Fastrobiotics: 1st Place at London Regional

This deck was a natural evolution from the Astrobiotics deck archetype. The aim remains the same, to Astrochain to victory, usually Astro-Astro-Beale-Breaking News. Fast Track enables you to thin your deck of actual agendas. It also makes running 44 cards more attractive than the usual 40 cards, as neither your hand nor your deck are particularly profitable for the runner in terms of agenda points. It's primary use is to pull out agendas ready to score next turn, and hide them in your 6 card hand. With an Astroscript counter and either an installed SanSan or Biotic in hand, you can Fast Track to score another Astroscript from deck. FROM THE DECK! Madness.

As with Astrobiotics, the deck suffers the longer the game goes on, due to the binary nature of a good portion of the ice. There's a few taxing heavy-hitters like Grim and Tollbooth, but both are hugely hurt by Emergency Shutdown. Once you get past Turn 10, the odds of winning with this deck start to plummet. The key is knowing when to rez ice and when to let the runner through. If you've got the money and the means to get the Astrotrain rolling, 90% of the time the right call is to allow the Runner access and pray to Lady Luck.

One final comment about Fast Track - when I explained the deck to people at the tournament, they asked me how many copies of Fast Track I was running. Most assumed 2, but seemed shocked when I said 3. In response, I find that over the course of a single game I will often think 3 times or more after mandatory drawing an agenda "man, I wish I had drawn an Astroscript instead of a Beale right now" or else "man, I wish I hadn't drawn an agenda right now." Drawing a Fast Track solves both of those headaches with a single card. 3 copies is the right call, I'm sure of it.

Card choices

2x Eli 1.0 - During testing I switched between 2 Rototurrets, 2 Elis and one of each. What I discovered was that a Rototurret is only useful if it comes out early enough to knock out a key program, but Eli is nice draw at any point in the game, and remains an annoyance for the runner long after Corroder hits the table. Factor in the reduced rez cost and Grim as a backup destroyer, and 2x Eli was the best choice of the options.

2x Grim - Speaking of Grim, it was the standout card at the Worcester Store Championships where I placed second. After dropping the Rototurret from my deck, I increased the Grim count to 2. It comes as a real surprise to many people who don't expect such a nasty piece of ice in what otherwise looks to be a bog standard Fast Advance deck, and is quite taxing to get through for anyone relying on Mimic or Femme with a singleton Datasucker as support. It has anti-synergy with NAPD contract, but only if you are looking to score NAPD contract, which I rarely am.

2x Green Level Clearance - A deck-building restriction I set myself is to run as many economy cards as agendas, so with the standard Hedge/Sweeps forming the backbone, I had 4 more card slots. After thinking about what I liked and didn't like in my Store Championships deck, I remembered that the GLC was always a welcome sight. It also fits the deck style of keeping a high hand size to dissuade the runner from unprofitable HQ runs. Add those in and I've got 8 economy cards...

2x Pop-Up Window - And Pop-Up Window forms the final two. I consider Pop-Up an economy card because I'm often putting it on R&D, and many runners are content to run through it every turn to see what I've got on top of my deck. It also enables one of my favourite plays, which is to protect HQ with a Pop-Up Window and then Fast Track out an Astroscript. Many runners will run 4 times to try and take it from hand. Sometimes they will succeed, but oftentimes they won't. Regardless, I just got a Hedge Fund's worth of cash for installing that Pop Up. It's also a great card against Kit, a taxing code gate that shields the barriers and sentries deeper in the server.

2x Chimera - Speaking of HQ ice, Chimera is my favourite. As the ultimate gear check ice, it really keeps those AI-less criminal decks searching for breakers before they can get the Siphon chain going. Often you are better off not rezzing it to bait out the SIphon, but it pulls double duty when you've just Fast Tracked a key agenda and you really need to keep it safe.

1x RSVP - Usually used to protect a SanSan for cheap, but can also double up as protection to score an early NAPD contract.

1x Guard - Guard is a wonderful anti-criminal card. It has two uses, the first is to try and score an agenda behind it in the early game, safe in the knowledge that it'll take more than an Inside Job to get the runner in. The other use is after they've installed a Faerie, to put a SanSan, Jackson or NAPD contract behind it to bait them to use the Faerie for little to no gain, and then try to use a Grim to its full effect. At worst it's an expensive ETR ice for your centrals, which is better than nothing if you are ice-starved.

1x Shipment from SanSan - "They can't score an Astroscript this turn, they're 2 credits shor... oh." I rarely use this card if I could use credits to score, which means I don't really view it as an economy card. This card is more about enabling plays where you convince the runner to take credits, draw cards, or run anywhere but my hand while they presume I can't score an agenda from hand. It also helps to make Account Siphon less of a threat.

1x Corporate Shuffle - at best, it resets my hand in the middle of the game, usually just after I've just scored my first Astroscript. At about this time, my hand is often full of a good bit of chaff - ice that is doing very little for me and agendas I'm not looking to score. At worst, it's a third mulligan.

1x Closed Accounts - if you don't run any tag punishment, you're asking to be Siphon-chained. Make them care about tags and you will often buy yourself enough time to just about push the Astrochain out the station.

Matchups

Siphon Andromeda - The deck holds up well against the most common runner build, so long as it can score the first Astroscript before the Siphon chain hits. I'm quite happy to hover at 2 credits and score with Astro-counters. Legwork is a pain, but it still only gives them a 50-50 shot at pulling out the agenda you just Fast-Tracked. Sometimes you've got to roll the hard six.

Whizzard - Not a huge problem since you don't run any asset economy, and SanSan is usually used as a bait to get the runner to spend money and clicks. This play doesn't hurt Whizzard as hard as it does other runners, but then Whizzard is slower than the other runners.

Noise - mostly untested, but I would imagine it's a difficult matchup. A lot of the ice dies to parasite, and losing a Biotic to a random virus mill or an Imp can be game-changing. The singleton Jackson reflects the lack of Noise in competitive play, but respects his ability to ruin your day.

Gabe Knight - There's enough cheap ice to make overwriting the Knighted Ice a possibility, without too much of an economic hit. You always have to plan for the eventual Sneakdoor, a Grim will do nicely but any ETR will work in a pinch.

Chaos Theory Turbo Rig - Test Run / Scavenging big breaker CT is one of the fastest runner decks out there, but this deck is faster. The more multi-access they are packing the more difficult the matchup will be.

Katman - probably the deck's worst matchup. All of the ice that matters is at strength 0 or 4, which makes both Parasite and a Str-4 Atman real problem programs. Wraparound can save the day by necessitating they find a Fracter or use a tutor for it, which can buy you enough time to get going.

At the regional this deck went 3-2 in the swiss rounds (effectively 4-2 due to a Store Championship bye) and undefeated in the knockout rounds. The first loss was due to an agenda flood, and the second due to almost all of my agendas coming out before I saw a single Fast Track (and my R&D was locked hard). In the other three swiss games and the knockouts the deck ran smooth as silk, and was especially on form in the final game, where I pulled out a Turn 8 victory against Andromeda. Full report of the tournament and how the deck fared will be posted on BGG soon!