Lock, Shut and Two Trashing Battys (3-2 at BABW Finals)

There are two decks that can use Ark Lockdown effectively. Either a deck that expects to see a key hate card go in the bin at least once before recursion (i.e. Clot against Fast Advance) or a deck that is entirely built around Ark Lockdown.

This is one of the latter.

The aim is simple in theory, much more difficult in practice. You have to identify the key program, hardware or event in the runner's deck that is allowing them access to your servers and kill it using either a program trash, Power Shutdown or waiting for the event to hit the bin. Once that happens, Ark Lockdown (or ConVis Ark Lockdown) and start sealing your servers up tight.

General Strategy

Rush behind gear check pieces of ice - turn 2 Oaktown score is relatively easy with the ice in this deck. I've even managed to do it after being Siphoned Turn 1 thanks to a surprise Vanilla on the remote.

Move your ice around, a lot. Oversight Curtain Walls and put an Orion in their place. Pick up a Lotus Field and place down a Grim instead. You will catch runners out this way.

Once the breakers start hitting the table, assess your options. Is there a breaker you can Power Shutdown and Ark Lockdown? If so, do it. If they have protection in the form of lower cost hardware (Astrolabe and Clone Chips are particularly annoying), you're going to have to rely on your program trashing. If the runner is playing careful, get a Batty out (Exec Search Firm helps here) and win some psi games*.

Rumor Mill and Employee Strike giving you a headache? That's why we pack two Paywall. Yes, two, because if the first gets turned off with Rumor Mill you need a second or you won't be able to cycle the first back with Jackson. Don't play them except to turn off Runner currents. Just don't - you may be reasonably sure that Shaper isn't packing Rumor Mill, and you will lose the game because of it.

Specific strategies

• Temujin Whizz - against the most popular runner deck, the target is Net-Ready Eyes. Lotus Field is unbreakable unless they either have Black Orchestra (uncommon) or a Yog and an NRE. Rush behind a Lotus Field until the NRE drops, and then kill it with Power Shutdown - easy enough since that deck doesn't run any other 0 cost programs/hardware. Ark Lockdown it for good measure (these decks run Deja Vu) and then see about getting high str sentries/code gates on centrals (or a cyberdex in archives) and purge for the lockout. Also be on the lookout for them Injecting or Peddling any two of their breakers (including D4v1d and Datasucker). Locking down both of their Paperclips should do for them.
• Temujin Val - this matchup turns on how quickly you find Liz Mills or an Executive Search Firm to find her. Blackmail turns off the rush part of your strategy, so, you need that BP gone. Once they have ditched all their Blackmails and made you rez ice on the remote, you can start scoring Hostile Takeovers and rezzing Grim again. Other than that, the strategy is the same as for Temujin Whizz. Kill the Eyes!
• Dumblefork - Wait for the spare copies of Faust to hit the bin, then win psi games with Batty* and Ark Lockdown the lot. Also if they discard the Levy, you can Lock it down and slowly drain them of D4v1d counters and cards.
• Standard Andy - If they're on Paperclip and they try to be clever, you might just win the game with Ark Lockdown. If not, you need to figure out what your options are in terms of Power Shutdown. Passport and Zu Keymaster might be your targets, or the good-ol' Corroder. You might need to get through Datasuckers first, and if that's the case you are probably better off relying on Batty-trash to take out the programs. Just remember, if they're on Paperclip you need to keep picking up your barriers so they don't have an easy reinstall target. Other than that, Crim doesn't have recursion so if you can take out their only barrier or code gate breakers, you probably win. Just play around Inside Job, if they keep headbutting into your single Curtain Wall on R&D to stack up Turning Wheel, they are probably going for a big dig!
• Siphon Anarch - Ark Lockdown the siphons when both copies are in the bin and watch their money dry up, or the Levy if against MaxX. Rumor Mill will be in this deck for sure, so save your Paywalls.
• Shaper - tough thanks to Clone Chip. Targetting their Sentry breaker isn't a terrible idea - especially if its Sharpshooter. Atman and Shrike are prohibitively expensive to keep re-installing so if you can Batty them once or twice you should get a window to Ark Lockdown, and then Archers and Grim will win you the game.

Record

This deck has served me pretty well in a field teched against CTM (i.e. low recursion and big money). This deck can win with the runner on 100 credits because their only copy of Paperclip is nowhere to be found.

It went 3-2 in the Jnet BABW LCQ, and 3-2 at the BABW Finals, winning games against Siphon Whizz (lockdowned the Siphons) Temujin Whizz (NRE) and Temujin Val (rushed behind Lotus Field). It lost to Dyper (remember that Escher is a card and you need Oversights on HQ as well!) and Androemda (lost 3/3 psi games, stupid Batty).

Example Game

This is me vs. Dave Culemann (shmeguy)'s Temujin Val in the third round of the Jinteki.net BABW and fairly indicative of how the game against NRE Anarchs plays out. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/0VQrDRon7TA?t=10632