Post Apocalyptic Pragmatist

morgisbord 3

A few thoughts about the deck that this one is based on...

@WorldSerpent built a great breakerless Leela build here. It was so entertaining in the few games of casual play that I'd had recently I decided to take it to the Reading SC and had a blast - the deck is pretty solid and I mainly lost due to pilot error, unlucky draw and having no frigging money for when 'the end was nigh'.

I know that I can control 2 of those; 1 through practise, and the other in deck construction. The first game I played that day was on the train against @lpoulter. The deck won (yay) but when I played him again on table three at tournament time, it lost (boo). I made some real dumb moves and I've heard tell that lpoulter is quite good at the game.

Some questions lpoulter asked me about the Jab, Hook, Cross, APOCALYPSE deck were:

  1. Why Rolodex?

    (I thought it was good for this deck but I often had no money to use the cards I sorted)

  2. What do you do if the corp recovers after the apocalypse?

    (they didn't but what if...?)

  3. What if the corp knows what's coming and locks down a central with 4 pieces of ice?

    (hmmm apocalypse before it's too late?!?)

  4. Can't a corp just play around her ability if they know she can't get in?

    (OK OK so 1 breaker then - but which?).

My questions during the tournament were:

  1. Where's the money?

    (the drugs kept me too poor to gamble most of the time. A job as a supplier of fine resources and hardware might help to pay for my 'dedication')

  2. Why am I discarding cards?

    (good draw from the dealer so thematic but no money - I might as well Faust those cards I'm pitching and get accesses, right? Wait! Does that answer lpoulter's questions 2, 3 & 4?)

  3. Wouldn't HQ interface be great about now?

    (single card accesses post fiskage - bah!)

  4. Why do I keep choosing the wrong card for Forged Activation Orders?

    (it didn't pay off once all day - just bad luck or is it just an early game card? Also seemed pretty anti synergistic)

This build is my response to that tournament experience. Does it provide answers to any of the questions posed? Did I miss any really good cards from Kala Ghoda? Could it have been simplified? Any comments would be amazing as I really want to improve my deck building. Cheers
3 comments
8 Feb 2016 WorldSerpent

@morgisbord

Glad your enjoying it. I am having some similar issues, it is still in the early processes of development. I will try to answer some questions now and then I will try and talk to you more about your changes.

  1. Rolodex

You know you were discarding cards, well this should help you not do that. It also allows you to see the combo a few turns earlier and get the cards in the right order. This deck hinges on pulling off the apocalypse at the right time.

  1. Apocalypse them again, if you pull two off then you have pretty much trashed all their ice.

  2. Yeah, timing is super important. Also you can let them score then gang sign an agenda from hand. But yes, I am still trying to work around this problem.

  3. How were they specifically playing around the ability. This should help me answer.

  4. Money

Don't install more than one drug dealer. Click for credits and wait for your opportunity. I am still working on money issues.

  1. Discarding cards. What cards were you discarding? I do discard a few but not to the point of issue.

  2. HQ interface is a 4 credit investment which will get turn off by apocalypse.

  3. Forge is probably getting cut but it was there to trash ice on central when the corp is poor. It was also useful to trash or force ice rezes on remotes so they are investing resources in something you don't care about.

I hope that helps. I love that this style of deck is getting played. It is also great to discuss ideas with people and it definitely helping me improve the deck. More criticism is very welcome.

8 Feb 2016 WorldSerpent

Looking at your changes I am not sure why you have added more cards that are a large investment and will just be rendered useless by apocalypse? The supplier, data folding, hq interface and logos are all relatively expensive and you are unlikely to see a return on that investment. Ideally you want to apocalypse once every 6-8 turns. So you won't get the value out of these cards. It seems to me as if you are trying to build a slightly different deck, if you do I wouldn't base it on the chassis of a gimmicky deck like mine. For HQI you are better off using legwork in my opinion.

The original version does need more economy but I do not think drip economy is the right fit. Armitage is probably the card you want in this deck, as it allows you to recover from 0, it also can cleared before am apocalypse turn and if not it isn't a massive investment. It is not the best economy card, nets you 4 over 7 turns, but it's click compression is underrated.

Also cutting down to one apocalypse seems odd, as this style of deck is supposed to hinge upon it. You would be better off cutting the levy.

Faust is a good shout. To be honest I think I will have betray my deck idea and put breakers in it to make it actually viable. but it was more an experiment that turned out to be a lot better than I thought. I think over mind is another option worth looking into.

I don't think this is a tier one deck but it is a lot better than I expected and discussion like this is really helping me tune it. Thanks for the help.

8 Feb 2016 morgisbord

@WorldSerpent

It's great to discuss these things here. I guess I am essentially taking your idea and building a very different deck but thought your input would be valuable. Everything you say about Armitage Codebusting seems spot on. Like I said there was a fair amount of pilot error on my part and having not played the deck enough can't have helped. I just can't help but try and think of ways to make such a good deck even more dangerous and less obvious to good players. lpoulter knew almost immediately that this was an apocalypse build once I put the DDoS down and discarded an excess Feint.

The way that a glacier build like HB would prepare the score played around the ID ability. The frequent lack of money and therefore lack of breaker threat meant that they felt confident to score with a click or clicks to spare so it never mattered what you bounced because they would just put it back.

Yes things get flipped after apocalypse and might seem like a wasted investment but it can be difficult to seize the total annihilation of your opponent when it's most opportune once they know what your game is and they make it difficult for you. Chop Bot 3000 then cuts out the flipped installed cards to help you keep drawing and putting pressure on the corp until you are either ready to Levy or have won the game. Additionally the more you install, the less the corp will expect the coming of the the Apocalypse!

The drip econ procs to give credits after you 'lose' the credits you don't have from having drug dealer installed. This helps you to install more drug dealers and therefore draw more cards for Faust.

I'm going to keep testing around this build and I'll report back to you on what I discover. It's more likely that a few conservative changes (i.e. 3xArmitage) are all that's necessary but The gang sign single accesses rubbed me up the wrong way ;)