Mutually Assured Destruction

obscurica 1313

So when the FAQ for Standoff came out, the immediate reaction was "blegh, this is a bad card." A lot of Corp players were hoping that it'd get errata'd so that the runner'd have to burn their own resources first -- letting them hit your side of the field for 0 agenda points seemed a bad deal.

Obstinate as I am, I wanted to find a way around it. A plan to ensure Mutually Assured Destruction.

Key factor one: the sacrifice of some installations had to be far less painful for me than the runner. Active Marilyn Campaigns effectively aren't viable targets -- they don't actually go away. Friends in High Places, as always, is also a key player (though if it gets errata'd, there are a few other HB options).

GRNDL Refinery fills in well here as well: since it's fated to be trashed anyhow, its impermanence is of no real concern compared to other possible assets. And if you're using the Refinery, you might as well add Dedication Ceremony and some advanceable ice as well, of course.

Key factor two: it had to be something that could make use of 0-point agendas. Naturally, this calls for a Jemison Astronautics: Sacrifice. Audacity. Success.-centered deck. Corporate Towns and Oberth Protocols are hard-enablers, as would be the eventual Tithonium.

Importantly: "Clones are not People" plays an important role. Not only does it diffuse Employee Strike for at least a turn, it also plays extremely well with Standoff.

The late-game fantasy is nasty for the Runner. They're losing a resource a turn, Archer's wiped their programs, and they know they're about to lose, because the Corp's just announced that they're popping two False Leads while a suspiciously advanced agenda sits in their scoring remote...

3 comments
13 Jul 2017 ScrappySPJ

I'm surprised there's no Team Sponsorship, that seems a good way to break the Standoff symmetry.

13 Jul 2017 obscurica

@ScrappySPJ ... ... ...oh, you're right. Faaaack, gotta make an update later...

13 Jul 2017 PurinaBisonChow

I can't help but feel like, after the FAQ was released and changed the understanding of it, playing Standoff in Jemison is a trap. You don't want to play it early because the runner is less likely to have anything they care about losing while you leave your central servers vulnerable and you don't want to play it late since you'll have things that you forfeited agendas to rez that the runner is more than happy to trash since they can just replace their trashed programs and continue running on the now less protected servers. Standoff feels almost like it has to be played in Skorpios to be worth the trade-off.