SG+SU21 duel – Episode 2: Near-Earth Hub (vs Zahya)

Episode 2 of the duel series features economic warfare between a big tech monopoly and a profiteering cybercriminal. They may differ in means, but both are motivated by greed! These decks are designed to play well against each other, but are also strong in their own right within the System Gateway + System Update 21 card pool. See the runner deck here: SG+SU21 duel – Episode 2: Zahya Sadeghi (vs NEH)

With this deck, your goal is to install assets faster than the runner can trash them, defend two key servers (R&D and scoring remote), and win by fast-advancing agendas with the help of Biotic Labor and SanSan City Grid.

Most of your assets and upgrades have high trash costs, so early on, it’s OK to play an unprotected Marilyn Campaign (3), PAD Campaign (4), or even SanSan City Grid (5) to take advantage of NEH's ID. Daily Business Show is super helpful in filtering card draw, but needs to be protected as it is a prime target for runners. Rush an early agenda or two behind cheap end-the-run ICE before your opponent gets all their icebreakers online.

As the game develops, score License Acquisition to install & rez SanSan for free, or if you are flush with cash, rez SanSan while scoring a 3/1 or 3/2 agenda from hand. Offworld Office (4/2 agenda) can also be scored from hand using Biotic Labor + SanSan. Send a Message (5/3 agenda) is trickier; wait for the runner to get low on credits before attempting to score, or just bottom-deck it with DBS and move on.

PreNic’s [SG+SU21] Fast Advance Hub is a really good deck, so we made just a few tweaks:

• Dropped 1x Regolith Mining License – Regolith yields a lot of credits, but sometimes there isn’t a good window to install and click multiple times; 2x copies felt like enough
• Dropped 1x SanSan City Grid – expensive to rez in the early game; more likely to be put into play by scoring License Acquisition (can also be retrieved from Archives if the Runner trashes it, so 2x is OK)
• Added 3x Predictive Planogram – save these for when you need to bounce back from low/no credits after rezzing ICE to defend an agenda; also helps pad out HQ and R&D since Operations cannot be trashed (barring special cards like Imp)
• Dropped 1x Biotic Labor – very useful in Fast Advancing, but costly at 4 and 4 influence; 2x is usually sufficient if there is a rezzed SanSan in play
• Added 1x Seamless Launch – cheaper alternative to Biotic Labor, but requires you to have installed an agenda in a previous turn
• Replaced 1x Ping & 1x Palisade with 2x Eli 1.0 – more taxing (but porous) Barriers, best placed on central servers
• Replaced 1x Archer with 2x Rototurret – this deck likes to go fast, so forfeiting a 3/1 agenda to rez Archer felt like stepping backwards and giving the runner more time to set up; Rototurret is not great (4 to rez vs 2 to break), but it’s a serviceable Sentry in SG+SU21 with trash-a-program and hard end-the-run subroutines
• Dropped two Code Gates (1x Pop-up Window and 1x Tollbooth) to keep to a 49-card deck

This matchup starts off pretty even, but tends to accelerate towards the finish depending on whether the runner is able to hold down the corp’s board, or it spirals out of control. Always an interesting duel!

P.S. While it references a wider card pool than SG+SU21, bowlsley's [Startup] Near Earth Flop has a great strategy writeup that we found helpful in building and piloting this deck.

SG+SU21 duel episodes (with more on the way)

Episode 1: 🟢 Tāo Salonga -vs- 🟪 Precision Design

Episode 2: 🔵 Zahya Sadeghi -vs- 🟨 Near-Earth Hub

Episode 3: 🔵 Steve Cambridge -vs- 🟥 Personal Evolution