Ultra Cache Refresh Red Sands Fast Advance

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HB EtF Fast/Never Advance Ultra Cache Refresh Red Sands

This is a deck for a Hack the Egg fun/beginners tournament that uses "Ultra" Cache Refresh deck building rules:

  1. 1x Core Set
  2. 1x Big Box or Terminal Directive (same one for Runner and Corp deck)
  3. only the very last cycle, i.e. Red Sands

I'm a total beginner myself, having only played with a Core Set and some friends who I talked into it (all got hooked though ;) ). I bought the C&C expansion for this tournament and decided to go with HB and Shapers (Runner deck to be found here).

I felt quite confident building a Corp deck since that's what I have been playing mostly and it feels rather straight-forward compared to a Runner deck. So yeah, this is what my plan looked like:

Plan

The general idea is to either fast advance the 3/1, 3/2s and 4/2s out of hand or never advancing them in a single more or less taxing server. This single server can also be used to build up economy or needed fast advance tools.

  1. Stop the runner coming into R&D with big ices like Tollbooth and Heimdall 1.0. Put an Ichi 1.0 in front for good measure.
  2. Against Anarchs, defend archives with more taxing ice like Ichi 1.0. Against Crims use it on HQ. (This is what I imagined from the theory, never really having played against those two factions.)
  3. Build a semi-taxing scoring remote. If economy works out, make it a bit heftier. This should also make a nice place for using Haas Arcology AI.
  4. Put out PAD Campaigns and Adonises guarded by Warroid Trackers. If that's not enough, put light ice in front.
  5. Use Whampoa Reclamation in the multi purpose remote to move unwieldy 3/5s to the bottom of R&D, where they are safe.
  6. Use the Efficiency Committee to make good use of Gila Hands Arcology.
  7. And don't be stressed to draw cards. If in doubt, just install a card to use EtF's ability and earn two credits each turn. Build board state and wait for Fast Advance possibilities. (This actually did work out quite well for me in some games.)

And as Cassius Clay ("His mother called him Clay and I will call him Clay!") already knew: "Everyone has a plan until they get cards shoved into their face." Test draws on NRDB seemed to work nicely, but I never seemed to get a good start and/or was too afraid to mulligan during the tournament. And then, when things developed nicely, I mostly got too scared to do the risky moves. I lost all games as the Corp, but did score an egg though. ;)

I still like this deck. I don't think it's generally flawed. Got some positive comments, too. I struggled quite a bit with keeping up with new opponent cards and whatnot, so piloting this was quite a big part of the failure. Definitely would leave out the Successful Demonstrations. They just don't work against any somewhat competent runner (thanks to Sn00p1 for pointing this out). Not yet sure, what I would substitute them with though.

And final fact: at the end of the day I won the scrambled eggs by scoring an egg with this Corp deck. (Ok, second winner forfeited her half of the food.) But still.. there must be something to this deck. ;)

1 comments
11 Sep 2017 dome_

Thank you so much for sharing! It was really nice to meet you and playing against you.

I hope that we will meet us more often :)