Doran's Blades (5th Place Arlington Plugged-In)

"I know you all believe me weak, frightened, feeble. Your father knew me better. He was ever the viper. Deadly, dangerous, unpredictable. No man dared tread on him. I was the grass. Pleasant, complaisant, sweet-smelling, swaying with every breeze. Who fears to walk upon the grass? But it is the grass that hides the viper from his enemies and shelters him until he strikes." - Doran Martell, A Dance with Dragons

This is the Cerebral Imaging deck that I finished in 5th place with at the Arlington Plugged-In stop. The goal is to stockpile credits and cards in HQ while turtling ice on the central servers, until you amass an 11-card 13-credit combo that allows you to score 7 agenda points in a single turn. It sounds ridiculous, but I have successfully triggered the one-turn combo in 8 of my last 12 games with this deck, including 2 of 4 rounds during Plugged-In amid the top tables. It's a very fun deck to play that catches people by surprise.

Here's the cards you're looking for in hand to trigger the combo:

• 2x Biotic Labor (3 in the deck)
• 3x Shipment from Kaguya
• 1x Shipment from Mirrormorph (2 in the deck)
• 2x Trick of Light (2 in the deck)
• 1x 3/2 agenda (4 in the deck)
• 1x Priority Requisition (2 in the deck)
• 1x Efficiency Committee (3 in the deck)

You'll also need at least one Ice Wall installed (3 in the deck) with four advancements.

The combo:

1) Biotic Labor (4 clicks remaining, 4 credits spent)

2) Biotic Labor (5 clicks, 8 credits)

3) Install Shipment from Mirrormorph, putting Priority Req, Efficiency Committee, and a 3/2 agenda in three new remote servers (4 clicks, 9 credits)

4) Advance Efficiency Committee (3 clicks, 10 credits)

5) Advance Efficiency Committee (2 clicks, 11 credits)

6) Trick of Light 2 counters from Ice Wall to Efficiency Committee and score it (1 click, 12 credits)

7) Spend Efficiency Committee's Hosted Agenda Counter (2 clicks, 12 credits)

8) Spend Efficiency Committee's Hosted Agenda Counter (3 clicks, 12 credits)

9) Spend Efficiency Committee's Hosted Agenda Counter (4 clicks, 12 credits)

10) Shipment from Kaguya on Priority Requisition and the 3/2 agenda (3 clicks, 12 credits)

11) Shipment from Kaguya on Priority Requisition and the 3/2 agenda (2 clicks, 12 credits)

12) Shipment from Kaguya on Priority Requisition and the 3/2 agenda (1 click, 12 credits), and score the 3/2 agenda

13) Trick of Light from Ice Wall to Priority Requisition and score the Priority Req (0 clicks remaining, 13 credits spent, 7 agenda points scored)

There's many, many different slight combinations of these cards possible. I haven't seen this particular combo posted anywhere yet, it was developed just by playing the deck and it was the easiest for me to memorize. The easiest variation to it is working a third Biotic Labor and one of your Archived Memories into the mix. The Trick of Lights and Shipment from Kaguyas are typically the last piece of the puzzle that you're rapidly drawing cards to find. In my second round game that I won at Plugged-In, I had a SfK in the last three cards in R&D. In my third round game that I won, that third SfK was in the last ten cards in R&D. In both games, I ended up using a third Biotic Labor and Archived Memories to pull one of the used SfKs back into hand from Archives.. that variation is a 12-card combo that requires 17 credits.

One of my concerns with bringing this type of deck into the tournament environment was time. With 60-minute rounds, not a single one of my four rounds went to time, and only one came close... three of my rounds were complete prior to hitting the 45-minute mark. Private Contracts probably looks like an odd splash, but my winning percentage with the deck has turned around since including it. I typically install it on my final click, in a new remote server unprotected by ice. The runner will almost always run it. If they trash it, then I spent a click and a card to make them lose five credits, no complaints there. If they don't trash it, then I can rez at the start of my turn and pull from it three times... the equivalent of spending three clicks to draw three credits, which happens commonly enough with this deck anyway. At that point, most runners will run and trash it, knowing they can't afford to let it stick around with my deck. Still a net gain in my opinion, as I gained credits and forced them to spend a decent amount. Some runners will let it sit, not content to spend 5 credits to prevent me from gaining the remaining 8. That gives me the option of gaining 6 credits immediately, letting it sit as Account Siphon/Vamp recovery for a later turn, or just take credits off it occasionally as necessary.

Ice is a bit tricky with this deck, and I'm still experimenting with the ice a lot. Since all of your influence is spent on combo cards (yes, Ice Wall is part of that combo in this deck) and Jackson Howard, you're stuck with in-house or neutral ice in this build. My goal is to spend as little money as possible rezzing while taxing the runner as much as possible. With just 9 agendas, quickly drawing most of those agendas into HQ, and then protecting the HQ agendas with sheer numbers, you don't have to worry about the occasional access here and there. My goal is to limit those accesses as cheaply as I can, as I don't have the money or ice to attempt to prevent accesses altogether. Minelayer works beautifully, either getting rid of ice install costs (which adds up quite a lot when you're only icing central servers) or forcing Runners to break it. The NEXT suite of ice will work great in this deck once more of them are available; cheap to rez and an ideal amount of strength in number. In the meantime, the cheaper bioroids are probably your best bet for saving you some money and still forcing them to spend clicks and/or credits. Restructure will obviously fit into this deck quite nicely, once available. I have begun testing new iterations and will publish updates once I'm content with the changes.