PE Assets

DoomRat 2416

This list has been a bit of a journey. I've been working on a no-trap horizontal PE deck for quite awhile now, which has had its ups and downs. I had finally settled on what I thought was a pretty good list. It could score. It could kill the runner. It very rarely won because the runner was out of cards in stack. It had Audacity in it even! It was a bit vulnerable in long games however. Runners have a lot of money and eventually you run out of assets. Then this thing happened:

Two Birds Meme

So yeah, that quickly devolved into this list. It can still score (though not quite as well), It can still kill the runner. But it also has a much better long game in milling the runner out. I don't love that, but I do like winning games, so here we are. Moving on.

The Game Plan

First thing we want to do is make a terrible remote protecting either Keeling or Bladderwort. Eventually the server should look like one of the above plus Warroid, Hokusai and an ice, ideally Diviner, but use whatever you have. Next priorities are ice for centrals and then creating more remotes with our econ cards,Moon Pool, Spin Doctor, Reaper Function and our one pointers. This puts the runner in a bind. They need to:

  • Trash the terrible remote.
  • Check all the other remotes to prevent Regenesis plays or Reaper Function kills.
  • Keep their handsize up to hold off BitW.
  • Keep their econ going so they can afford to trash the terrible remote (fully clearing that costs 16 credits!).
  • Manage their remaining stack so they don't deck out.

When runner fails one or more of those tasks, they lose. Also, you'll notice that we are not spamming the pieces of the terrible remote. We want to hold those pieces so that if the runner trashes part or all of it, we immediately reload it next turn. The only time we usually break this rule is if we can create a second, similar remote without compromising the first one. Only thing better than forcing the runner to deal with a terrible remote is forcing them to deal with two terrible remotes.

A Preemptive Defense of Wall to Wall

Everyone going to be like "This list is cool, but you should cut W2W" (or well, OK really, there going to be like "Thanks, I hate it. You're the worst. Also cut W2W" but I like to pretend). But this list really, really likes having your choice of a card or a credit every turn. It helps a lot with managing Bladderwort and you just need bulk of cards some times. Three influence is a lot but the only other card that comes even close to filling this niche is CSR Campaign, and that card is impressively bad. Don't cut the W2W. I've tried really hard to find a way to do that so I could get something like Vera in here and it just ends with lots of clicking to draw and the runner ahead on tempo.

Credits

Quick thanks to the Austin crew, who have helped a lot with the tuning of this deck. In particularly, Paillu and NetDad. Also, I just think everyone should know that Warroid was NetDad's idea, so really this is all his fault. Also, I've been trying to come up with a better name for this deck then "PE Assets" and have more or less completely failed.

16 comments
4 Feb 2023 Diogene

Fun and well written write-up, quite entertaining.

Why use Tithe instead of something like Hafrún or Aiki?

Also, what do you thing of using the influence on Hostile Architecture, with one influence for Predictive Planogram, to replace the Wall to Wall (just an idea)?

Thanks for sharing!

4 Feb 2023 NetDad

Trace 4 makes everything better. Every time this deck beats me it hurts, but I'm still glad to play it.

4 Feb 2023 DoomRat

@Diogene Thanks! Aiki actively undermines our game plan, as it give the runner an efficient way to turn credits into cards while doing something else they need to do. I like tithe because it’s cheap and pad tap is banned, but other options that are not Aiki could be worth exploring. For Hostile Architecture, the deck rarely has 5 creds on hand to Rez it, so it ends up being dead most of the time. I’ve tried planogram. It’s actually pretty good here, but suffers for not being an installable card. Every installed card adds to the runners stress level, so installable solutions are heavily preferred.

4 Feb 2023 Val

I like this because I was toying with a similar idea, but without warroid tracker. I'll make sure to give this bad boy a spin. Thanks for the evilness!

5 Feb 2023 Council

Lovely. Warroid Tracker is a neat card.

6 Feb 2023 osintelligence

Neat deck! How have you found fairing against the Apoc matchup? I guess we hope the Anemone rez snipes it from grip…

6 Feb 2023 DoomRat

@osintelligence Apocs not bad if you identify that your opponent is an apoc deck. Put Anemone on archives. Use it to dump a sting in there. They’ll have a really hard time firing it, and we can hold back a few pieces to reset just in case. If they catch you unprepared with it though you can get into real trouble.

7 Feb 2023 moistloaf

Dr. Bloodwort, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love PE

11 Feb 2023 Council

What about Pinned 2 the Wall?

13 Feb 2023 Val

Why not anoetic void?

13 Feb 2023 Sauc3

gdi I was also working on a warroid-less version of pretty much this list thinking I was cooking up something spicy, but you've just blown my spice levels out of the water..

14 Feb 2023 moistloaf

if pinhole was banned, would you still run warroid here?

14 Feb 2023 DoomRat

@moistloaf Yeah, I'd still play it. Pinhole actually doesn't do that much here. In many game states it effectively allows the runner to pay a credit to pick which card they trash from their hand. We need Warroid as a force multiplier for our trash costs to deal with the crazy money runner can put together in the late game.

@Diana.Aine Void would be trading resources we don't have many of (cards and credits) as a force multiplier for our ice, which is not very good. In many game states it would trade two cards and two credits to cost the runner a click and a credit, which is a pretty rough trade. Additionally, we're not really planning to win by sticking Keeling until runner flatlines. I'm not upset if it happens, but most games I win by doing something else (regens, BITW, reaper, sting, etc) while the runner deals with Keeling. If I use void I won't have resources left for that.

17 Feb 2023 branimated

Congrats on the dotw, you've been refining this list for a long time. Slops to Netdad for remembering that Warroid Tracker exists :P

15 Mar 2023 rongydoge

@DoomRat I think you should name the deck Pee Ass.

24 Mar 2023 m4trix87

Good deck, but has some weaknesses. Decks that can install a multitude of very cheap (0-1 cr) cards can simply shrug off the warroid effect and 1 net from hokusai and only trash the important hosted cards (Bladderwort, Dr. Vientiane Keeling). That chooses the cards to be trashed doesn't help.

Especially true for Freedom Khumalo: Crypto-Anarchist, he is pretty strong vs horizontal decks in the first place, here his tendency to install many cheap viruses (and 0-1 cr stuff like Acacia, Avgustina Ivanovskaya, Simulchip) makes him even stronger.

Also, your ice have low str and only one must-break sub, making them weak vs Aumakua and Botulus (cards Freedom decks are full of also). Tried it vs a Freedom deck, result was what I expected, buut one cannot have everything :(