Meatosis: When Biawaks Strike (Scorched Earth @ OTG)

kevnburg 496

This deck went 0-3 at Off the Grid, helping me get the "Scorched Earth" prize for lowest ranked non-dropped player at the event, but it has a >40% winrate on jinteki.net casual, so while it probably won't win any tournaments as-is it does some fun but inconsistent stuff that can win casual games in cool ways.

I consider the Jeitinho Phoenix runner deck I brought to OTG more competitive than this corp deck. You can see it here.

Meatosis

Mitosis + BANGUN = Meatosis: Install 2 agendas face-up with 2 advancement counters each for the low cost of 2 clicks and 3 credits, and each 1 will cost the runner 2 meat damage and a tag to steal. In most cases, the runner will only steal 1 of them at most. If you use your third click for NAPD Cordon, each agenda will cost an additional 8 credits to steal so they'll probably refuse to steal either of them, even if they're both 2-pointers. Using the 3rd click to install an Angelique Garza Correa, Tucana, or ice with the agenda you're most interested in scoring is also pretty good.

Throughout the game, you'll sometimes Mitosis agendas out and dare the runner to steal them and you'll sometimes install agendas into an iced remote that's extra annoying to steal from.

I used to run 3x Mitosis 3x Spin Doctor as the influence spread for this deck, but I found spending some influence on other tools like Phoneutria and Oppo Research was more helpful.

Going down to 1x Mitosis and relying on the various tutoring cards in this deck to find it could also work, but Mitosis is the most fun part of the deck, so I like having 2 of them.

When Biawaks Strike

This deck has barely any ice but lots of ways to cheat out ice like Biawaks. An earlier build ran ONLY 3x Biawak as its ice suite and was surprisingly consistent at getting all 3 Biawaks rezzed. How?

-Eminent Domain can install+rez 1 Biawak and later be forfeited to rez the next.

-Malapert Data Vault and Tucana can tutor ice and you can then rez any tutored Biawaks for cheap by forfeiting one of the many other 1-point agendas in the deck, though ideally you'd forfeit Greenmail.

Other Ice

I pivoted away from only Biawaks in-testing when I found that having to repeatedly rerez Biawaks versus derez criminals was far too taxing. I needed some cheaper ice options, and considering how much tutoring this deck has 1-ofs could work well. Some of my opponents suggested

Tithe: Dirt cheap ice that can make some money back and is just annoying enough to dissuade the runner from endlessly hammering HQ/RnD.

Phoneutria: Great remote ice because the 2 meat damage from BANGUN + 2 more from either Angelique Garza Correa or Argus Crackdown ensures the runner will have to take the Phoneutria tag unless they have a trick to draw cards later like Stoneship Chart Room or Steelskin Scarring.

I then added Kessleroid because it could be nice to have a cheap hard end the run that can't be trashed by Arruaceiras Crew for early remote scoring.

If adding more ice to the deck, I'd look at Syailendra and Akhet for extra advancement counters on NAPD Cordon turns, Anemone for more damage to dissuade remote steals, and more copies of Tithe to get cheap taxing ice setup on centrals faster.

16 Agendas!

Lots of agendas for lots of BANGUN, Malapert Data Vault, and Tucana triggers! Most of these are 1-point agendas to make the runner's calculus on whether it's really worth it to steal an unprotected agenda extra difficult.

Turn 1, I'll often Mitosis out 2 1-point agendas or if I don't have Mitosis install a 1-pointer face-up alongside an upgrade and dare the runner to steal it. If I Mitosis'd, they'll usually steal 0 or 1 of them. If I installed a single agenda with an upgrade, they usually don't touch it. They'll think the upgrade Angelique Garza Correa, but it might be Malapert Data Vault or Tucana).

Divested Trust and Eminent Domain are the most valuable 1-point agendas here. Divested Trust helps defend against Deep Dive by bouncing stolen 2-pointers back to HQ and makes the game-point Mitosis + NAPD Cordon play extra devastating because you can and will just bounce the agenda back to HQ after they pay the NAPD tax and suffer the 2 meat damage and 1 tag. Eminent Domain gets you free Biawaks or installs your next agenda in your iced remote once you're done installing ice for the game.

False Lead can help setup your Measured Response and End of the Line kills.

Above the Law can kill Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga and The Twinning.

Off the Books helps slam more agendas down into your iced remote once you have one or tutor for the NAPD Cordon + Mitosis combo.

Greenmail is a bit more money that can help rez a Biawak, but it's probably the least valuable agenda currently in the list.

If making changes to this agenda suite, I'd probably drop some Greenmail to fit in The Basalt Spire, Offworld Office, or Superconducting Hub.

I used to run Orbital Superiority to try to put the runner in a position where they'll die if they steal it (Measured Response) but also die if they don't (Touch-ups + End of the Line), but it was inconsistent and I decided I'd rather instead focus my agenda abilities on things that help me score out faster (econ+tutoring) if the runner doesn't steal the agendas (but I'll still try to flatline them if they do).

Tricks

Argus Crackdown, NAPD Cordon, and Angelique Garza Correa all make it harder for the runner to steal agendas while still respecting the flatline threats of Measured Response and End of the Line.

Oppo Research is best played the same turn you install an agenda and makes it very unlikely for the runner to bother stealing that agenda even if all you did was give the runner 2 tags.

Pivot helps you either rush agendas out faster, search for the NAPD Cordon + Mitosis combo, or pull out Measured Response or End of the Line after the runner stole some installed agendas and gave you a chance to flatline them. When to play the Pivots to help you score out vs hold onto the Pivots as a kill threat is often a tough choice for this deck.

Spin Doctor can enable click 2 Pivot kills by shuffling back the End of the Line or Measured Response you played click 1.

Because this deck has lots of tutoring, I considered splashing a few other tricks as 1-ofs but ultimately cut them for more consistency:

-Trust Operation can bring a Biawak back against Anarchs that like to trash them.

-Business As Usual can purge key viruses like Fermenter and advance both of the agendas you Mitosis'd.

Econ

This deck has barebones econ because many of its cards cost very little to play/rez. 3x Hedge Fund + 3x Petty Cash is pretty much it, though Greenmail and Divested Trust also help gain some credits.

When I'm scoring an agenda while HQ is full of good cards I want to keep, I'll sometimes use Malapert Data Vault to tutor for a Petty Cash I'll then discard at end of turn due to hand size for a light econ boost.

More econ cards could be nice to more reliably threaten 2x Measured Response:

-I used to run Key Performance Indicators as a low-impact econ option but I'm not sure what I'd cut to bring them back.

-This deck generally shies away from asset-based econ because it has so little ice, doesn't want centrals to have too many trash-able cards in them, and often takes a while before it gets any ice on a remote, but, considering how much tutoring it has, a single Regolith Mining License could do a lot of work and would be a much higher-impact include than KPI.

Shortcomings

At the event, this deck died hard to central pressure. I needed to get some light ice onto HQ and RnD faster to slow down the loss of agenda points from random RnD and HQ snipes. In general with this deck it can sometimes be a hard call whether to put 1 of the few pieces of ice on a remote or on HQ/RnD, and most of the time the priority should be getting ice on the centrals so that the runner has to deal with some sort of tax (be it ice or the BANGUN ID ability) when stealing agendas.

Opposing runners were Zahya Sadeghi: Versatile Smuggler (lost within 4 runner turns to RnD and HQ accesses before I got any ice on those servers), René “Loup” Arcemont: Party Animal (closer game, but sabotage put an Off the Books in Archives and I never saw a Spin Doctor to save it), and Deep Dive Tāo Salonga: Telepresence Magician (I didn't manage to score any Divested Trusts before the Deep Dive turn).

In some of the games I lost, I iced a remote to try and score an Eminent Domain or another agenda alongside Tucana or Malapert Data Vault to then tutor ice for centrals, but lost several points on centrals while trying to get there. So next steps for me are going to be trying some tweaks that increase the number of ice in the deck.

0 comments