched Earth. If the runner steals the agenda and takes the tag, you have no way to actually follow through on that. A clever runner making a few good R&D runs would notice that you aren't running Data Raven or SEA Source, and figure that out.

I think BABW was the right call in the first place. This deck is only running agendas and traps, meaning your economy is 100% operations, and while the 5 or so doesn't sound like much I think it might make the difference between winning the Punitive trace and not.

I think you could cut back on ICE. This is not a pure glacier deck--if you build a truly impenetrable server, then neither your traps nor your Punitives make any sense.

Fewer ICE also means more room for economy operations, to let you get the economic lead you need to win the Punitive trace. Guard can definitely get cut--it's just too easy to break with Mimic or Faust, and it's redundant if you're running Underway Grid.

I like the basic idea--land a double-advanced Overwriter, and then make them choose between death by Project Junebug and death by Punitive Counterstrike.

9 Oct 2015 Waltzard

ID: Thus far it hasn't been extremely likely that the runner wins on the second agenda stolen (in 1.1). Out of 6 losses that happened twice. The other 4 losses they snagged hostile takeovers somewhere along the line. Not enough to generalize on, of course, but the first steal is 4/7 likely to be one that matters. The second is 1/2, so it feels like the death happening on the second steal should be 2/7?

Of course, that's only for R&D/HQ randomness. The fat agendas are much more likely to be killed in my remote, since the hostiles score out on my turn barring Clot/Source. On the other hand, that's surprisingly uncommon as well. With 4 agendas that will be advanced and 6 traps that will be advanced, the runner has to be careful. If he guesses right twice he wins, but if he's wrong on one big trap it could be over.

I refine each week, so if Argus isn't working out I'll go back to BABW for 1.3.

@no Scorched: Very true. Usually though, I don't mind trashing resources if the runner is wandering about tagged. Its uncommon, weyland = scorch to most folks, so they detag with a quickness.

@Ice: The notion of this ice isn't really to be impenetreble. I'd like 2 medium ice on each central and 2 on my remote, ultimately Notion is that if they run they spend enough to open up something that looks like a window. I put either a trap or an agenda down after their run (or before it if they look to be calmly moneying up).

I tried to bring ice of all 3 types, making sure each one ended the run, and that I had some strong and some weak of each. I didn't exactly succeed, but that's the goal.

Guard: He's a sentry with "end the run", so he sends them to fetch their sentry breaker. I guess I could get rid of him though. Are there any other good cheap sentries that end the run, and/or other good cheap sentries?

basic idea: You get it. Big agendas, big traps, runner has to be right twice, but wrong just once.