Controlling the fastro

This is a fast advance deck with some tagging themes. Sansan and many of the assets have always been a lose-lose proposition for most runners, and the tax on this ID is insane; runners without alot of recurring credits often leave Sansan alone for the entire game.

I make no claims to inventing anything new: I believe alot of people are experimenting successfully with this ID, and fast advance out of NBN has always been viable, but the Hard Hitting News is what really ties it all together, punishing runners who try to intertact with your assets, or run through popup windows and turnpikes in search of agendas. The beauty of HHN is that you don't need a sustained economic lead, you only need them to dip too low once, and suddenly they're hit with 4 tags that they can't remove. Exchange of Information has proved ruthlessly efficient in punishing those tags once they stick.

This deck probably isn't as tuned as it might be; with only some 25 or games played on Jinteki. Suggestions welcome.

Agendas

Astro and Beales are obvious in a fast advance deck. Previously I had 1x NAPD and 1x Exploda over a food and breaking news, which saved 1 influence and allowed a biotic labour in the deck, but the current suite is far superior. Breaking news is likely the best agenda in the game right now, and having 3 of each maximises your chances of a successful exchange.

Assets

NBN has plenty of good ones, now they're just more likely to stick. Sensie is a monster at an effective 5-6 trash cost, and combines well with DBS to give you a ridiculous amount of control over what you draw. Many runners do leave Sensie/DBS combinations up for large portions of the game; which may sound stupid, but for shapers especially, the tempo hit of getting rid of them may be too great. I'd play 3 commercial bankers groups if it were possible, but the designers wisely restricted this IDs influence.

Upgrades

Obvious choices to support fast advance. 3 Sansans plus a good amount of deck filtering means that you'll usually find one earlylish. Put behind a popup window or something small/annoying to tax the runner, hard locking them out of the sansan remote is not required most games, nor possible.

Operations

Hedge and sweeps provide obvious economy. 2 HHN feels like the right amount, usually turning up when required but not clogging up the hand. Exchange of information is the most important form of tag punishment in this deck, with all seeing-I replacing a copy of psychographics that did little for me.

Ice

Mainly gearcheck and small annoyances, but tollbooth and assassin provide some beef, and archangel provides good tax against shapers and criminals without costing too much to rez. With link becoming more popular in runners decks, the assassin should possible just become a second tollbooth, and viper should be a different 1 influence splash. Turnpike is probably the most satisfying ice to rez into a facecheck, providing good immediate tax at a very cheap price, and remaining relevant all game against most rigs, and not even disgracing itself against Mimic.

Matchups

Previous disclaimers about only ~25 games played apply - and with the new packs and MWL2, I expect the meta to adapt and change. Nevertheless, I've only suffered 2 losses with this deck, one of which saw me finding 7 agendas in my first 10 cards.

Shapers feel like the easiest meat for this deck, their main problem being that they can't meaningfully interact with your assets unless they get a godlike economic draw. Without tools like imp, scrubber and Whizzard credits, shapers already disliked trashing pad campaigns and DBS, and the extra cost here makes it almost impossible for a "normal" shaper to keep up. Most games, the money and filtering goes unchallenged, allowing you to quickly find key pieces and agendas. Spycam Hayley can be tricky if she gets setup, but her start is normally slow/passive, and many of her key pieces are resources. Even Cyberdex is taxing to trash!

Criminals usually have desperado and security testing to abuse naked assets. I usually adopt one of two playstyles depending on their first few turns. If no early desperado/security testing appears, or if I suspect they don't exist, the normal asset game is fine. In particular non-Andy crims often won't find both in time to have much impact on the game. If both these cards do appear early on, playing a single remote game and locking archives from security testing is usually better. The remote will rarely be impenetrable, but should be annoying to run, and can be used for never advance bluffs the entire game, allowing you to still use those DBSs and pad campaigns. Sansan in the remote is simply win-win for the corp, forcing either a large tax on the runner, or giving you easy scores and still a tax on the runner later. Even though the ice suite isn't very high end, ice like tollbooth, archangel and even turnpike can put up stuff resistance on centrals.

Anarch opponents are usually Whizzard or Valencia, and there's a decent chance Valencia will be rebirthing into Whizzard at some point. By itself Whizzards ability is not the end of the world, causing both ID abilities to cancel each other out, and in fact slightly favouring the corp because the ID triggers on ice-destruction. Tech cards such as employee strike or Salsette slums can bypass your ability, allowing Whizzard to keep up with your board relatively easily: if this happens, playing the never advance game is advisable. Anarchs are still heavily reliant on resources, so do everything possible to slip that breaking news through, or get them low enough to land HHN.

Overall I think Controlling the Message is a very strong ID, and one I expect to see having a profound effect on the meta. I don't think fast advance is by any means the only strong deck for this ID: I can see asset spam, heavier tag storm, semi-glacier, even perhaps a deck with some kill elements using Boom! once it comes out. Happy hunting!