Clockwork Purple

skyrunner36 96

When Stronger Together was first released, people disregarded it as a minor inconvenience for runners. An extra credit cost per bioroid? Seems kinda small considering the runner doesn't need breakers to get through them, right?

Wrong. Stronger Together was never meant to tax credits. It was meant to tax clicks. Clicks, by the credit, are essentially more efficient tools to break bioroid subroutines when compared to most breakers. Why would I spend 5 credits to break Eli with Corroder when I could spend two clicks instead? Heimdall 2.0? Two clicks and a d4v1d counter. No tax whatsoever.

I say nay to that, and after careful construction, this deck was born. After heavy testing on Jinteki, this deck has roughly gotten a 70% win rate.

Much like cards in a runner's grip, the runner only has a limited number of clicks. They want to use those instead? Their loss. Heinlein grid and Strongbox force the runners to choose how to spend their clicks, and a clutch ELP makes those choices limited if they get curious.

MONEY

Literally all of it. Hedge Funds for burst, Launch Campaigns as anything from free drip to bailout money, and Melange as the MVP. The speed that I can set up my servers is ridiculous, allowing me to protect my scoring server easily while I click Melange for five or six turns. Not to mention Advanced Concept Hopper is absolutely fantastic. Running on my server while I'm at 7 credits and one of these babies in my scoring area? "Surprise" Tollbooth!

ICE

Two ice-related problems have been prevalent for me with Stronger Together. Porosity, and cost. Most of the costs have been mitigated through the money solutions above, but I've still had to deal with stupid aggressive runners. In addition to hard ETR ice, like Enigma and Wall of Static, I've decided to be somewhat unorthodox in my defenses. Enter Wormhole and Cortex Lock. Wormhole is a nice anti-headlock piece of ice, be it against Reina or Gabriel. It also does some serious work wherever it's placed, threatening to do whatever I want it to do. Cortex lock just generally acts as a nasty surprise against curious Anarchs and Crims. Beyond that, the only other outlier aside from the more traditional HB ice of choice (tollbooth, Heimdall, etc) would be Turing, which generally pairs very well with a lone Strongbox, and maybe even Heinlein Grid.

Agendas

Most are 3/2. Play the no-advance game whenever you can, unless you think you can get away with scoring Eden or Foodies (which, frankly, isn't hard).

Other Odds and Ends

Patch: Ever stared at a strength seven Eli? Or a strength 10 Heimdall 2.0?

Ash: Good card, has definitely lifted it's own weight. Pair especially well with Heinlein Grid.

Crisium: Also excellent anti-Siphon tech. Saved my behind more times than I can count.

Strongbox: This is the centerpiece of the deck. Since such a squeeze is placed on the runner for clicks, rarely do runners have the opportunity to steal an agenda if this is on the table.

Vikram: Slightly more taxing than Ichi, and just as potent. Definitely holds its own as the second or third piece of ice in the server.

NOTES: I might drop the Cortex Lock for a Sweeps Week or a second Patch, as finding the Cortex Lock well into the late game is somewhat depressing.

2 comments
3 Feb 2016 esutter479

This is what I'm talking about! More DIFFERENT HB IDs showing up! I'm definitely gonna try this out sometime, not to mention be posting my NEXT Design ID that I came up with for last night's local GNK. Good stuff, skyrunner. :)

15 Feb 2016 skyrunner36

Thanks @esutter479! :) I've been working on this deck for some time now. Let me know how it goes! Maybe I can improve something I've missed.