Real Bad Green Xanatos

jollyblondgiant 21

C&C Welcome.

I've been playing around with a Jemison build that was a pretty successful version of the slowest ever Fast Advance in casual games so I decided to try out a deck that wasn't that at all. The plan is to threaten massive brain damage while steadily ramping up to a takeover.

The big flashy turn looks like this: assuming you already have a project atlas with at least 1 counter on it and an unrezzed oberth (or a rezzed oberth and an unrezzed corporate town)

Atlas counter: get takeover from the bottom of your deck click 1: install takeover. (0 counters) Click2: rez oberth, forfeit atlas, put 3 counters on Takeover, advance takeover (5 counters) click 3: advance again.

It's big and flashy and puts 5-6 counters on your takeover which is pretty nifty, but it doesn't win you any games.

Unless the runner's not sure that's really a takeover. It could be a cerebral overwriter with 5-6 advancement counters on it.

The Key to making this deck work is the ability to forfeit agendas and turn them into sweet,sweet advancement counters during a run, preferably right before access. Archer doesn't quite do the trick here. It's gotta be corporate town, oberth, or false lead. But if you can lure them into a massive overwriter or keep them too scared of a massive overwriter to run then this deck will work.

Agenda Choice: After Hostile Takeover, which is a must, and Government Takeover, which is the point, I picked False lead because it forfeits itself, Show of force because it has a sweet one-time affect that you can forfeit later, and project atlas to dig up missing pieces.

ICE: Mausolus is the only thing that's really exciting, except for a mother goddess to put in front of GT. Would be very interested to put in some advanceable ICE but ICE Wall and Fire Wall aren't cool enough. Lycan over Swordsman to take out AI breakers. That might not work so still waiting to test.

I'm not expecting this deck to work. C&C very welcome.

Some Ideas: Shannon Claire over Jackson: since we're playing with Government takeover we wanna be able to hide it till its useful Cerebral Overwriter v. Project Junebug: i think brain damage is cooler, but open to suggestion Punitive Counterstrike: usually goes in takeover decks SEA-scorch: to punch in the last few damages. Show of force also does this.

Notable Not-Includes: Mushin-no-shin: I'd like to figure out some way to make this not redundant, because this deck has the beginnings of a friggin sweet Green Xanatos Trick of Light: maybe, as some way to get the last few points onto GT Better ICE: because I haven't thought of it yet.

3 comments
2 Mar 2017 Krams

I really like the Xanathos idea.
Only thing I'm worried about is tagging. Your 3(!!) Scorches feel a bit like dead weight with no other tagging plan than 2 tagging ICE and 1 SEA.
The good old SEA Scorch is just in a very bad spot, it's too easy to get around. (You are Jemison! You're gonna trigger Aaron every other turn, constantly scoring 1-pointers.)
So maybe focusing more on your gambit is better than the backup tag&kill stuff.

Just for fun, here's the janky alternative winning turn for your deck:

  • install GT
  • install Oberth on it
  • rez Oberth, put counters on GT (total: 2)
  • advance GT, triggering Oberth (total: 4)
  • pass turn
  • forfeit 2 copies of False lead to give -4 to the runner and put 4 more tokens on GT (total: 8)
  • start your turn
  • advance GT, triggering Oberth (total: 10)
  • score overadvanced GT just because you can!
  • click GT twice for moneyz :D

It's probably a bad plan, but, oh, the look on the runner's face if it works just once :D

2 Mar 2017 jollyblondgiant

@Krams Thanks for weighing in! I figured I could double down on an old staple of the Xanatos gambit and include 3x Shell corporation to install in a server with an overwriter that the runner called. It also provides another layer of bluff for oberths. The damage in this deck is mostly going to come from rain damage hopefully and if counterstrike or show of force doesn't push the damage over flatline then I decided to make the following subs:

-1 SEA source

+1 Neural EMP

-3 Scorched Earth

+3 Shell Corporation

3 Mar 2017 Lemonbrick

I'm not sure the Archers are worth it, you have plenty of sacrifice available, I think Veritas is quite good for protecting centrals you don't want to die to R&D diggs maybe a Sapper or Excalibur ?