Break in Case of Emergancy

As a runner what is the most difficult thing we have to deal with? If you said the Corporation cards you are 100% correct. So I was like, “I don’t want to deal with any of their cards, ever.” So I built this.

I have seen grown adults and experienced players throw hissy fits over this deck, so beware as it is quite irritating to play against. None the less, this is perhaps one of the best suited decks to handle almost all of the corp shenanigans that exist in the current meta, especially in the competitive arena.

The basic premise for the deck is to absolutely control the entire board and not let the corp do anything they want to. This is accomplished several ways, and it will vary from game to game which cards will be most valuable. Let’s go through how this is done.

Remote Servers are being abused like never before by corps, as assets and upgrades are in practically every deck to a large degree. Whether its asset spamming or Caprice in a scoring server, Drive By is usually the easiest solution to assets/upgrades. 2 clicks for an expose and trash is pretty amazing, especially if it’s protected, or has a trash cost of 4 or more. Drive by also stops Mushin No Shin in it’s tracks, fear it no longer. Using a same old thing/Deja Vu for Drive By is also sometimes necessary, especially if you have a blackmail in your grip to back it up as the Corp seldom sees it coming. I added a Political Operative since a lot of corps will catch on to drive by and start rezzing things before they need to use it. PO Allows me to still control the board, even if they think they are safe behind Caprice. PO can trash a SanSan when the corp is trying to score on it, and can trash a live Jackson if they have goodies in the Archives. Very sneaky, and in situations, very useful card. Imp of course is a long tested method for controlling remotes as well, and the combination of Imp/Drive By can keep the board pretty tidy.

Central Servers will be accessed using Blackmail, Run Amok, and DDoS. Blackmail is super powerful, we all know that, but Run Amok functions like a blackmail more often than not. Corps are seldom willing to sacrifice one piece of ICE to resolve it’s subroutines one time. I love the idea of having no breakers in this deck, but 1 Mimic seems important in case the runner rezzes a komaniu, or even worse an architect. No way to blow up the Architect once its rezzed, so better have some kind of plan for it. Run Amok can help you whittle away protected servers to make DDoS effective again.

Medium digs are obviously the main winning condition, and it’s great to have 2+ on the table. It’s usually worth it to use a Blackmail/Run Amok for one access, if it gets the Medium counters started. You have PLENTY of recursion in this deck, so you don’t need to be too shy about using Blackmail/DDos/Run Amok when you really need or want to get somewhere.

With the ability to control remotes so well, it’s important to remember that agendas can get clogged in the corps HQ as time passes. Don’t be afraid to use your tools to hammer HQ when the time is right.

There are other ways to control the corp with this deck. Imp in it’s infinite versatility will allow you to trash trouble cards like Midseasons, Scorched Earth, Nerual EMP, Traffic Accident, etc. Employee Strike is a nice card in most games as well. It’s best versus most Jinteki (except it’s worthless against Harmony Medtech), but usually worth playing no matter what. It’s nice to have a way to counter any corp currents as well. Archive interface doesn’t always get played, but it’s sometimes super useful. Removing Jackson Howard from the game is always great. It’s most important use is probably for Shock! Cyberdex Virus Suite, or other cards that can hurt you over the long term of the game.

The econ package is mostly resources with 3 Career Fair. It’s amazing to have an opener with Career Fair and Liberated Accounts to turboboost the econ. The Bad Pub is also really useful if you do have to spend money on ever trashing remotes. Card draw is standard Wyldeside/Adjusted Chronotype, and works just dandy most games.

Having no breakers presents major problems with certain matchups. Exexutive Boot Camp, Oversight AI, Eliza’s Toybox, Accelerated Beta Test namely come to mind. I suppose the easy answer is to add a Faust and call it a day, I would consider doing this, and earlier iterations had one. While the cards I mentioned are indeed reasons to fret, most of the competitive meta is not using them (with the exception of ABT), I have not yet lost a game to being completely locked out (in about 25-30 games). In fact, in one game I faced Eliza’s Toybox, was able to trash 2 of them, and remove them from the game with Archive Interface. This is not a perfect solution, but it worked.

This deck is a matchup nightmare for most Corp decks. If they play a lot of ICE, I just bypass all of or destroy it one at a time. If they play very little ICE, I will ransack remotes and win using DDoS to get easy accesses in centrals. This deck especially catches IG with It’s pants down, as it’s tech’d to the nines to stop it. Just watch out for those Chronos Projects.

I hope you enjoy this deck as much as I do. Part of me hopes no one reads this and likes it. That way I won’t have to worry about playing against it. It’s not perfect, but it’s the near perfect answer to all the strongest corps out right now.