Ash and Caprice, sitting in a remote P-R-O-T-E-C-T-I-N-G v1

A slightly earlier version of this deck went 3/6 at the Dark Sphere store championship in London last month. It has since been tweaked and on a couple of occasions has completely shut Noise down, which is always pleasing.

It was based initially on the Worlds winning RP deck, but I made a few adjustments and, while I'm still experimenting I'm pretty happy with how it's doing at the moment.

Obviously, Enhanced Login Protocol is a godsend and a minimum of two is essential. I reveled in watching a smug Noise player's expression turn to thunder when, after getting a lucky pick off the top of R&D, trashing ELP, I immediately played another one. The second one remained all game.

Something I have noticed in the London meta is that almost no runners are bringing Current Events with them, which make ELP even better. I take to running at least one as standard as a runner these days because some of the Corp currents are so nasty.

The worlds winner didn't have Fetal AI in there. The extra point hurts a bit but if you set your turn up right you're still scoring in two turns. Stick a Komainu in front of it, along with Caprice Nisei and Ash 2X3ZB9CY. If they run and you know they can't/won't break the little doggies then let them access and Bob's your dead runner. If you think they can bypass the Komainu AND pay to take the agenda, rez your Caprice and/or your Ash and Bob's, well, you get the point.

Obviously Nisei MK II is the must have 3-of. Get an early one of these out and you're laughing. Stop the runner dead at match point? Yes please.

NAPD Contract and The Future Perfect are both really good because you hope that by the time they've made it through all your ice to your centrals (if they can even get there), you would hope that they don't have the dolla left to pick them up. In fact, the Nisei MK IIs are the only non-taxing agenda in there.

Get your Mental Health Clinics down early, and wait until you are a bit set up before the Sundews go out. I learned this the hard way at the SC because an early Sundew run to trash is very appealing to the runner. Putting a pup or a cheap ETR like Quandary or Ice Wall (depending on what breakers they have out, if any) makes them more survivable.

Lotus Field is a good workhorse, all purpose piece of ice. Worried they're getting in to your centrals too much? Boom, Lotus Field. Agenda server looking a bit exposed? Boom, Lotus Field. Datasucker/ICE Carver/Parasite come to ruin your day? Ruin theirs right back.

I've tried some more expensive ICE in the deck (Tsurugi for example) but with the exception of Shinobi it's really not cost effective enough. I flatlined with Shinobi once because I had the money and knew the runner didn't, but generally it's a pretty solid drop in front of your agenda server so they have something to worry about and you get the extra window to rez Caprice Nisei and Ash 2X3ZB9CY before they go snooping around.

Excalibur is a really excellent shout if you expect they're not running AI breakers, or there are none currently out on the table. It generally goes in front of R&D, but if you're up against criminal then it goes in front of HQ. Even if they can fetch their AI breaker easy enough, it wastes a couple of clicks which, in this deck, with Enhanced Login Protocol down, it might mean giving yourself a scoring window to get out those Niseis. No-one really expects it, either, I've found so far.

It's only REALLY struggled so far against Leela, because why does she need to run on your remotes when she can make you pick up the upgrades, or if you get really unlucky, that agenda you couldn't quite get out in one turn. I suspect there are others who can unlock this deck pretty well, but the other two games I lost at the SC were down to pilot error, not the deck itself.