Flogging a Dead Cow

I always liked BWBI. What can I say, I am from Quebec, we root for the underdog. BWBI was like a cow: slow, heavy and not very aggressive. But now with O&C, this forgotten ID finally has a chance to shine.

Know Yourself

With so many cards that help advance ice (Space camp etc) some would say creating a BWBI deck is trivial, that it builds itself. They are wrong. Careful choices must be made, and they have to take into account the ID's weaknesses.

BWBI decks have two glaring weaknesses (actually 3): 1. Weak early game. The forteress needs time to build-up, and by the time it's ready, it is too late. A lot of cards are unwanted early game and they clog your hand and slow your pace. 2. Weak late game. Glacier BWBI is predictable. Each server is expensive to run in the end game, but the smart runner knows he does not need to run. They just need to hoard credits until you install something in a remote, then run, or wait for your hand to be saturated with agendas etc. Time is always on the side of the Runner. Without means to pressure the runner into wasting credit into unprofitable runs, you may as well concede. 3. Slow. In a competitive environment where games are timed, this is a vice. We want a potentially tournament winning BWBI.

Awareness of these weaknesses forced the design of this deck:

Early game problem: Look at the ice composition. 19 ice, 15 of which you are happy to see in your opening hand and which CAN be rezzed early. The most expensive ice costs 5 to rez (because it is foolish to rez the astronomy ice under 2 advancement tokens) yet they are all (except Quandary) taxing. This lets you rapidly stabilize your centrals and move on to the mid-game. If I could I would add 1 ice.

Late game problem: Trick of Light is our ace to pressure the runner into running (too) often (for his own good). With the threat of scoring from hand, the runner cannot simply stack credits and wait. The alternatives are to create an invincible remote (Caprice/Ash support, unreliable) or unbreakable ice (IT department, which competes for your click usage, so antisynergetic with this ID). TOL is a good choice since we are using Astronomy ice and we want to use those advancement tokens once the ice is rezzed.

Speed: with the ability to quickly set-up a scoring remote with cheap to rez but strong ice, and our Fast Advance threat, we will be scoring early. Shipment from Kaguya, builder and Firmware Update help us speed-up the pace.

About some choices:

Agenda suite: Atlas and Firmware are obvious auto include. You need 3/1s and 3/2s to score from hand. 5/3 agendas to reduce density and NAPD is just a filler.

Cyberdex Suite: Meta call. Once it is in archieves you no longer need to worry about archieve runs to load datasuckers, which means your ice can go elsewhere. One thing that hurts you is parasite with datasuckers as it can destroy the ice you invested so many clicks on.

Reclamation Order: bring back TOL, or bring back Commercialization.

No Space Camp: deck space is an issue. Also, this card has the same problem as shock: it does not do that much for you and the runner can play around it.

Beanstalk: you need some early game economy.

Ice comp:

The Astronomy ice is meant for BWBI. One might even say that it is the ONLY ID for the Astronomy ice. This may be exagerated, but rings true: You need at least 2 advancement tokens for this ice to be worth it. For other ID's that's a 4 resource investment (2 clicks + 2 credits). For BWBI it's only 2.

No Orion: I am on the fence for this one. You need to spend 4 clicks to bring it to a reasonable rez cost, it's long. This is an ice that I don't want to see in my starting hand, and I really want to minimize unwanted cards at the start. I will test with it.

Viper: nice taxing ice, for my 15th influence point. I would put it on archeves.

Caduceus: I chose this over Errand boy because it can pay for itself on the first rez, it is harder to parasite and it can end the run. Errand boy gives card draw, but since this is not a combo deck I don't need the draw, my clicks are spent advancing ice, so I am not a big card user either.

No Hadrian Wall/Expensive ice: Not wanted (will make your early game weaker) and not needed (astronomy ice is already strong and Fire/Ice wall will gradually turn into monsters)