Countered! V1.0

A concept I've been toying with. I've always liked the idea of the AI breakers, but they are all, by neccessity, hobbled in some regard. Overmind only being able to break 'X' subroutines before becoming useless is a good example of this. Thankfully none of the problems are insurmountable; e3 Feedback Implants effectively changes 'X subroutines' to 'X pieces of ICE' for a modest fee. Cards like Deep Red can increase the value of 'X'. Things like Déjà Vu and Clone Chip can help reset the counters.

I think decks like this were given a significant boost with the advent of Order and Chaos; MemStrips only cost 1 more than Deep Red in return for stackability and the ability to use the . Uninstall, whilst less -efficient than Clone Chip or Scavenge, is delightfully neutral, freeing up a significant amount of influence.

The Plan

Grind them. Mathematically, you need 17 accesses on average to win a game. Every card they play that isn't an agenda lowers that number by about 0.4. By forcing them to play more cards, you actually move closer to winning. Of course, that presupposes that the cards they play give them no benefit, which is never the case. As a rough approximation, it will do for now.

This is where I find Whizzard to be excellent. If they are running Assets or Upgrades, they have to protect them. Even high-cost cards like SanSan and Marked Accounts are but minor speedbumps. This means they have to expend more ICE protecting their Assets, or just fling them out in such volume that it takes even Whizzard a little while to chew through them.

Overmind with e3 Feedback Implants will mean in a lot of cases you can break any small ICE for a reasonable cost, and high-cost ones can often be smashed with D4v1d for peanuts, all the while costing the Corp their hard-earned .

Imp doubles down on the trashing game, giving you the ability to deal with anything your ability cannot. Dropping those Biotics and Scorched Earths can be game-changing.

The first order of the day is remote pressure. Almost all decks will run some remotes; your job is to break everything you can. Overmind can get you through just about anything. After that, pressure the centrals. You don't have a lot of multi-access, but hopefully you've got Imp out by now; you can steal or break anything. If you think they might be running things like Punitive or Midseasons, feel free to use the Imp to trash the Agendas.

If your meta is not as full of remote servers, I strongly suspect Edward Kim could run the deck in a similar manner.

The Cards

Fairly self-explanatory; Overmind is the breaker, coupled with e3 Feedback Implants, and with Mimic as the backup for things like Swordsman and all the annoying Jinteki Sentries. Parasite is also very helpful in the Jinteki matchup, as well as being generally useful.

D4v1d (with e3) is for breaking the bigger bits of ICE, and Imp is for smashing everything once you're in. They also both synergise well with Uninstall and Déjà Vu.

MemStrips are to boost , and can also be used for the Viruses if you literally have one copy of every program out. The interfaces are a token stab at multiaccess which are very handy later in the game. I didn't want to use the viruses as they eat away at the .

Utopia Shard is fantastic against a lot of decks that like to keep cards for combos. Against some decks it's powerful enough that I'd consider dragging it back with Déjà Vu. Feedback Filter is in there as a just-in-case.

Everything else is money or card draw. I went for Tri-maf Contact over Armitage Codebusting due to the longer nature of the grinding game. Not too fussed about the meat damage, even without Plascrete Carapace. Trusting in a fairly good econ and I've Had Worse to keep me safe.

Alternatives

I think Valencia, Eddie, and Reina could also run this deck with a few tweaks, but I absolutely love the shredding power that Whizzard brings.

The Future?

Don't know yet, as I haven't had a lot of game time with it. The low STR of Overmind is a bugger, but I can't think of a decent way to get around it. Spinal Modem is under consideration as a source of .

Dirty Laundry might well get cut. If I'm playing a longer game, something like Data Folding might be more applicable, but I'm a little worried about slow starts. Day Job was considered, but even though I know a turn for 10 is good, I really hate the inflexibility.

Strongly considering Knight. Poor against Blue Sun, but so is Parasite. Otherwise it's got synergy with e3 Feedback Implants and can be used to get through STR 4 ICE cheaply, which is the most expensive point for this deck. It often results in ICE being trashed, which only helps this deck. is something I'm trying to keep down, though.