Forge of SanSan

With the recent nerfs to Parasite and Clone Chip, I feel like one of the most effective countermeasures to NEXT ICE has been given a bit of a kick. Not enough to remove them from play, but I suspect triple Parasite-triple Clone chip is a thing of the past. This, I feel, helps The Foundry as they have the best synergy with the NEXT ICE.

With that in mind, I'm going to do some fresh testing with The Foundry. The way I view the progression of a match is that in the early game, the runner has an advantage, as you cannot play enough ICE to seriously trouble the runner. In the midgame, you've got your defences set up, and the corp is in the ascendancy. In the late game, the runner has all their breakers, and it becomes an economic battle. If the Corp cannot get far enough ahead by this point, they tend to lose.

The Foundry ability can catapult you into the midgame by providing a crazy amount of ICE. You have to keep the money up, and keep the ICE pretty cheap. The secondary advantage is that you can get away with much less ICE in a deck, leaving you more cards to do other things. (Although in this deck I've not gone particularly low on ICE)

Ze Plan, therefore, is to try and leverage The Foundry ability to enable some rapid scoring, hopefully helped with SanSan City Grid.

The Agendas

I'm a massive fan of this setup of agendas, and I ususally run 3 Domestic Sleepers as well. It means that the runner can steal up to 6 agendas and still not have won. (5 in this case). If you can overscore Project Vitruvius that's awesome, and if you can score Accelerated Beta Test early, it can be worth firing if you've only got a few bits of ICE since the The Foundry: Refining the Process ability and Team Sponsorship give some protection. GFI is great.

The Support

Even with the nerf, SanSan City Grid is still incredible, and vital to the plan. It could be replaced with Biotic Labor, but SSCG is something they really need to deal with, else it just keeps on giving. Ash gives protection, and Cyberdex Virus Suite helps with Clot shenanigans. Might need a second one, tbh.

With 11 Agendas, Team Sponsorship can really do some work. It can really help save clicks by installing ICE for free, it can recover cards, and it can set up the next agenda score. It is also pretty excellent at adding another layer of cover for Accelerated Beta Test firing... although I still might not risk it! Even when it is trashed immediately, its relatively high trash cost makes it a pain.

Adonis Campaign, Hedge Fund and Green Level Clearance are for econ. Normally I'm not a massive fan of the Clearance series, but the ability to draw into more agendas and ICE whilst gaining some money is perfect for this setup.

Executive Boot Camp lets you trigger the ID ability on your turn, saves you money, and can search out useful tech. Great card with good synergy.

Biotic Labor and Interns are there to help in case people are getting the better of your SSCGs, allowing you to keep the pressure up.

The ICE

NEXT Bronze, NEXT Silver, natch. I just put the one Gold in, as it is very pricey and doesn't actually work with the plan of setting up annoying servers as quickly as possible. Better in the late game. Mother Goddess is included as it is reasonably irritating for most common breakers, and boosts almost half my ICE.

Wall of Static was included as a cheap stopper, although I'm still not convinced by it. If there was a cheap gearcheck sentry, I'd use that instead. If I had a bit more influence, it would probably be Wraparound or Eli 1.0.

Turing, because screw you Faust. D4v1d is a bit irritating, though.

Lab Dog I threw in as an afterthough to a deck ages back, and it was a right laugh. The only deck it wasn't really annoying for was an Eater one. So I've put two here, to see if it works with The Foundry, particularly when I've got a reasonable amount of recursion. potential.

Going forward

I'd like something better then Wall of Static, and I need to give Lab Dog some thorough scrutiny.

If Lab Dog doesn't make the cut, The Foundry can run on 13 ICE, so I could put in the second Cyberdex Virus Suite and another card. More money is always nice, maybe a Blue Level Clearance? But really I need some more game time before I can make a decision.

Is the Econ right? Adonis Campaign is brilliant when it gets going, but do I want something with a more immediate reward, such as another Operation (Blue Level Clearance, Restructure) or a more bursty Asset (Melange Mining Corp., Private Contracts? Not sure. I'm a fan of Subliminal Messaging for the 'free' , but I think it might be too slow.

Thanks for reading! Comments, criticisms and questions welcome!