[Startup] Near Earth Flop

bowlsley 566

Hey, you there!

Do you like winning? Do you like installing things? Do you like having options? Do you want a corp deck that is (almost) as good as PD but significantly cooler, more fun, and more handsome?

Of course you do.

I've been playing this deck pretty much unchanged for the last month or so, and it's an absolute fiend. I'm publishing it now because it's well overdue but also because it's about time I stopped being lazy and tried something new. I don't think I've lost a single match in the GLC Startup League (come and play in the Startup League! It's fun!) I've played with it so far, so I figure it's probably worth sharing.

This started as a fairly regular NEH deck, with as many assets as I could find in the format and the barest handful of ice. But then I kept getting absolutely ruined by Loup and Hoshiko and I realised that simply trying to out-tempo Anarch was near-impossible. So instead we gearcheck them with all the cheap, costly and downright dirty ice we can, force them to go find breakers or botuli or boomers, and score out whilst they do so.

Early turns with this deck almost always consist of installing an asset or two and icing one of them. Keep doing this until you have 5 or 6 iced remotes and then rake in that sweet Fully Op cash. Hide a SanSan somewhere and then score as soon as the cash is available. Use License Acquisitions to reinstall the SanSans they've already trashed. Spin back Fully Ops and do it all over again.

The only ice you should be putting on centrals are Drafters or the F2P. If the runner wants to waste clicks checking HQ, let them, that's time for you to get your DBS online and make sure there's never anything there for them to find. Unless they're going to town with a Conduit or a Stargate you have nothing to fear.

The Corporate Troubleshooters came into this deck late, when I realised that there was almost nothing I could do against runners that didn't fight me on the econ war but did snipe key cards like SanSan. There isn't much that a rich corp can actually do in this format and Troubleshooter actually fits the bill quite nicely. Fun things I've done with them include leveraging straight up economic advantage to pump a 0-strength Wrap to more than the runner could break, adding three to a Gold Farmer to ruin some delicate Bellona maths, and repeatedly bumping my Drafters by one to make Mimic very sad.

If there are things I think this deck lacks, I kinda wish I could find space for a Magnet or two, and I would love some good robo-bois to for even more variety, but the Fully Ops and the Drafters are so crucial to how this deck plays that I would struggle to cut any of them. Who knows? Give it a try and maybe you'll have some better ideas than me.

8 comments
13 Jul 2021 bowlsley

Got asked on GLC about what to do if you draw into too many agendas despite your best efforts, and was then asked to put my response here, so:

So there are a couple of different things to bear in mind if you're drawing agendas despite having a DBS running, I'll try and run through them quickly.

1) First of all, one agenda in HQ is fine, and two is reasonably manageable. In that situation I would mostly keep playing my usual game of installing assets and try to either draw a Spin Doctor, or get enough money and a SanSan up to score it. If the runner Legworks you then fair enough but otherwise finding a single agenda in HQ with single or double (with Docklands) accesses is pretty hard, so I'm more than happy to let the runner waste their time.

2) With a Spin Doctor, install that, overdraw (preferably without even rezzing the Dr, so that you can do this on their turn and get an extra DBS trigger), and dump the extra agenda(s) in archives. Then you can shuffle them away if the runner checks archives (or runs your Dr), but otherwise they're completely safe to leave now.

3) Playing a three-card monte turn (installing three cards, one of which may be an agenda, into three undefended servers) is totally fine to do once or twice a game in NEH. If the runner is Loup I wouldn't risk it, but against, say, Zahya, where runners tend to get a bit of tunnel vision on un-iced centrals, I'd absolutely try and sneak some points out.

4) This is probably a last resort, but if you have iced remote and the runner doesn't have the breaker for it, you could always over-install the asset already in there. That's a bit of a tell though, and any sensible runner will probably Boomerang or Botulus that ICE asap. Do so at your own risk.

5) A pretty minor point, but it's worth remembering that installing an ice on it's own counts as "creating a new server" for the purpose of the NEH trigger, so if your hand is, say, one ice, one agenda and three assets, maybe install the ice first to see what your next draw will be, then install behind that ice with the new info.

14 Jul 2021 Ätsch

Definitely digging this, will try it in casual lobby - and thanks for the high quality writeup!

-BUT-

just kidding, only a small question: Why wraparound? I don't think there is a big AI-meta yet (we only have atman and mayfly) so a "Ping" would just be flatout superior? Another question (of course) - any experience with decks using Chisel? Chisel looks scary here.

Many thanks in advance =)

14 Jul 2021 bowlsley

@Ätsch thanks!

Wraparound costs 1 less than Ping, and stands up better against shaper stuff like Chameleon, Pelangi and Kit. Ping is a solid option for the same effect though, and potentially more taxing overall since runners will often clear the tag. I'd been thinking separately about playing Planogram instead of Hedge, and I could see those two (Ping and Planogram) pairing nicely together, if you did make that change.

As for Chisel, the only ice I'd really be sad to see get hit is the Tollbooth. Everything else largely exists only as a temporary setback for the runner, and if they want to spend a click (plus another for a cookbook and/or a devil charm) installing a one shot tool to get rid of one, instead of a proper breaker, then I'm happy to let them.

14 Jul 2021 Ätsch

@bowlsley

Oh, I completely oversaw the fact that Wraparound stunts other things than just AI-breakers. Ping and WA are both 2 creds to rez tho. Planogram instead of Hedge doesn't seem too viable to me, Runners seldom float single tags in my exp.. Completely get your arguments, thanks :)

14 Jul 2021 bowlsley

Huh, I could have sworn that Ping was 3 to rez. Well there you go.

17 Feb 2022 Phros

Any good options on replacements for Gold Farmer now that it has been banned?

17 Feb 2022 bowlsley

@Phros it's not banned in Startup, only Standard. NRDB just doesn't have a means of displaying Startup legality.

18 Feb 2022 Phros

Cheers, I think I am going to try this with Ping and Plano just to see how it runs. Thanks for uploading the list and for the run through :)