Cross-Platform Promotion

At the Spark Agency, your message is our mission - and we'll use every platform at our disposal to get that message to your consumers. Again. And again. And again.

My early Spark Agency attempts crammed in Adonis campaigns for MAXIMUM ADVERTISEMENTS, but sexbots tend to be taken out if left unprotected, and this deck doesn't have time to wait while those credits click down in a scoring server. So I took that influence and blew it on Team Sponsorship and Architect, to recur the ads I DO have ad nauseum.

At its core, the gameplan is standard Astrobiotics stuff, while using ads to slow down the runner in the early game and get a nice economic lead going.

Agenda Suite

3x Astro and 3x Beale need no explanation. NAPD Contract slows them down a little, and in in a pinch you can find a safe window to score it the old-fashioned way behind a Tollbooth. License Acquisition does unspeakable work in this deck and I'm always happy to draw it. The PERFECT use is bringing back a trashed SanSan with a free rez, but no matter what it's a joy to score this with a Sponsorship or two on the board and barf ads up out of your Archives. I've actually considered running a second in place of 15 Minutes, but... well, I don't need to tell you why it's hard to drop 15 Minutes.

Advertisements

I find 14 ads is more than enough. PAD Campaign and Launch Campaign can usually be dropped unprotected, and often (but not always) end up being rezzed on my turn after install to maximize Spark tax. Doing this once Turn 1 is basically a given, to kill the Click 1 Sure Gamble.

Product Placement is versatile - a lot of the time it's the only protection one of my centrals gets the first few turns, sometimes it's there to back up a SanSan, or even just unrezzed to bait a run through Tollbooth and open up a window.

Popups and Special Offers are good little pieces of Ice that Spark turns into great ones. Again, they're versatile - early game they're a fine tax on central runs and a little extra source of economy, but they're just as good in front of your assets, so you're even happy when the runner goes and trashes them. Special Offer can also be dropped in front of an unrezzed Tollbooth to screw with run math, or in front of HQ to dull the pain of a Siphon. It's probably the single best target for Team Sponsorship and Architect installs, since if you can avoid the install cost it's like a Hedge Fund that also costs the runner a credit.

Ice

There's not a whole lot here to keep the Runner out, really. Tax central runs with ads until you can find something harder. Wraparound does nice work against Faust decks, Enigma is great unless (until) Yog hits the board. Architect will never fire more than once, but you might be able to catch them facechecking it if they're convinced your whole ice suite is soft. A hard ETR, an Architect, and an ad is the heaviest you'll ever have to defend centrals in the late game. If they're really pounding R&D you can protect it with Tollbooth, but you'd rather save that to protect your SanSans.

The Game

If they run aggressively against this deck, you'll find Special Offer and Product Placement pretty quickly get you ready to start using Biotic and SanSan to score out of hand. If they slow down, you'll get there on your own and feel safe doing it.

If they trash all your ad campaigns, SanSans and Team Sponsorships, they'll only increase your credit lead and open up traditional scoring windows. If they leave those on the board, they will regret it. Team Sponsorships regularly fire twice or more before the Runner gets sick of the recurring ads and trashes them. It just does great things for tempo - you feel so much less weak right after a score when you can tax the Runner a credit while setting up more economy for yourself, and not spend a click on any of it.

The smartest thing the Runner can do is probably just pound R&D, or siphon you into oblivion. It's a rare deck that can do both effectively, so just patch up the leak on whichever central they're targeting. Use your second (or first, if you must) Tollbooth to make those runs hurt. You're not tagging or program trashing here. Your only option is to score out quick. Your servers are jelly... but by the time they figure that out, you want to be on match point.

Alternates & Meta calls

As noted above, sometimes I really think it might be worth swapping out 15 Minutes for another License Acquisition, but there's no denying 15 Minutes is one of the best agendas going and I'd have to test the deck without it to know for sure. In my weaker moments I even consider making the room to swap an NAPD for two more Acquisitions, but I don't think I want the extra agenda density.

There's only one Cyberdex right now, but if Clot is still everywhere in your meta it might be worth dropping either one SanSan or the singleton Restructure to make room for another.

We're ready to start the fire... again!