Dept. of Poverty Control, Redux - 1st and Undefeated

It seems like there's 2 types of Corp decks these days, those with 3 Scarcity of Resources in it, and those that could be trying harder to win. Unless the runner can answer it, the tempo differential pretty quickly escalates in your favor, because right now the vast majority of runner economy is caught up in resources.

I've been messing with different Gagarin lists for a couple years now, and this one harkens slightly back to my original list that I wrote about way back when, blended with another super-enjoyable economic denial deck that I also played around the same time (that's right, that's 2 copies of Student Loans you see). With this latest deck, I was toying with a concept of just hammering the runner with every econ denial card. It ended up as a kind of tempo Gagarin that targets the runners economy and then cheats in extra clicks through Team Sponsorship and Jeeves as they spend entire turns clicking for credits.

Denial

I've covered Scarcity, and everyone should be able to see the value in that.

Economic Warfare can punish runs to trash Banker's Groups, and while there's only 2 in the deck, there were 3 in it up until the morning of the tournament. I panic switched the third copy into a Preemptive, and while I never used it, it still seems like a good card to have. I still think a third copy of Econ Warfare would be amazing though.

Hard-Hitting News is here entirely as an econ denial card. I had a discussion about whether is was even good to play Commercial Banker's Group in a Gagarin deck with no hard punishment for trashing it, because usually you rez it, net 2 credits, and then the runner trashes for 3, which is still value, but not enough. Hot Tubs decks can keep it alive through the threat of HHN, but non-murder Gagarin struggles. Finally I decided to include a copy of HHN as well, figuring it was still good enough to include, because I can still threaten resource trashing, if not murder. It ended up being instrumental in squeezing the last bit of economy out of the Adam deck I played in the Finals, forcing them into credit-clicking land.

Corporate Town rounds out the econd denial package, and honestly this just crushes people's hopes and dreams when you rez it. In two games I played, my second ICE went over a Corp Town to protect it after an early rez, and the look on their face when you rez it is only topped by the look once it's safely behind a Tour Guide. I killed off 3 Tech Traders and a Beth against a Reaver Hayley deck. Adam lost all his directives and 2 Liberated Accounts. It crushes souls. Team Sponsorship puts it back.

General Goodies

I'm a big fan of the DBS/Arms Factory combination. Arms drips a credit, and then you get your DBS fire off the Arms draw. Afterwords, you get your mandatory. Gagarin needs a lot of cards in order to spam out them remotes and find ICE, and with Arms giving you extra draw power with DBS filtering for the good stuff, it just feels like winning. In the past, I usually have people just suck it up and spend 7 credits to get that sweet BP from trashing Arms, effectively turning off Gagarin's ability. However, with the harsh econ denial of this deck, spending 7 seems like a fortune (and really is). Also, I pack a copy of Mills to combat that, should they trash it anyhow. Mills is great vs all the Val decks right now as well, and Team Sponsorship can recur her if you need her for pesky mining accidents.

Ash is and continues to be a god damned hero, costing 4 to trash, and effectively requiring one less credit to pump into his trace (since they still need 1 credit to access from Gagarin). It's always great when you keep them out with Ash, they pay to trash him, and then you score the agenda, rezzing Team Sponsorship, and throwing Ash right back in the remote.

Jeeves is usually used to score 4/2s or Atlas with a counter from an unadvanced remote. Sometimes this will be ICEd, sometimes naked, to force some remote checking. Jeeves is still great as just a value tool. Install 3 things, do something else. Purge Aumakua, install a thing. Draw 3 cards, install one. Sometimes if I'm struggling economically in the early game, I might just take 3 credits and install something, and just do that for a couple turns.

Standoff. Yeah, it's not really an agenda here, it's more of just an enabler. I went back and forth on whether this should just be a Public Support, but in the end I decided I really liked the synergy with TS.

Actual Agendas

I took Corp Sales Team over Oaktown because it's not public and can hide amongst the remotes. Atlas is a god-tier card, and with Jeeves it's super easy to get a counter. Said counter is usually spent finding the next agenda, but can also find game winners lie Corp Town.

Global Food is Global Food, and is really the only 3 pointer that works consistently in this kinda deck for my tastes. It sucks, because I would love to run Mumba temple as my Restricted card.

Finally, the spicy agenda. The Future is Now is such a cool agenda, especially when coupled with Team Sponsorship and/or Jeeves. Advance 3 times, find whatever card you want, install it (or fire of that HHN you grabbed).

Money

I talked about my musings about Banker's Group, which is why I only run 2 and not 3. However, once the denial train is rolling, it's a great card, since spending a click and 3 to go trash is actually pretty painful, since they're clicking for credits to do so. Oftentimes it will end up living at this point.

Marilyn, PAD, and Strictly Better PAD (NASX) are the rest of the drip, and it's usually good enough. Arms Factory kinda counts as drip, but with a rez of 3 it's much longer of a payoff money-wise.

ICE

Lookit that, it's good Gagarin ICE. Spiderweb over the usual Hive, since we're a scoring deck, a Mausolus, because I'm not above advancing it 3 times, especially when Jeeves is out there. It's slow as hell, but also stupidly taxing. Also, there's a cheeky Archer, because it's usually unexpected in Gagarin, and because it's also just really, really painful to get through.

That's basically it.

Man, you can really see my interest level in writing this writeup waning by looking at the amount of text under each heading. And now there's this? Man, I'm not even writing about the deck any more. You folks deserve better.

The deck is hilarious. Literally every game I've played with it the runner is relegated to just clicking for money and looking displeased. Thanks to everyone I played on the day, and I'm sorry.