[startup] Moneybags Lat (with guide)

This is a Lat list which I have had success with on Jnet vs. many of the corps in the current meta, including Gamenet, the trick-of-light Weyland deck, program destruction weyland decks, Reality+, Hyuobu institute, PE, and PD.

There are many Aniccam Lat decks floating around -- the main idea is, play as many of these events that give you 4 credits as you can, and with Aniccam they are drawing cards for you also. Clicking frequently for 4 credits, plus getting your Rezekis out as soon as possible, plus the Lat draw, helps you build an insurmountable credit lead, because the corp generally cannot click for four credits. At the beginning you mostly want to hang back, towards the mid game you are in a position to contest the remote, and you close the game by playing Khusyuk and Deep dive repeatedly.

The strategy is thus quite simple -- having a lot of money just fixes most of the runner's problems.

Basic structure:

Given that our game plan is to win with Khusyuk and Deep dive, why is there only 2 Khusyuk and only 1 Deep Dive?

The short answer is, these are dead cards early, and you don't want to draw them early and then have them clog your hand. It turns out that if you lean into Lat draw, Aniccam, Diesel, etc., you can draw your entire deck pretty fast. So you don't really have to be worried that you won't draw them.

This feeds into one of the more interesting features of the deck -- The Class Act. This is a classic crim card that (1) gets you 4 cards for 4 credits, which is already not too shabby (2) turns your already insane draw into filter draw, making it even better. It lets you put those premature Khusyuks and Deep Dives that you draw back into the stack, and get just the pieces you need, ultimately accelerating you dramatically. In one version of the deck this was 2x The Class Act, but in this version I have gone down to 1x. IMO it is definitely worth the influence, it just gives the deck so much gas when you draw it.

Additionally, even though you only have 2 Khusyuk, you are still likely to play Khusyuk 3 or even 4 times thanks to Harmony AR Therapy.

Having 2x Harmony AR Therapy and 2x Simulchip leaves us largely immune to corps in the meta that focus on program destruction, such as the Reality Plus decks with Retribution, or Weyland decks using SDS Deployment etc.

Early game:

Generally I mulligan if I don't have an Aniccam or a Rezeki.

An important thing to do early on is, try to use SMC to find Rezekis. Usually my priorities at the beginning are:

• Get the Lat draw each turn. If you have 5 cards and the corp has 3, you are going to play 3 cards and draw 1. So draw first, then find a way to make it work.
• Once Aniccam is out, getting the Lat draw is still nice but less important.
• Try to get Rezekis out. Usually what I try to set up for is to get 2 out at once: Have an SMC, have a Simulchip, and if possible have a DZMZ optimizer installed. Then, do an overclock run, trash SMC -> Rezeki, bring back SMC using simulchip, then SMC -> Rezeki again. Even if the corp is setting up a remote, it is still usually better to invest in your Rezekis then to use your SMC to get icebreakers without having any Rezekis out. You will not have money to contest the remote repeatedly if you don't have that drip income. Note that even if I have SMC I usually don't immediately burn it for Rezeki though, I usually wait to see if I draw a simulchip before drawing another SMC.
• T400 memory diamond is maybe not needed, but it helps avoid the scenario that all your DZMZ are at the bottom and so you can't play all your Rezekis. It's also another 2 cost hardware that helps Khusyuk. It also lets you get the Lat draw even vs. PD.
• There is exactly 1 Prepaid VoicePad in the deck. I see alot of Lat decks that play 3. I think this is overkill and I think you get rapidly diminishing returns after the first one. A good number of your events (Creative Commission, Overclock) only cost one credit., so it's going to take a while to break even on the cost of the second install. Rezeki OTOH pays you every turn no matter what. The only reason to run a second PPVP is to try to ensure you draw one earlier IMO, and I haven't found that to be critical. (Compare also with the analysis here: https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/043bb381-9336-44ec-a099-e1b2858830f5)

Breaker choices:

• Unity is the obvious choice of decoder for Lat in startup
• Corroder and Cleaver are the only two fracters I seriously considered. Corroder is the safer and more reliable choice, even if it sometimes costs a few extra credits.
• Carmen is chosen over Bukhgalter due to influence. Carmen is a great breaker that answers big ice like Archer, Collosus, Tyr quite well. It costs more to break Drafter and Ansel, but with a few leech counters that is also mitigated.
• There is one leech, that is mainly here to supplement Carmen, or get sacrificed to SDS.

The extra influence from Carmen is used to support Clot. Clot is a key card that lets you stop all these trick of light and vlad grid fast-advance strategies in their tracks. Even in the bin, you can threaten clot using Simulchip, so they can never really be safe. Many corps which rely on fast advance just fall over in the face of Clot + Simulchip.

Last remarks:

• 1x Wildcat strike: Wildcat strike is very good in these Lat decks -- it becomes either, another Sure Gamble, or, a VRcation that you can play at the beginning of your turn. This is often best played in the mid-game. When it looks like you are able to contest the remote and R&D, the corp will often give you cards instead of credits so that your credit count doesn't get larger, and so that you will run later instead of right now. But getting 4 cards helps you a great deal also. In earlier iterations this was a 2x.

• Docklands Pass: This is a debatable choice. By running this card, you can basically threaten to win in R&D, HQ, or the remote. This will make them commit more resources to HQ, and basically slow down the game. Slowing down the game is in your interest because you have 3x Rezeki and the corp doesn't.

• 2x Telework contract: These are maybe not needed. The main reason they are there is that, if the corp has an odd number of cards different from you, then you must spend one click doing something other than playing a card or drawing. Usually that means clicking for a credit. If you have Telework contract out, you can click that instead, and still get the Lat draw. So this is an efficient use of these clicks. Whether its worth going above 45 cards, the jury is out.

Honorable mention:

In earlier iterations, we had Boomerang instead of Docklands pass. Boomerang is very nice for contesting early, and it means you can try to close the game even faster vs. the Weyland decks with advanceable ice, since it is invalidating the giant Pharos, Collosus, Ice-wall, etc. However, I found in play testing that you don't really need Boomerang here -- if you sit back and take the game later you will have all the credits you need to break those things the old fashioned way. These just aren't the corps that this deck has a hard time with. This may all be a meta call though, Boomerang is obviously super good.

Why no Swift?

A lot of Deep-dive decks are using Swift as the console, the reasoning being, you can get the extra click when you play deep dive, and so potentially steal two agendas.

My belief is that, this is somewhat risky and not worth it in Lat. (It seems great in Ken decks.)

Roughly, most corps have somewhere between 6 and 10 agendas in a 45-49 card deck. Usually, corps are shuffling agendas back into R&D somehow (sprint, spin doctor), so once R&D is down to 20 cards or so, the agenda density should be like 1/6, 1/5, or so. A successful deep dive lets you see 8 cards. In expectation, you expect ~ 8/6, 8/5 agendas. So, it is more likely than not that you hit at least one agenda. But as a rule of thumb, it is not all that likely that you hit two agendas. So more often than not the swift click comes to nothing.

By choosing Aniccam instead of Swift, you dramatically accelerate your deck, getting like 10-15 extra draws in the game. This means that either the Deep Dive comes earlier, hitting the corp when they have less time to prepare, or you have more money when it happens.

The way I prefer to close the game is like, 1st click Khusyuk, 2nd click run HQ, 3rd click run Archives, 4th click Deep Dive. It's much more likely that you will actually get 2 agendas in this turn, and you may well get one in HQ thanks to Docklands pass.