MaxXimum Apocalypse!!

Zetan 151

After trying out Apex for a bit, I quickly realized that his strongest card is Apocalypse. The playstyle (I can't really get in anywhere, until I blow up all your Ice, then I can get everywhere) reminded me of an old deck, so I decided to try to make it work there.

Based on my old MaxX Never-Access deck, this deck continues to be unable to access cards behind ETR Ice with anything except Hades Shard. The influence to include Apocalypse meant that I had to go down to two Levys, but I don't think I ever used all three anyway. You should still mulligan for Duggar's; if you can play that on turn 1 and use it on turn 2, you'll have your whole rig up almost instantly, and the first Levy won't be far off.

After that, it's all about when to drop the Apocalypse. You don't want to do it too soon, or you won't get enough benefit from it. But if you wait too long, it can get hard to run all three centrals. Basically, you want to get to the point where it's just starting to become too much of an investment to Keyhole at least once a turn. Build up money over a couple turns, then make that glorious Apocalypse turn.

Ideally, when you play Apocalypse, you want to have Aesop (or at least Chop Bot in hand to capitalize on your face-down cards. But depending on how tight things were on the corp side, you might be able to win before it becomes relevant. Most corps won't hold back a lot of Ice; their hands get full of Agendas and Operations, and they end up either playing or discarding Ice. If this is the case, you can just start hammering their centrals until you (very quickly) win. Bonus points if you have a Keyhole in hand when you play Apocalypse; that will almost guarantee a win. If they do manage to recover and stabilize, there's plenty of ways to make Apocalypse happen again!

5 comments
26 Oct 2015 SlayerCNV

3x Duggar's? Why..?

26 Oct 2015 Zetan

@SlayerCNV There ain't no party like a Duggar's party, 'cause a Duggar's party don't stop!

In all seriousness, this card makes the deck work. I mulligan for it, and have very rarely lost when it's in my opening hand. Turn 1 is usually run R&D and HQ to make them rez Ice, maybe play out one other card like Same Old Thing or Kati Jones, then play Duggar's. Turn 2, use Duggar's. Out of your glorious new hand, you want to keep one Eater, one Keyhole, some econ and some recursion. Turn 3, play your econ, play your rig if you have time, and start running!

In MaxX, you're planning to use Levy at least once (often twice) anyway. So why not get a major head start by drawing crazy amounts of cards and keeping what you need? MaxX with Duggar's in her opening hand is like playing as Andy, but with more late-game power. So having 3 of them is important, to ensure the highest chance of getting one early.

3 Nov 2015 Karnek

@Zetan I've been looking for a deck that could use Apocalypse and not feel like I was just kicking myself in the balls by playing the event. I've had a TON of fun playing this deck and have pulled off Apocalypse several times even in one game. The only change I would like to make is a way to find room for Crescentus to deal with Architect on the Apocalypse run.

2 Dec 2015 aero

Turing on centrals though...thoughts on splashing a single Yog.0?

2 Dec 2015 Zetan

@aeroYeah, that's honestly the main problem with the deck... "Eater is the only breaker" is a fun theory, but there are definitely problems like that sometimes. I can Parasite the Turing, so there's that. But usually by the time I do it's enough of a speed-bump that I've fallen pretty far behind.