The Foundry: Frozen Wasteland

jared.saltz 13

HB loves the the newest cycle. With The Foundry: Refining the Process, it allows him to quickly abuse the newest ice types (both Next and Grail!), lower density of "dead cards" (by giving the equivalent to a targeted draw every time you rez and ice), increases the hand-size (lowering the probability of a snipe from HQ), and protects the player from not being able to get the ice he wants when he wants it. But with Domestic Sleepers, HB finally gets a way to splash Archer, something that is made even better due to the Foundary's ability to tutor for the second! Because of the tutoring ability, I've spread the ice into groups of 2x and 3x, depending on what I need to see first and what I'd like to see in twos. The obvious 3x are Eli 1.0, NEXT Bronze, and NEXT Silver. Due to a personal preference, i've decided to focus on a glacier build (deep taxing ice) + program destruction to slow the runner down.

First, the glacier build should be obvious. No real surprises here: Eli, NEXT, and Tollbooth provide the backbone to the taxing ice. The rest of the ice is really built for security + program destruction. That's Archer, Heimdall 2.0, and Wotan. It also provides a reason for Aggressive Secretary. The Inazuma's are there to really punish the runner if it's before an Archer, Heimdall, or Wotan--man that would hurt...

The assets feed into this strategy. and help disguise the large agendas that I'm playing (overwhelmingly 3-pointers, with the 1-pointers thrown in for getting to 7 if I've scored 3x already, or else for feeding to a hungry archer). Obviously, Wotan and Heimdall would love a priority rec, but both--my major ETR ice--also love getting an additional "ETR" subroutine from Project Wotan. Mandatory Upgrades is a single, just because i've always wanted an extra click per turn (making it easier to score the larger agendas), land harder traps, or make more money.

Returning to the assets (that I claimed to talk about last paragraph!): they're to help obscure the agendas. Eve is chosen over Adonis because it's more expensive to trash, Jackson is obvious, but Cerebral, Aggressive, Haas Arcology, and Thomas Haas can all be advanced as though they were agendas and then used to powerful result (no one like's a 2x advanced Aggressive Secretary or Cerebral Overwriter!). Haas is something where I can drop it it, then advanced it 3x the next turn (either disguising it as a Mandatory Upgrades, or else gaining enough clicks to advance a 3-pointer from hand. Thomas Haas is good to drop tokens on when you're not sure what else to do, and can give you a great burst economy before an ice rez, after after a lucky Account Siphon, and is even better if the runner spends a bunch of money and clicks running that server only to find it's gone away before they could do anything!

Otherwise, Ashes and Hedge Funds are pretty much gimmes here. There are other ways to spend the influence, obviously, and lots of fun things that would love to be in this deck, but this is one fun way to run.

This is in beta testing and not complete. The arcology and an ash may give way for Adonises. We'll see.

2 comments
20 Aug 2014 wswan

Inazuma in front of Wotan doesn't do what you think it does. It just ends the run. The bad stuff is a choice, as the runner would choose to lose the two clicks or otherwise end the run (and obviously same for the rest of them). Definitely don't do that move. Now, in front of Archer or Heimdall 2.0, Inazuma is definitely scary.

23 Aug 2014 jared.saltz

Blast. You're right. Sloppy reading in my part.