ZOOLANDER 2 - Fame & Reverie

kevnburg 459

fame

The long overdue more than thoroughly tested Reign & Reverie update to Shell Game Superstar - ZOOLANDER (read the original write-up!). Same beautiful agenda installing but with further flexed glacier play to abuse a scoring remote and counter the Employee Strikes, Film Critics, Apocalypses, and Leelas threatening your mass agenda installing dreams.

The big changes since the ZOOLANDER 1 meta - the loss of the fashion goddess Estelle Moon and the introduction of Reign & Reverie's powerful upgrades.

Reworked Econ (R.I.P. Moon)

+3 Standard Procedure - A beautiful way to go up from 0 credits and scout the runners hand for hate cards like Employee Strike

-2 Explode-a-Palooza - Too many times did I beg the runner to steal this and internally scream when I went broke scoring it instead. The money gain not triggering on score makes this card ultimately a disaster.

+1 SSL Endorsement - Better money than explode and better synergy with Award Bait and Exchange of Information by virtue of being a 3 point agenda. Now that there are two SSLs in the deck, landing Exchange is more important.

Upgraded Glacier (<3 R&R)

+2 Arella Salvatore - A dramatic boost in agenda scoring tempo, helping you to ensure there's always an agenda o the table and enabling the option to score 2 agendas in one turn - Double advance a QPM behind your Data Raven with Arella, and, if they don't run the QPM you get to click 1 advance and score QPM, triggering Arella to install a new 3/1 agenda from HQ with 1 advancement token, then advance twice with clicks 2 and 3 to score again. These kinds of plays are a great way to hunker down and win against Film Critic.

+3 Giordano Memorial Field - This card synergizes so well with the agenda trading and News Team game plan. While Stock Buy-Back makes you rich, Giordano makes the runner poor, letting you more easily A) lock the runner out of your remote or B) land Hard-Hitting News or SEA Source to then successfully Exchange Information.

Misc. Changes

+1 SEA Source - This should have always been in the deck, and is more crucial now that we are running 2x SSL Endorsement.

+1 AR-Enhanced Security - Punish the ice destruction meta.

-1 Mwanza City Grid - This should have never been in the deck.

-2 Fast Track - This card allowed some sweet agenda pairing plays, especially with Award Bait, but I would often discard it. +2 Arella Salvatore is your alternate tool for accelerating your agenda scoring game plan.

-1 Psychographics - I have found less and less runners going pure tag me against me, and when they do I have quickly won with QPM and Exchange of Info. The -1 Psychographics became the +1 SEA Source.

-1 Resistor, -1 Authenticator - You don't need that much ICE for this deck; removing these helped me fit in the R&R Upgrades.

Downfall?

To talk briefly about the shiny new cards that just came out (Thank you NISEI) - Focus Group and Game Over MIGHT be good to include here. If I free up a slot somewhere I would probably add a single one of these new cards, bring back a Fast Track, or include a third Franchise City.

2 comments
29 Jun 2019 HaibaneRenmei

@kevnburg How do you deal with Leela?

27 Mar 2020 kevnburg

@HaibaneRenmeigotta go glacier instead of shell game. The free install from Arella Salvatore mitigates Leela's ID ability. Sometimes I'll be bold and install 3 agendas against Leela, or two and a franchise city, but I generally lean towards installing QPMs behind Data Ravens and using the Giordano Memorial Field tax to open up SEA Source + Exchange of Information windows.