[Startup] Earth Station 1.2

Navelgazer 324

A revised version of my current favorite Start-up Corp deck, after some testing and a few great suggestions from Baa Ram Wu and Ätsch to fix the ICE package. I moved towards a selection of mostly advanceable ICE + 3x Magnet which I'm finding to be as more more necessary than Spin Doctors these days. May still go from 3x Manegarm to 2x Anoetic + something worth an INF and a card slot. Going back and forth on Reduced Service, but that's probably just me needing to be better about timing it. Lost my last game but it was down to the wire, and that was with all 3 Wall-to-Walls hiding in R&D the whole (longish) game, and my economy creaking the whole time. When you get W2W early, it starts to truly sing.

As always, happy for further thoughts on revisions.

4 comments
1 Aug 2021 Ätsch

That looks way better imo :) Where and when do you play Reduced Service? My thought is that Reduced Service, NAPD Cordon, Manegarm Skunkworks/Anoetic Void and your Earth Station: SEA Headquarters looks really like overkill on your remote. Could kinda make sense to install them on HQ instead/as well.

1 Aug 2021 Navelgazer

@Ätsch: I'm still figuring out the best combination of those things, but my thought is to have Reduced Service on HQ and Manegarm or Anoetic on the remote. That + NAPD Cordon might look like overkill but trying to secure a scoring window for the game-winning point against a rich runner is still tricky (for me, at least right now. Hopefully more piloting will get me more used to it, as I'm enjoying this deck.) Also, I've already replaced the Ice Walls in this one with Palisades to beef up the remote slightly better. I think I've got enough advanceable ICE in here now to not miss the walls.

2 Aug 2021 sandboxbreakout

Apologies if this was addressed in a prior iteration, but have you tested Cayambe Grid over Reduced Service? It seems like it would be a slam dunk in this list.

2 Aug 2021 Navelgazer

@sandboxbreakout: I haven't and I don't have a real good reason for that. I think the Reduced Service looked like a guaranteed "8 credits or some number of clicks dealing with my centrals" cost anytime I can afford the 4c to pop it, while Cayambe is weaker in the early game (and will rarely get up to or above an 8c cost even in something this vertical.) HOWEVER! With Cayambe I don't need to worry about protecting archives as much, and parking a W2W in my remote with Cayambe means my ice is advancing passively twice as fast (or faster, since there are turns when I'm getting my agendas out where the Cayambe would still be going off.) If I use Cayambe, I'll go back to my Ice Walls over Palisades (since I wouldn't want any non-advanceable ice on my remote) and then the question between the two of them will really come down to how much Red Team I'm seeing. If the Runners are using Archives as a 3c click every turn such that I want to spend clicks and ice protecting it anyway, Reduced Service might be worth that downside. Otherwise, you're probably right about Cayambe being the better fit here.