Horizontal Protocols

YankeeFlatline 225

Why should IG have all the tough-to-trash fun? At one influence and zero credits, encryption protocol makes a fun splash into a deck that already discourages running remotes when not absolutely necessary. With all three of them out and the hostile infrastructures rezzed, the runner has to make some tough choices about what to do about your unnecessarily rich econ. The threat of traps always hangs, so leaving stuff unrezzed is highly recommended. Sometimes they'll have just enough credits to hit that bio-ethics that hit them and a sudden increase in trash cost can be real frustrating. With five three-to-advance agendas, it makes sense to drop them as turtleback fodder and score them out to get rid of a frustrating employee strike, unless you have your own current in hand to make things more fun. Jeeves lets you score out the Nisei's you dropped six turns ago, and lets you trick-of-light a couple counters off that junebug the runner was to clever to hit so that you can never advance a GFI for a tidy three points.

Quicksand on whatever central the runner is most interested means that every run on that server becomes a little more taxing, serving more as discouragement than a real deterrent, and the rest of the ice follows a similar pattern, though a crick or excalibur by themselves on archives can let you bring back a bio-ethics or encryption protocol for a few more turns of fun.

Jackson does what Jackson does, feeding turtlebacks and letting you throw three of your cards back into the mix to keep things going strong. I experimented with a bigger Museum deck but honestly 9 recurrences is more than enough, and sometimes you'll just let the runner trash Jackson so that he gets taxed 3-5 credits and a couple net damage. Rezzing protocols and infrastructures is a better play than popping him sometimes, though obviously not if you have agendas in your trash, unless you've got another Jackson installed somewhere because you were dumping your hand for credits.

Tough matchups are against Valencia decks, it can be a good idea to put the less taxing ice on your centrals and throw the stronger stuff over important assets in that case, since she'll either need to give up blackmailing that central or use two blackmails to hit both servers. Normally though you just ice your centrals and leave remotes on their own. Anything with scrubbers, whizzard, or paricia can ruin your day, but if they let up on running you can pull back ahead, though without a couple of the nicer set pieces. As long as they're not hitting the agendas you naked installed you're doing okay, and there's enough threatening assets to rez that they should be distracted.

Flatlines are possible - runners aren't hitting quad-advanced remotes when you've got credits rolling in so you can often leave a flatline ready ronin in a central until they let their handsize get a bit low. For extra goodtimes, use a philotic to hit them for 2-3 after your bioethics go off and then hit them with a ronin - it's not Boom!!, but it's not bad.

Mulligan anything without some ice. Until your centrals have some deterrence you're in a bad spot. Sometimes it's better to draw through hostile infrastructure and other expensive cards to look for some good ice early game, or even click for credits so you're ready to rez when you get your pieces.

This deck has gone 32-20 through a few iterations on Jnet and with 16 flatlines and I think it's pretty good.

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