Targetzan 1.2

UPDATE: Here is the latest installment of my journey through sticking with Sol for a while. This deck has been performing very well lately. The inclusion of Astros and 1 SanSan have been proving to be a great way to rush out against aggressive Runners. I have successfully AstroTrained Andromeda twice in a row. That alone warrants these new cards over the NAPDs.

BACKSTORY: When D&D was announced, I was in a bit of a Corp deck building rut. Nothing seemed engaging to me at the time. I made it my goal to choose one of the NBN IDs and stick to it until something seemed playable.

I decided on New Angeles Sol. This is that something.

TL;DR: cycle Targeted Marketing for money or to prevent certain plays, score fewer agendas than the Runner has to, and play News Hound and Archangel.

ID:

When looking at the ability of Sol, the immediate reaction is to stuff your deck full of high influence Currents to have an exciting toolbox of Runner-interfering abilities. This quickly proved to be ineffective. Instead, I chose to focus on only one Current in particular. I wanted it to be in faction so I could play 3 of them easily, and cost 0 to play. That way it would never be a question if I could play a Current off of Sol's Ability. Predictive Algorithm sucks, so Targeted Marketing it was.

CURRENT:

Targeted Marketing is great in many ways. It can be an early economical boost when targeting a card the Runner must play early, it can be a preventative tool for stopping threatening Events and Icebreakers, or it can give you the necessary funds to power up ASH and rez Tollbooths. The 3 copies, as well as Sol's ability, often allow for you to target 3-4 cards in a game. Hot targets are PPVP, SMC, Cache, Sure Gamble, Clone Chip, Parasite, Datasucker, and so on.

AGENDAS:

This agenda suite has got to be my favorite suite I've ever encountered. Any way you spin it, the Runner has to score a minimum of 4 times to win. Maybe even more if they hit 15 Minutes early on and you take it back. For you, though, it consistently only takes 3 scores to win. Sometimes only 2 big scores of GFI and a 3 point Beale and sneaking in a 15 Minutes.

-GFI reducing the agenda density and creating a disparity in the number of required scores between Corp and Runner is well worth the 3 influence.

-Beale is great because it is flexible. it can be a 2 pointer when you have a GFI and an Astro scored, or a 3 pointer when you have 2 Astros or a GFI+15 Minutes. Another champion agenda for fundamentally altering the scoring conventions. Not to mention how fun Beale is against DLR cheese. Put it in with ASH and tick the game down faster than they can mill you!

-UPDATE: Astro is replacing the NAPDs. The ability to threaten fast advance is certainly powerful in a slower deck like this. Astros and the 1 of SanSan really crank up the thrusters and have led to many consistent and quick wins. Thanks to @Phoenix for the suggestion! You were so right.

-15 Minutes quickly ends games where you can score two 3 pointers, is a nuisance to the scoring Runner (wastes time and triggers Targeted Marketing again!), and can clog up Film Critic if the Runner really doesn't want it to get taken back. It is often the cherry on top of a well-greased AstroChain

OPERATIONS:

-The standard suite of Operation economy. I chose Operation Economy because of the resilience it has to trashing, as well as getting large heaps of money for the turn I need ASH.

-Interns is fun for all sorts of reasons. Putting out a 4th level ICE on R&D/Scoring Remote and recurring ASH/CVS/Trashed Jackson are some of my favorites.

-Cerebral Static exists primarily as Noise hate, who otherwise trashes this deck. He is consistently a dangerous Runner. It has other uses as I'm sure you can imagine. the 2 credit cost makes it much harder to recur with Sol, and is therefore not integral to the deck design.

UPGRADES:

-ASH is a key card in this deck, especially when the Runner plays through Targeted Marketing. Kate plays Lucky Find and you gain 10 credits? They just helped you protect your agenda you've advanced.

-CVS is here to help prevent Datasuckers, Parasites, Medium, and Imp. All of those viruses are very scary to face. All around great utility card.

ASSETS:

-Jackson is a good card. Soon to be an Alt Art!

-Marked Accounts was an interesting inclusion. I initially wanted to focus on Operation economy, which still holds true. But, this was a later inclusion to either keep the Runner poor from trashing it, or give me some money when the Operations aren't flowing. Its 0 rez cost is paramount in a deck that isn't trying to set up many remotes. Therefore I don't lose much tempo from it, and I don't feel bad if they come in to trash it. I've been very satisfied with its performance.

-The one of Melange has been a nice supplementary addition. Early on in the developing Scoring Remote, it can really put the pressure on. Uncontested, This thing lets you build huge servers and prepare ASH to help you score.

ICE:

This ICE suite feels very effective. With the caveat of Atman4 being pretty scary, there is very little that can make this suite manageable.

-News Hound is a definite MVP. the cheap rez cost feels so unfair for a 4 strength ETR sentry. I always seem to get all 3 out, and they always do great work. My favorite play was putting one on Archives to shut down free Datasucker tokens, thus keeping my other News Hounds on HQ and R&D safe from Mimic range.

-Archangel was added as a surprise way to remove Atman4, who is otherwise a very efficient Icebreaker against Eli and News Hound. UPDATE: HOLY SMOKES THIS IS GOOD ICE! Many opponents have felt so beat down by this card. Maybe its the shock factor of a new ICE, but a 4 rez for trace 6 and strength 6 is so strong. This has bounced back Femmes on Tollbooths, consoles to put them under memory and have to trash a program, and send Kati Jones packing before she drops of her 12 credit load. Seriously, watch out for this guy. Hands down my favorite piece of ICE.

-Swordsman is here to combat Faust, as well as Atman. I sometimes like to use Targeted Marketing on Mimic to hopefully keep it away when they run into Swordsman.

Overall, this has been a very successful deck, and I think NA Sol has a very bright future down this path. Even though it uses a rather unconventional card in Targeted Marketing, it has felt very effective in punishing players who rely on the most well known top tier decks. Any suggestions for the future development of this deck would be greatly appreciated. I also encourage people who are having trouble finding a Corp ID that fits their style to pick a new one and stick to it until your own ideas begin to form within it.

Thanks for reading!