A Word From Our Sponsors

Willard Lowman is the president of Omnifoods USA, a division of Mars Incorporated. The company is based in Broadcast Square, New Angeles.

"My advice to my colleagues at Spark: Don’t make product placement the centerpiece of your strategy. While it can deliver a tremendous boost to brand awareness and credibility, it’s too unpredictable.

Of course, nontraditional campaigns can generate incredible buzz. Everyone wants to find the next Lethal Action, which got tons of publicity out of a grassroots campaign at little cost to the film’s producers. But for every Lethal Action, a hundred such efforts go unnoticed.

The key is to make placement part of a larger, sustainable strategy. Stories about product placement always mention the movie Meteor Jockeys, which featured Meteor Munchies — a placement opportunity Mars Bars (as our company was then known) famously turned down. Was it a nice placement? Yes. But 20 years later, Astrobar is the number one candy brand in the world, and where is Meteor Munchies? A good placement can put you on the map for a short period of time, but it certainly won’t drive your brand over the long term..."

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With the new banned/restricted list, Runners find themselves at a loss for credits. It is in this environment that Spark thrives.

This deck rewards tempo-based play, rather than a lockout (Skorpios Defense Systems: Persuasive Power) or grinder (Jinteki: Personal Evolution). Your scoring remote, more often than not, will be very porous. Thankfully, we plan for that with upgrades to make the runner pay after they get through our defenses.

Card Choices

• Daily Business Show: In a post-Jackson Howard world, you need a way to avoid agenda flood. The fine folks at the news desk give you some flexibility in choosing your battles.

• Team Sponsorship: A solid, if rarely seen, asset. While you may not get many triggers in this deck (4 at most), the potential to get our defensive upgrades back behind a mildly taxing server even once is worthwhile.

• AR-Enhanced Security: If tag threats protect CtM assets, why not do the same? Initially added as a filler agenda, this served as an extra bit of tax to protect both assets and defensive upgrades. It should be noted that this triggers on ice destruction and Edward Kim's trash, but does not trigger from a Slums removal.

• Architect: Welcome back, old friend. We play cards that can be trashed. As such, we benefit from our good friend.

• MCA Informant: The presence of Film Critics fills us with dread. As such, we make sure they're working for us after the runner reaches out to them. This card has also been surprisingly effective in slowing down other key connections, such as a Supplier or Aeneas Informant.

Gameplay Tips

Our main goal is to score agendas before the runner can get an economy under them.

Build something mildly taxing (even as simple as Archangel into IP Block, and start jamming things into the remote.

Feel free to go horizontal with some assets (preferably the harder to trash ones), but don't go overboard. Sometimes it's enough to block a Daily Business Show with a Turnpike.

Sometimes, the runner installs Magnum Opus on turn one. This is a very troublesome opening, but not one that can't be overcome. You simply have to remember that Opus takes time to give them money. Red Herrings and Explode-a-palooza help widen the tempo gap to create the scoring windows you'll need to win.

Biased Reporting is also a great comeback card if your opponent is set up, but you see a chance to force a scoring window.

Hard-Hitting News is still a strong card, but has a tendency to switch the runner into a tag-me mindset. In these cases, you may feel secure in slowing down your play for a turn to destroy any Resource-based economy. If, however, you have a chance to jam an agenda behind a Resistor, then go for it.

Conclusion

I've had some fun with this deck. While I wish I could fit in some tag punishment (Closed Accounts, Psychographics and Observe and Destroy come to mind), I have not found there to be a tremendous need for it.

Please feel free to try the deck and leave a comment on how it worked for you!