The Beanstalk to Wey-land

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Walker Net Ranger 139

Wanted to publish this and see what others here think.

This is the first Gagarin deck I have built that actually seems quite strong, having given it a few playtests now.

First I tried a horizontal strategy with PAD, Launch campaigns and such. This strategy just fell flat vs. most Anarchs, felt like a D-grade version of NEH.

I really wanted to use the Root, and tried a few strategies revolving around this card. Even in Gagarin though, I have found this to be slow off the bat, difficult to rez, typically getting trashed from Centrals or even in the remote before it had time to do much work. And I feel like it needs advanceable cards or Exec Boot Camp to reliably make use of the recurring creds, just generally difficult to get all this running smoothly.

This deck takes a different approach, using more high-trash assets than before. Worlds Plaza looked really interesting to me and I've been wanting to see if I could get it to work effectively in a deck. It seems actually pretty good here. Accessed from Centrals, a runner who sees Worlds Plaza will have to think hard or have a boatload of cash to trash it. And in the remotes, it acts as a great bluff early, very low risk and it pays off whether the runner checks it or not. If it sticks around, it works pretty similarly here as a Corp version of The Supplier, which is pretty sweet.

There are two kinds of game plans you can do here, depending on how your opening hand looks.

If you get a good number of binary ICE, rush some Oaktown / Public Support behind a small ICE remote while moneying up to rez bigger ICE as the game progresses.

If you can get an early Hive, put this in front of an Eliza's Toybox (preferably with a Worlds Plaza or Breaker Bay Grid to get it up and running more easily. Alternate turns between rezzing a big ICE for 3 clicks, and installing more big ICE and/or gaining cash while preparing for your next big ICE rez turn. You can alternately put your first agenda behind the Hive, as the 2-pointers really enjoy being over-advanced before you weaken the Hive by scoring.

I won two games both ways last night, it was a blast!

I would really like to find room for Cyberdex Virus Suite to surprise an Anarch running at some big ICE with Parasite and datasuckers, not sure what I would want to cut. Maybe some ICE, but so far in testing I have enjoyed the above-average ICE count here to establish two remotes if need be (typically one for some Asset shenanigans, another for scoring).

Thoughts and comments welcome!

5 comments
29 Jan 2016 CTclone

How is the Toybox treating you? I have a lot of trouble justifying Toybox over Melange, because 1. if you pay to rez the Toybox, you have to use it to rez something costing at least 10 to make as much as Melange and 2. if you use it to rez an ice that hurts the runner, you lose the element of surprise and will almost surely not get to hurt them. However, it's great for forfeit effects, fantastic if you can rez it with Breaker Bay Grid, and has a much better trash cost than Melange. Since you're spending almost all your influence on Toybox and Tollbooth (which you would probably prefer to rez with Toybox), I think you might consider going a bit more all-in on this tactic, by slotting another Archer and some Corporate Towns.

29 Jan 2016 Walker Net Ranger

Excellent observation there @CTclone, the Toybox does indeed combo with Corporate Town. They can even go in the same server together on a Worlds Plaza. I will definitely give this some more consideration!

29 Jan 2016 Walker Net Ranger

Oh and to answer your questions, the trash cost differential between Melange Mining Corp. and Eliza's Toybox is pretty huge. As a lot of people have observed of the Gagarin ID, it is generally weaker on central server defense. I think it's definitely worth the influence here for the increased trash cost, and as you noted already, it also works great with #Archer. Even losing the surprise element, it just makes the option of running your asset remote such a demoralizing proposition when the runner can see it is guarded by an Orion, Archer, Tollbooth, etc.

I'm loving it :)

30 Jan 2016 Saan

I kind of hate Worlds Plaza in Gagarin (and really, in any deck). The runner doesn't have to access the cards on it, just the Plaza itself, so it's going to be 6 to trash out of Gagarin. With the asset's you're running, if you have even 2 of your lowest trash-cost things installed on it (Public Supportx2), they're getting 16 credits worth of trash-value (6 for World's, 5 a piece from Support, adding in the Gagarin tax) off of 6 credits. This exchange rate sucks.

Sure, you can throw them in a server so they have to run through ICE in order to trash them, and you do get the value from the lowered rez cost, but the fact remains that you lose a lot of value from being Gagarin by making them only access one card, and you lose a lot of value in terms of trash-cost-per-card-trashed.

30 Jan 2016 Walker Net Ranger

Hi @Saan, my friend and I were discussing this recently and you may be right. We were considering that Worlds Plaza might just be better in Blue Sun: Powering the Future as a lot of builds seem to be. That being said and before I just make the switch, I would like to advocate Worlds Plaza a bit more in Gagarin Deep Space: Expanding the Horizon, if only because I like the theme and want it to be good!

I usually treat the Plaza like extra copies of Breaker Bay Grid with different roles depending on the game phase. But why not play 3x Breaker Bay Grid? The Grid is unarguably better as econ the first time it gets used to rez an asset here, this is true. But they are also very vulnerable before they get installed, and I want to play the more taxing option in case the runner is able to hit the centrals hard early game. In this respect I think the deck is similar to something like Foodcoats assets, but these assets are even more taxing to go after. I have probably played against Whizzard: Master Gamer and Valencia Estevez: The Angel of Cayambe one too many times personally to even consider playing a high asset count with a heavier skew towards low trash costs. Stuff like Launch Campaign, PAD Campaign even in a naked remote, I find that I cannot rely on these to provide econ with any reliability.

To elaborate on the roles that Worlds Plaza can fulfill at various game stages: this card can be played naked early, to test a runners willingness to face-checking your servers. It can help you decide whether to sneak a naked Project Atlas early if you Mulligan into an agenda flood. Even if the runner checks your Plaza, 9/10 odds are they won't trash it, so you come out ahead in this exchange.

I generally like to ICE a Plaza early before stacking stuff on it, and then usually only one thing at a time in the early-mid game. Chaining some Public Support back to back on the Plaza feels great when the runner can't afford to come trash it.

Mid-game you can decide whether to devote a lot of big ICE to the Plaza depending how the game is going. Generally I wouldn't like to devote so much ice to an econ server, but the multi-hosting ability lets you put either a Private Contracts or Eliza's Toybox alongside the Public Support to threaten points AND econ while you simultaneously build a 2nd scoring remote! This game state seems even better if I find room to slot a Corporate Town in the deck for additional options.

If the runner has a real strong late game going on, you can even use the Plaza in a 2nd server to bluff as an agenda and try to tax out a scoring window.

Short version of why I like Worlds Plaza: with 1-2 assets on it is a much better option that remote spam if you are up against a Whizzard, Valencia, Scrubbers, Bank Jobs, or your aim is to build your board state more so than to tax a runner. Not always the best option but I find the flexibility to be great fun and creates the opportunity for some great strategic plays!