Your Fast News: Eventually

Bigguyforyou518 1760

After extensive testing, I've (grudgingly) settled into an increasingly common realization regarding New Angeles Sol: the only current worth building an entire yellow deck around (since Media Blitz doesn't do much work in-faction) is Targeted Marketing.

In an ideal situation, this card will allow you to tell the runner "If you want to get into this server, you need to completely forfeit your economic lead, and face the consequences". The obvious effect of your ID here is that it makes the current more-or-less permanent: the runner can knock it out with their own current, but the second they steal an agenda (or you score one) it immediately comes right back. The less obvious benefit is that as long as you have a second one in HQ or Archives, every time an agenda is scored or stolen you can retarget Targeted Marketing.

  • If they bite the bullet and install the breaker you targeted, you can switch the target to an econ or multiaccess card
  • If it turns out you guessed wrong and they aren't even running the card you originally targeted, switch it up
  • If you bounce something with Archangel or knock something juicy out of hand with Assassin that is going to be recurred, adjust your target accordingly

Ultimately Targeted Marketing can be a difficult card to play effectively, and Sol makes it much more forgiving if you picked the wrong target.


Alright, so this ID should be built around the premise that you're going to have a TON of money. There are several ways you can leverage that. Most people I've seen so far have decided to use it to create a beefy scoring remote protected by an Ash 2X3ZB9CY or a Caprice Nisei. You could also spend your influence on a trace-based Scorch Package. I opted to go in hard on the fast-advance strategy, using my mountains of money to score agendas straight out of hand with Biotic Labor and SanSan City Grid.

So Here's What You do:

It's not complicated.

  • Lock down R&D hard.
  • Create a single "scoring" remote. This will very rarely be used to actually score agendas - it just looks like it. If you can sneak out an early AstroScript Pilot Program in it, then by all means do so. More often it will hold your Melange Mining Corps and Jackson Howards, which can fake out desperate runs, but are also pretty devastating if left rezzed and firing.
  • Try to keep agendas out of HQ (score the small ones, shuffle the big ones around with Jackson Howard)
  • Make a fat stack of and score agendas out of hand with Biotic Labor, SanSan City Grid, and Astro tokens

With Account Siphon c**k-blocked by Targeted Marketing, it's very difficult for a runner to stop you from getting rich (best bet would probably be forcing you to rez every single piece of ice while pressuring R&D insanely fast), and if they don't stop you from getting rich, you score agendas out of hand as you draw them. As the game goes on, your hand will comfortably fill with Biotic Labors and Closed Accounts, which is your tag punishment. You're not going out of your way to tag them, but if they try to get clever (and cheap) by just face-planting through Data Raven and News Hound, you can completely obliterate their economy (The All-Seeing I is the perfect icing for that cake).

Clot: The Elephant in the Room

When you go all-in on fast advance, you get hosed by Clot, right? Well, not really. This deck turtles extremely well, so you can purge every few turns without throwing the game. If they're threatening with a mid-turn Clone Chip rez, you've got a Cyberdex Virus Suite and several ways to recur it if you need to. Later in the game you may be able to legitimately score out of your remote anyway, and sometimes it's acceptable to let them break in and steal it when they spent 1 on Clone Chip, 2 on Clot, and 4-6 to break in (bonus points if it was just one of your three 1-pointers, top marks if it was a 15 Minutes that you can shuffle back in). Perhaps most importantly, if they're threatening Clot from the heap, (re)play Targeted Marketing and say "Clot". Hilarity ensues.

Card Notes

  • The singleton Paywall Implementation used to be a third Biotic Labor, but I wanted the increased versatility of an Archived Memories. Paywall is nice as an extra way of turning on your ID and News Hound if you can't find a Targeted Marketing early, and it can also be a superior current choice later in the game once all of the runner's predictable cards have been played.
  • Melange Mining Corp. is pretty flexible - you could slot a variety of different econ cards in here. I like it because I don't play this deck horizontally, so my econ assets need to be temporary and powerful.
  • The agenda suite is increasingly common, with GFI forcing them to steal 4 agendas for the win. Project Beale is great for its flexibility, especially later in the game when you may have more than one Biotic Labor in hand, as well as usable AstroScript tokens.
  • Archangel, in combination with Targeted Marketing, is either incredibly devastating or incredibly taxing for a very reasonable rez cost
  • News Hound is legitimately unbalanced in NAS, especially considering it's above native Mimic range. This card does massive work every game.
  • This writeup is already too long-winded to go into detail of which cards to call out with Targeted Marketing, but there's plenty of guides for that already.
1 comments
13 Nov 2015 Bigguyforyou518

Updates:

I would really like a way to fit Will-o'-the-Wisp in here, since it combos so well with Targeted Marketing. I think it's fighting for deckspace with my tag punishment, which I've been reluctant to let go (they've given me many brutal plays off of Breaking News).