A newbie's farewell: Recoco Gagarin

A newbie's farewell to rotating IDs: Gagarin Deep Space: Expanding the Horizon

I've been playing the game seriously for ~ 6 months, and it breaks my heart to see so many IDs rotating with the new Borealis cycle coming soon. So I've decided to dedicate some time to learn and play rotating IDs.

This list is heavily based on anarchomushroom's BCOM 2022 list, with very few changes.

Gameplan

This asset-spam deck relies on a pretty simple plan: we want to score 4 3/2 agendas (of which we have 7, 3x Azef Protocol, 3x Project Atlas, and 1x Above the Law) using our combo pieces.

Our main combo, with which we should be able to score the first 3 agendas, is Dedication Ceremony into Reconstruction Contract, which allows us to score from hand, if we have all three pieces:

• 1: install Agenda
• 2: install Recoco, rez Recoco
• 3: Dedi the Recoco, trash it and move advancement counters on Agenda. Score.

For our last agenda, we only need Audacity to score from hand a 3/2.

Polishing the plan

There are a few things we can do to polish this strategy quite a bit. The first is to plan our scoring order to maximize the chances of getting our combo pieces. We are not planning to kill with Azef unless we get the opportunity to do so, so we want this to be the last agenda we score. The tempo hit we get from scoring it is hard to recover from, unless we have successfully spammed enough assets to be able to afford to sacrifice one. Best case scenario is to trash an almost emptied Marilyn Campaign (which we can reshuffle in R&D), or a Mumba Temple we got enough value out of already. So in terms of order, we'd love to score:

• 3x Atlas/AtL with Dedi Recoco
• Azef with Audacity for the win

We can do better though. Getting our combo pieces is not very easy. And cards on the table are often more protected because of our Gagarin tax. Ideally, we want to score an Atlas with a counter, which we can achieve in a couple of ways.

• Pre-installing Reconstruction Contract: if we're able to sneak a Recoco on the table while holding (or being able to get with an Atlas token) the other two pieces, we can now score Atlas with a token: 1: install Agenda; 2: advance Agenda, rez Recoco; 3: Dedi Recoco, trash it and move advancement counters on Agenda. Score with a token.

• Using Jeeves: again, if we're sneaky, we should be able to asset-bury an agenda on the table while having Jeeves Model Bioroids rezzed or unrezzed on the table too. We can easily do this in the early game behind a piece of ice, and before the runner has time to set up. We don't even mind sacrificing a Border Control to do so. It's unlikely the runner will rush have an installed (installable) fracter early. And even so, having to invest 2 or 3 might be a tall ask early on. Not only this helps us score Atlas with a counter, but is also a way to score when our combo pieces are not showing up.

Ice

Our ice suite is minimal. Magnet is a cheap enough gear check, and it helps us getting Jeeves Model Bioroids for no influence. Border Control is our panic button: install it on central, HQ above all, and pop it when needed. Getting the timing right is sometimes tough, given how little ice pieces we have. Mausolus is taxing for runners, especially when they rely on bin decoders. Although it might become a liability (together Border control) with 2x + PAD Tap installed. Ice is not our priority, but against crim becomes key to avoid early Diversions, and against shapers helps set back Deep Dive and force set up. I think in some instances it might be correct to install ice to protect a remote, especially if it's an early Rashida Jaheem, a Reconstruction Contract we want to set-up for next turn, or a particularly annoying Malia Z0L0K4.

Assets, Assets, Assets

Our ID is blank until we put cards on the table. We want o jam 3 assets when we can. It becomes very taxing for the runner to always need to check all our remotes, and even if our pieces are trashed, delaying runner set-up helps us get our combo pieces in hand. Jamming early Commercial Bankers Group, Marilyn Campaign, Mumba Temple, and Rashida Jaheem is our best way to kickstart our gameplan. Preferably, we want to install 3 assets at a time, to discourage the runner from running them all. Something will stick, maybe even a sneaky agenda.

Compared to anarchomushroom's list, I've included 2x Daily Business Show, to help against agenda swamping and to pull out our combo pieces faster, and 2x Mumba Temple, to help with our economy. We're sacrificing Wall to Wall, and some gunpower (- 1x Hard-Hitting News), but that's only a secondary wincon, or a timely tempo hit for the runner. Might not work, we'll see.

Economy

How do we make money? I love anarchomushroom's addition of Hedge Fund to the list. I've never drawn one without a sigh of relief. The one aspect this deck struggles with is economy. Aggressive runners will keep our money down by trashing our econ assets consistently. It's also really hard to recover from low money. I've often made the mistake to rush out an agenda, dropping to 2-3, and never recovered quickly enough from it. If we can, we should mulligan into money: Hedge Fund is best, Rashida or multiple Commercial Bankers Group second best. We struggle less against less aggressive runners, but a good runner will know where to hit to leave us pennyless. We can use aggression to our advantage to hit back with Economic Warfare and Hard-Hitting News, but this is definitely not our plan A.

Doing what Weyland does

This wouldn't be a Weyland deck without some meat. When having Economic Warfare and Hard-Hitting News in hand we can be a little bolder, and throw agendas on the table with a backup plan in case they get snatched. Good runners will keep their money up to avoid being caught by surprise. Most often I find the threat of High-Profile Target is enough, and HHN is a good enough tempo hit that allows us to fork the runner into making risky decisions.

Counterplay and hard mathches

Let's address the Clotephant in the room. Our plan is pretty harshly busted by the threat of clot. Our sneaky plans become all the more valuable when this is in play. Sneaking an agenda behind a piece of ice to Dedi-Recoco or Jeeves it out next turn is a good plan B. If the runner has not found their breakers yet, they might have to make a though decision on whether to burn their instant-speed install on a fracter/decoder or keep the threat of Clot up while they let the agenda slip through.

Big MaxX is one of our hardest matchups. Aeneas Informant is a money machine with all our assets on the table, Maw a serious threat to our combo pieces in HQ, and Hippo particularly harsh to our small ice-suite. Brace for an uphill battle, and think about hitting econ resources with Malia Z0L0K4.

Crim's biggest threat to our gameplan is Miss Bones. Again, great target for Malia Z0L0K4, which we might want to consider hiding behind ice if we want to be extra annoying. Haven't played many crim matchups myself, so I'll have a lot to learn here.

Thanks for getting through the end of this. Comments are more than welcome, I'm still new and pretty bad at the game. I could use some advice for sure :D