The Secret of Asa

Card draw simulator
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SHIEL 80

When I first saw Asa Group and Calibration Testing, I thought what everyone thinks: Fast Advance ahoy! And sure, that does work, if you want to score Vitruvius with no counters on it, or if you're brave enough to slot Merger. I'm not, sadly, so never-advance is the actual order of the day. Not to mention, the fact of the matter is, installing an agenda or asset and an upgrade in the same click is by far the exception rather than the rule - The real power here, the real use of your ID's ability, is creating a remote and icing that remote in the same click. Or installing in your scoring remote and adding another layer of ICE. That's the secret of Asa Group: It pretends to be fast-advance, the influence spread looks like fast-advance, you can /do/ fast-advance if you're lucky, but it's actually a big spiky glacier.

This, of course, is the reason why there's no Najja 1.0 - I like it, but ETRs that can be clicked through are way too porous. The best opening hand in this deck is a 4/2 agenda, a Hedge Fund, and an ETR ICE. Hedge - Install agenda and ice that agenda - advance, so that turn 2 you can get on the money train to valuetown - You don't want them just clicking through. Vanilla and Quicksand are absolutely flexible, but I felt that they seemed reasonable choices for gear-check ETRs that would be better than 3x Najja and a third Turing. Furthermore, it's also why I backed away from Efficiency Committee - That card is great in a real fast-advance deck, but unless you've got both Shipments in hand, those no-advance clicks aren't gonna do much good. The free money and/or card draw from CST and Hopper are way more valuable.

This deck is still very much an alpha build, but I really like the potential it has, especially once it's gotten built up a bit - Team Sponsorship is absolutely an MVP; being able to reinstall your Calibration Testings for free after using them is amazingly good. Let me know what you think - Comments and suggestions encouraged!

7 comments
18 Jan 2018 Krams

+1 like!

I have a similar deck with the exact same inf spread and the same basic glacier idea with surprisinlgy few differences.

I don't run Biotic since it's too expensive and Tennin + Calibration is far enough. I love that Tennin, I'm always surprised how often I can use it. Just because it's too taxing for the runner to run every turn.

I don't use Vanilla since stacking ICE and 1-tax ICE pretty much is a bad combo. On the other hand: Najja 1.0 and FC2.0 are a great combo. You can't click both. Najja + FC3.0 are great for the same reason. And stacking ICE is simple in Asa. I found Najja to be much stronger than expected.

I use 3x Breaker Bay, because it's a very strong eco card when your running AAL,s, campaigns and Calibration. You have an added CVS that I lack, which is pretty much even more reason for you to run Breaker Bay.

And finally, I use 3x Ultraviolet Clearance for raw draw power. It's amazing with Asa! You need the cards, because you end up drawing so much and you can install two of the newly drawn cards before discard.

18 Jan 2018 Krams

(same goes for Najja + Turing! I just realized you don't have a FC2.)

18 Jan 2018 analyzechris

I love the idea of Quicksand. I can reliably get set up in Asa, but often my ICE feels weak by endgame. Usually a wealthy runner can afford to hammer one server, be it RD for multi-access or scoring remote to deny my economy. One of these on each seems well worth it. Vanilla seems synergistic with Seidr Adaptive Barrier, but is the one extra strength worth the install credits for Vanilla? Maybe a cheap multi-sub Enigma would fit better?

18 Jan 2018 SHIEL

@Krams You're right that Biotic is too expensive, but Tennin is often a blank card and it can make a difference, so that's why I keep one around just in case. Also, while I don't disagree that Vanilla is lousy, the main idea of it is just cheap non-click-through-able ETR that I can hope to have along with a 4/2 agenda in my starting hand. If I put out Najja first turn, it's not gonna keep the runner away from that jucy early-game score. @analyzechris is probably right that Enigma is the better choice, I was just hesitant to go too heavy on code gates. Do you run Ultraviolet instead of Hedge Fund?

19 Jan 2018 Krams

I run both Hedge Fund and Ultraviolet, but if I had to choose, I'd pick Ultraviolet over Hedge Fund.
I just published my version.

21 Jan 2018 SHIEL

Ahh, replacing the Marilyns rather than the Hedges. I can see that! Marilyns have a lot of value because they recur themselves once they've given you all their money, but Ultraviolets give you money /and/ card draw and a chance to fire your ID ability... ...I will play around with it both ways and see how it goes!

29 Jan 2018 GcFlash

@Rhaplanca1001 I've been building a few ASA decks and ended up settling on one very similar to yours, pinching a few ideas from it in fact. The basic changes to yours were dropping the 3 Adonis Campaign for 2 Ultraviolet Clearance and 1 MCA Austerity Policy, lastly dropping 1 Ichi 1.0 for a 3rd Architect. It ran a little poor but forced the runners I played to trash more assets such as Team Sponsorship, pulling them through ice and giving them lose lose situations. I ended up coming 1st in a small GNK with Smoke as my runner, dropping 1 game with the ASA deck (Agenda Flood is real!).

I just wanted to say thanks for some of your thoughts and ideas.