Fast Advance To It's Limits

JacquesZhang 52

In a world of 419 econ denial, and Boomerangs, Botulus', Inside Jobs, and more, it's extremely difficult to create secure late-game servers. Naturally, gearcheck and rush decks have come into meta in the form of PD and Sports, or low-ice, low-econ requirement ID's like CTM.

The standard rush plan is to score a few points early on behind gearcheck ice, and then finishing it off with a few fast-advanced agendas when late-game servers become impossible to keep secure. This deck wants to take that to it's limit, with as many fast-advance options present as possible. While the combinations of FA options are nearly endless, I'll list some of the more common ones:

  • A single unchecked Bioroid Work Crew with either Subliminal Messaging or Red Level Clearance lets you score a 3/2 from hand. With a Jeeves out, this is extended to 4/2's.

  • The classic one with an MCA on two counters is click for counter, click to trash MCA, click to install, gain click from ID, and you have scored a 5/3 from hand

  • RLC can install a Bioroid Work Crew which can then be trashed to install an agenda, a very roundabout way of getting rid of the "non-agenda" clause on Red Level.

  • Bass CH1R180G4 is really cost-inefficient, being a Biotic Labor that requires an extra click to install, and can be trashed. The upside is that the click required to use it works well with our ID. Bass CH1R180G4 + Biotic Labor + Install will give us an extra click with our ID, and hence allow us to score 5/3's from hand instead of the expected 4/2.

The Gameplan:

We want to secure centrals quickly with gear-check ice while putting out threatening assets. Our greatest strength, and possibly the only thing keeping this deck somewhat viable, are the high trash costs of our key assets. In the early game, runner's will feel pressured to trash unrezzed Bioroid Work Crews or Jeeves, but they will quickly go broke if they don't have their economy set up. The efficiency of the runner trashing an asset like this is roughly trading a corp card for 4-5 runner credits. Adding in some additional perks the runner may get like pennyshaver, we are still trading very favourably at roughly card-for-3-credits. If the runner leaves the assets alone, we can start FA-ing agendas, and if they deal with our assets, they are often too broke to find the pieces in time to get at a MCA behind a Vanilla. It's very difficult to deal with our combo pieces, and so very often if we can secure agendas in hand we will have a way to score them. We score enough of them, and we win the game. Attacks on HQ or R&D lock are the most concerning for this deck, since if agendas are removed before we get to score them, we are left with a bunch of FA combo pieces looking silly. I imagine that Stargate with the right set of breakers would pretty much force a concede.

Card Choices:

Government Subsidy may feel like an odd choice, but this deck's credits often flunctuates between sitting at 10+ for several turns and then spending it all on one turn with Biotic Labor, Bioroid Work Crew, and a bunch of advances. This makes Government Subsidy perfect since we can get into situations where we can cast it, and we can also make good use of the money.

Don't expect to recur Subliminal Messaging very often. The baseline for the card is trading a card for a credit, but it's mainly here for the combo potential with Jeeves Model Bioroids and our ID as a clickless way of getting closer to earning a click.

Cyberdex Sandbox feels necessary as a tech card against Hivemind MaxX and the turtle, and I think it's right to run Cyberdex Virus Suite alongside it, just for the econ and additional tech.

Nanoetching Matrix is a horribly inefficient card, requiring 2 turns before it is even basic-action level efficiency, and never going much above that. But it helps us recover after a big FA turn, or Diversion of Funds since it's one of the few cheap econ tools that the runner can't easily deny. But mainly it's in the deck as a way to more easily fire our ID once every turn. Same goes with Calvin B4L3Y.

I don't know what the correct split between Vanilla and Eli 1.0 is. Vanilla does nothing against turtle, but then again most of our ice aren't much better. It is however much less taxing to get through, and sometimes I think we generate enough credits that we can afford having an Eli 1.0 on our centrals instead. It's always a feelsgood moment when the runner boomerangs or botulus' a Vanilla though.

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