The Harm in Harmony

pinkj 154

Corp doesn't have to go asset spam or prison to win in the current meta. The key mental preparation with this deck is to not care how many credits the runner has, not care about getting siphoned early on (cred up to 3, next turn MRF!), and not care about ice being trashed. Ice and credits don't hold up against the runner in the meta at the moment, so Harm is a great fun way to out play the runner with speed and skill.

I tested a lot of Harm builds. Plan B shenanigans, Ronin shenanigans, Snare and Pop-Up shenanigans. None of them worked that well, so I concluded that the best way really is to play gear check rush FA - as it was always meant to. All 12 inf needs to be dedicated to 3 Biotics for Harm to work.

It's tempting to go full gear check with cheapest ice possible and rush, but then you're at the mercy of the perfect first 4 turns to get enough credits, agendas, ice and biotics. If you don't, the runner goes nuts on centrals. So you need to breed a bit of fear in the runner with Shock!s, Shi.Kyus and Chrysalis. A well timed Junebug bluff can do wonders. And because you're rushing to 4 point fairly quickly, the runner will be inclined to run without drawing for breakers, potentially getting snagged.

As long as you can get a 2 point agenda scored at the beginning, float around 7 creds and keep the runner from deep digging R&D, you should be OK. Throwing Shi.kyus in archives with a Medical Breakthrough technically gets you ahead if you can scare the runner in taking the Shis.

Mid game gets trickier if you're not getting agendas and biotics, so you need to be good at bluffing and shell games. Preemptives help too. Macrophage and Lotus Field help in keeping the runner from raiding R&D because that's going to be your biggest issue mid to late game.

It's not tier-1, but it's fun and I've gotten a good number of wins with it.

3 comments
15 Mar 2017 Krams

Like the concept and the deck name ;)

15 Mar 2017 Friff14

The only card I'm really curious about is Junebug. Why's it there? Also, do you ever score out the Improved Protein Source?

15 Mar 2017 pinkj

@Friff14 It's a good bluff when Mushin-ing Junebug and icing it until you get an agenda in HQ. I've won a number games this way when the runner has the right breaker or Parasite in hand. Works well on first turn. It's not integral to the strategy of the deck, but I like having it to scare the runner. I used to have Back Channels to take advantage of sitting Junebugs, but 3 Biotics really is a must.

I've scored IPS on second turn a good number of times. Then It's over if you find Clone Retirement and Biotic a 3/2.