4 Credit A Teia

I've been curious about how to make A Teia work ever since it released. Despite some notable high placements, I don't think we've really solved the puzzle quite yet. And I don't think I've necessarily done so either here—but it's certainly an interesting and entertaining deck to pilot. I've been playing it mostly at our weekly meetup but I took it to a circuit opener this past week and it performed reasonably well: two wins, one loss, one tie. I think that it could be tweaked (and piloted) to be even more effective though.

The deck is uncreatively called "4 Credit A Teia" because of its most notable feature: the opportunity to reliably install two cards and gain 4 using a single click. This is done by devoting both remotes to individual copies of Tranquility Home Grid and is enabled by 1) tranq's relatively prohibitive trash cost; 2) A Teia's ability to create two remotes with 2–4 ice each without ever paying an install cost; and 3) having three copies of tranq that can be recurred if necessary. This is the engine of the deck and although it can work without having both tranqs firing consistently, it certainly helps when they do.

Here are some of the fun plays offered by this deck:

• Install a card on a Tranquility Home Grid and use it to draw a card. In the same window, you can trigger A Teia's ability to install the card you drew.

• Use a Timely Public Release counter to install a piece of ice on the runner's turn so that you can trigger A Teia and install an agenda (or, in a pinch, a Rashida Jaheem). You can then score these agendas using Seamless Launch. I've won by doing this to score Fujii Asset Retrieval, both by getting to 7 points and by flatlining the runner.

• Install an agenda, NGO Front, Rashida Jaheem, Regolith Mining License, etc. With the A Teia trigger, install Adrian Seis. Rez him before the end of your turn and move him into the first server. Ideally, this would also get you your two triggers of tranq without occupying your second server.

• Use the Tatu-Bola ability to install a new piece of ice, which triggers A Teia's ability. You can use this to install an agenda, Rashida Jaheem, etc. This can be devastating and really screws with the runner's sense of when they can run one of your remotes.

• Use one of the aforementioned methods to cheat out an agenda on the runner's turn. Then, score it using Seamless Launch, and kill the runner with Neurospike. This works as a win condition only occasionally but I've pulled it off a few times. It's just too hard to keep track of all of these plays as the runner and they will often let things slip.

• Slow-advance a Fujii Asset Retrieval in your three-ice server with an Adrian Seis. The runner will probably leave it alone. It turns out runners are very hesitant to try to a score a Fuji when it costs 16 credits and a successful psi game. Score it and play one or two Neurospikes for the win.

Other than these fun little tricks, it's mostly just Mathrunner™, combined with the inherent spikiness of Jinteki. It rewards careful play and multi-turn plans. It can fold hard to runners on Turbine rigs but ideally you can score 4–5 points before they're set up and then just cheat out the final agenda (or kill them while they try to set up!). I had another version of this deck on Nisei MK II instead of Timely Public Release and Border Control instead of Seamless Launch, but I like this version much better. The other one had a comparable win rate but was much grindier and relied almost exclusively on glacier tactics, instead of this hybrid tempo approach. Let me know if you try it and have any suggestions or questions!