[Startup] Old Fashioned Corpo (with full guide)

-Intro

Sometimes corp decks get too fancy and it’s nice to just make ice and jam agendas. This Weyland list accomplishes that while offering the pilot multiple decisions throughout the game to establish control and shape the board. I’ve been releasing a series of guides geared towards new and returning players on the various Startup decks I spam in jNet casual lobbies; this one has held an 80% winrate (casual lobbies are casual though, so take that with a grain of salt). For new players, I’d recommend focusing on the “Opening Hands and Piloting” section of this guide and letting the card write ups function more as a glossary as you play.

-Old Fashioned Corpo

It’s the year 2014 and Double Time has just been released to usher in a new era for corps. A few months ago, the Spin cycle kicked off by bringing us Jackson Howard to help us accelerate, filter and fight flood. With Double Time’s printing, we no longer must rely on fast advance or tag’n bag strategies. Behind the villainous team of Ash and the new entry of Caprice Nisei, the remote is finally safe. Is it 2014? No, it’s startup. Caprice, Ash and Jackson are back and (arguably) better than ever. This old fashioned vegetarian corp isn’t really doing anything fancy. Just jam your agendas. We have the tools to rush, we have the tools to glacier. This means we have a robust strategy where the pilot's decisions across the game have high impact. Although the deck does have inevitability through how our finished remotes are impenetrable, we do not sit around and glacier, well, unless you want to. Wall to Wall and Cayambe Grid build our ice for us, which lets us attend to more important matters. We opt out of both Fast Advance options and aggression punishment options to simply build the tightest servers we can at the fastest speed possible. Good clean netrunner.

-Opening Hands and Piloting

This deck neither has to mulligan often nor does it mulligan poorly. We are generally happy keeping hands where our turn one is installing cheap ice, an agenda and advancing the agenda. We are generally happy keeping hands that have us icing both RD and HQ turn one. This means I mulligan hands that have no cheap ice or have more then two agendas.

In most matchups, for the first few turns of the game, we like to put the foot to the gas against our opponents. Because scoring agendas makes us money and costs the runner resources to contest, we are happy letting them steal one agenda off a bypass if it means they won’t have a bypass trick the following turn when we go for the next agenda. As such, when in doubt, just jam what’s in your hand. Install an ice and an agenda, and then advance something. Following this play pattern for the first few turns of the game usually leads to us having rez’d ice and upgrades, both players having points, and the runner being relatively broke. This buys us time to net value off our builders while we gear up to score the last few points. When building your servers, focus on RD and the remote. HQ is not the most relevant server because most agendas we draw go straight to the remote so don’t go rezing ice that costs more than four to defend HQ.

This guide skips a matchup section because frankly, the deck plays similarly against most matchups. The three most important things to consider as you plan out your turns is (1) how much bypass or burst economy do we expect from the runner on their next turn, (2) how strong of a long game economy does the runner represent and (3) what type of RD multi-access do we expect from this runner.

Try to use this information to dictate how you spread your ice and resources to protect yourself and the speed that you jam. If the runner is not pressuring your centrals yet and you over protect the remote, you can easily lose to the runner quickly shifting to camping RD and keeping you away from future agendas. Similarly, over-protecting RD will lead to agendas clotting up HQ because the remote won’t be safe. Try to find the right balance based on the tools you expect from the runner and the speed their rig threatens. Runners with three or more credits a turn of slow drip economy have less tools to contest the remote, whereas runners with a lot of tricks to duck ice can be ground down in a long game if you lock down with upgrades. Keep in mind these things can vary from hand to hand. In the last 24 hours I won a game where the only central ice I placed all game was one Hortum on RD. Conversely, I won a game where I didn’t start building a remote until after playing 2 ice on HQ, RD and one on archives. One of the biggest strengths of this list is its ability to be flexible based not only on your hand but what the runner shows.

-Let’s look at the specific cards

Weyland Consortium: Built to Last is an overtuned ID. It offers powerful flexibility we will utilize with our ice and our agendas. Look to click advance for free the first (and only the first) advancement token on almost all of our ice. This will help our three builders to finish three counter stacking our big walls and quickly enable Cayambe Grid. Additionally, we will not lose credits when install advancing our agendas aggressively. Unlike other IDs, if the runner gets the agenda, oh well, we lose no credits. In fact, we gained a credit off the deal and if it was an Oaktown, we gained three. That’s some momentum.

10 Agendas

3x Oaktown Renovation, 3x Offworld Office, 2x Hostile Takeover, 1x Above the Law, and 1x Project Atlas make up a tactically exciting agenda suite. At its core, we have 8 agendas designed to fund our ice rezs so that we don’t have to run many credit producing cards. Score Hostile Takeover as soon as you draw it, unless doing so risks losing a more important agenda (it can be wrong to score on turn one). Oaktown Renovation and Offworld Office are the best financial investments available. Almost always offer Oaktown over other agendas first because it’s the most credit positive play to not score. With Project Atlas we want to go for the counter if you haven’t scored a Hostile Takeover yet because we will search for the takeover to convert the atlas into a 3 point play. When we have scored the hostile, an Atlas counter represents a Void a Skunkworks or a Cayambe.

7 Assets

1x Clearinghouse is by no means our plan A or our plan B. As a plan C, it can win a game when behind any number of points and we do have a tendency to build very difficult to breach servers. At various parts of testing I tried different numbers, ultimately as one of it provides significant value. Primarily, we will play Clearinghouse as a pseudo bluff. Unlike in standard, there are very few options in startup for cards that aren’t agendas that we can install and advance to force the runner to run the remote. With how expensive our remote becomes mid or lategame, the runner really can’t afford to breach it on back to back turns. Don’t look to go for early Clearinghouse, prioritize scoring your agendas but when you want to force action or are behind, the Clearinghouse shines. On top of that, installing a Clearinghouse and advancing it once is refunded by your ID.

3x Spin Doctor should be used to speed up your draws while threatening to be an agenda. This corp deck wants to install Spin Doctor in the remote when it’s out of agendas in hand and wait to rez it until the start of its next turn. Be careful when floating the good Doctor to not rez it and draw into agendas during the runner’s turn when HQ has little ice on it. If our servers are relatively weak or we are very flooded, you can draw with Spin on your turn to discard agendas you can’t threaten with and shuffle them away; however, this list really prefers to be aggressive and avoid tucking with Doctor, instead using it to accelerate our hand while returning key pieces to RD to dilute agenda density. If the runner is about to deep dig RD and there are no agendas in archives, make sure to crack your Doctor to reduce their chance of hitting points.

3x Wall to Wall provides us value every turn it is not contested. Most of the time, you will install this card in your remote when you have no agendas to try and score. If your servers are weak, do not draw with Wall to Wall (you can opt to only take two of the modes). Hopefully our servers are strong and we can choose to draw with it, when doing so, choose to draw first before taking credits or deciding if you want to bounce it. Because Anoetic Void cares about how many cards you have in hand, it is often correct when Void is out to bounce Wall to Wall instead of over installing it. When Void is not out, I tend to prefer taking the credit alongside the advancement and installing my agenda over Wall to Wall. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in a situation where your remote is full and you have a Wall to Wall in hand, it’s okay to naked install Wall to Wall and make the runner waste a click and three credits trashing it. It is very very unlikely that we ever want to invest additional ice and credits into building Wall to Wall its own remote, we are a single server deck.

16x Ice

2x Afshar should only be installed on HQ. It’s pretty simple. Don’t install it on other servers unless doing so will actually win you the game in the next two turns because the runner isn’t showing a decoder or you feel threatened by Inside Job.

3x Akhet is our heavy lifter. This ice really does it all and is the only ice in the deck I regularly consider building manually past the first counter. Cheap to rez early (often refunding you one credit on a face check) while providing incredible value late game by growing one of your other pieces of ice. Try very hard to place the first advancement on Akhet manually and finish building it with its face check and/or Wall to Wall. When not strapped for ice, think ahead of time about what server will see the most action this game. Sometimes it’s HQ but usually we’ll want a fully built Akhet on the remote or RD depending a bit on what we expect from our opponent. Conduit runners, for example, will find it quite difficult to run RD over and over while a built Akhet continues to strengthen its friends. Alternatively, some runners like to camp the remote and run everything you install. You can’t 100% know how the game will go, but when you have a choice, think about it and reflect on how that worked out after the game. Do note that Akhet can put its counter on anything. You can advance an agenda when you know your Void is going to fire or you can even advance an unrezzed upgrade to fake out the runner.

3x Colossus is our sentry of choice. It is a touch expensive but it’s important to have ice of each subtype and we really want as much ice as possible that ‘infinitely grows’ from our builders (Pharos and Akhet both cap at three counters). As such, we prefer Colossus over all other sentry options. On RD and especially the remote, we want an ice with end the run on it between the Colossus and the server so that if the runner face checks a Colossus, you can blow up the breaker that they would use to gain access through the next ice in line. It’s fine as inner ice on HQ although I don’t like spending that much to protect my headquarters. Be prepared for your Colossus to eat a Botulus or be forever boomeranged. This is fine and acceptable, as long as rezzing the Colossus didn’t leave you bankrupt.

3x Hortum are not spectacular but they do their part. We need a codegate and it's the only codegate in Startup that is advanacable. It is very rare for triple-advancing Hortum to be more correct than growing an Ice Wall or Colossus past reasonable numbers but keep in mind that the first token is important for powering Cayambe Grid. You’ll want to triple advance Hortums once every 35 games (this is an exact statistical number). If the runner is on Mayfly/Atman remember that a built Hortum locks out AI. If the runner is likely to face check a Hortum and they are not showing a decoder, triple advancing it is likely to pay off. I have never lost a game where Hortum’s second sub fired as a triple advance, but then again, if the runner face checked a triple advanced unrezzed ice without a decoder or a bypass your position is already quite strong.

3x Ice Wall overperforms in this list. For only one credit, it is a bargain bin gearcheck. The synergy with your nine builders is where Ice Wall really shines. In a long game, it will grow above 6 or 7 strength and pull your opponent’s Boomerangs and Botuli, which can force expensive payments out of them on Pharos and Colossus rezs while only costing you a single credit. Here since netrunner core, Ice Wall has always been the hero we deserve.

2x Pharos is only a two of because we have so many other barriers and 7 is a lot of credits. Early game, we want to be rezzing our cheap barriers and if we’re spending on an expensive ice I’d rather rez a Colossus simply because it is our lone sentry. A built Pharos will lock a server down (until the runner finds a Boomerang). A built Pharos alongside a built Colossus will make your server incredibly expensive. Just be careful rezzing it early, we cannot afford to have it Shutdown or Virus’d in the first four or five turns of most games. It’s often okay to let the runner have a single access if the alternative is going broke.

5x Operations

1x Digital Rights Management provides the agenda you want when you want it. Between DRM, Spin Doctor, and Wall to Wall’s optional draw, you have control over when your agendas show up mid and lategame. If we haven’t scored our Hostile and are doing okay financially, go grab Atlas with DRM. Otherwise, we’ll be picking up Oaktown so that we can spend all of our money rezzing to protect it. It’s almost always correct to hold onto DRM for the last two points (or 3 in the case of Atlas/Hostile).

3x Hedge Fund should be played in every corp deck in Startup. Due to Hedge Fund existing, it can be quite scary for other corps to rez ice that will take them under 4 credits (and force slowly click crediting to get back into Hedge Fund range). Our ID gaining value for ‘click credit’ by instead advancing our ice really mitigates this.

1x Retribution is a spicy include. In about a fourth of my games a runner floats a tag off a boomerang Pharos or a runner saving on virus counters for the Botulus on our Colossus. Often, it’s not even sloppy on the runner’s part because if we have no tag punishment, saving on breaking when games get tight will let them acquire more accesses. Well, Retribution punishes them for this. We are not aggressively looking to enable Retribution nor are we looking to do much with it besides slow the runner down for a turn or two. Check what’s in their bin and if they have discarded duplicates of any of their breakers. If not, it’s usually correct to go for their console or their multi-access.

6x Upgrades

3x Cayambe Grid; it died so young in standard that it never had a format to dominate. Well, little grid, go forth and cause negative player experiences and rage quits when runners realize their Botuli and Boomerangs won’t break a Cayambe Grid. Install it early, rez it early. Think long and hard when deciding if the first one should go on RD or the remote; locking down either server really limits the runner’s options. Make sure to install ice on each Cayambe server that infinitely scales. Remember that Cayambe doesn’t care if the ice is rez’d or not, only that it’s advanced.

2x Anoetic Void ends the run. Did you know, it only costs you two credits and two cards to stop Boomerangs and Botuli and make the runner pay to play again? That's a deal. It’s like paying 2 on a psi game to always win. Where this gets particularly disgusting is alongside other upgrades. All of the upgrades fire, just make sure to click the other ones BEFORE the Void. A void, a cayambe and two ice is a very expensive server to breach even if those are simply a Hortum and an Ice Wall. Things get even more disgusting when you have a built Akhet that rebates a credit on your Void expenditure with every run while galvanizing his friends with extra strength.

1x Manegarm Skunkworks has joined the upgrade fun. Any server with two of your upgrades is quite difficult to breach, let alone all three. This is mentioned elsewhere, but we are not looking to turtle and wait for our upgrades unless forced to. Jam quickly and drive the runner broke so that by the time you’ve rez’d a pair of remote ice and found an upgrade, it’s too late to breach and the runner has been forced to turn their attention to RD.

-Considerations

When making cuts to the deck, my first recommendation would be removing the Clearinghouse and the Retribution to help you with whatever playstyle you prefer or for the matchup you struggle the most. If you are looking to splash a card, cut Skunkworks before a Void or a Spin Doctor to clear up the influence.

Government Subsidy is a large credit boost. Most games our credit total is well below 10 credits and trying to cash in on subsidies I find to be a trap. Without a card like Punitive Counterstrike to really reward a large credit pool, small trades fit my playstyle; however, if you are comfortable committing to a slower, less aggressive playstyle, this operation is a good inclusion.

Archer comes at a high price when it slows us down from scoring out. With that said, it’s quite easy for this list to enable Archer and if the runner does face check it unprepared, the game tends to end. If I ran Archer, I’d look to slot only one and would cut Retribution for it.

Trick of Light could replace Skunkworks as a game ending Atlas tutor option to help you surprise score out the final two points seeing as we will always have extra advancements laying around to enable Trick. This is a huge payoff at a low cost. At our core, we rely on our credit generating agendas to out pace the runner, which is why I shied away from the fast advance play lines. Additionally, fast advance strategies require a more secure HQ both to protect the operations from Imp/Carnivore and to hold agendas we can’t safely pass through the remote. If I was playing Trick of Light I’d cut an Offworld Office for the second Atlas and possibly cut Above the Law for the third. Going bellow two Offices could require us to slot in more credit producing cards..

Subliminal Messaging feels to me like a win more in this deck (if the runner isn’t running we are winning) but is certainly worth considering. Retribution only hits every few games whereas Messaging will always be at the very least one free credit.

Reversed Accounts, Cerebral Overwriter, or even Uritica Cipher have some merit. With how much this deck wants to pressure runners with Install Advance, having non-agendas that do this (at no credit cost thanks to the ID) helps to keep the pressure up. Personally, I’d opt for Reversed Accounts between those options because then, even if they don’t run, you can bankrupt the runner long enough to try and score something else out.

Archived Memories picks up Anoetic Voids that get trashed from RD or HQ. As such, playing it over Skunk will provide insurance that your remote is protected given you see enough cards. If you go this way, look to add another juicy Archived Memory target.

Cyberdex Sandbox would be slotted in Standard over the Offworld Offices. Changing to Cyberdex will help hedge against virus cards but the three credit different from Office is a huge downside when our deck does not want to spend a turn purging. Specifically, if you want to hate on Conduit, this swap will go miles.

-Conclusion

Raw power and plenty of pilot choice. This corp is a joy to play. Shout out to Green Level Clearance discord server’s startup channel as well as GLC’s startup league. If you’re looking to up your game, come on by. Special thanks to ValeNetrunner and Hope for proofing this quite long guide; next up will be Stealth Az. See you in the casual lobbies. Happy flatlining.