Shockingly Fast Advance

One thing that's always confused me a little about the IG decks is how slow they always are. This is a deck that willfully decks itself in order to keep its core cards in play, and then further turns up the glacial pace in order to either score out agendas slooowwwly or just to grind the runner in similar fashion. Often, to manage all that extra necessary bulk, they pile in more cards, diluting their influence further. That seems weird to me. If you're ahead, rather than letting that lead stagnate, why not just, y'know, win?

I've been amazed at how well this deck plays. Everyone knows how good Sundew and net damage cards have worked in IG decks, but when you take the tempo lead and paranoia instilled by those cards, and then force your opponent to cope with 15-credit-to-trash SanSans threatening defeat in three turns, the runner can feel stretched beyond their limits. Combine that with locking Archives down and untrashable Snares making multi-accesses unreasonable, and you've got yourself a real monster.

Some individual card choices:

• Allele Repression: Kind of like a fourth Jackson Howard, this card is primarily for buying back trashed SanSans or, if your opponent really wants to pressure HQ for some reason, a fistful of Snares!

• Caprice: The ol' trump card. Where she goes depends on where you need her most - on HQ against Vamp decks, on R&D against Keyhole decks, in Archives in most matchups, and sometimes on SanSans against Imp decks.

• Two Cyberdex: Because Clot and Imp are two big problems.

• The ICE package: I figure this deck can't win a long slog against runner breaker suites, nor do you really want to - the only server you truly need to keep them out of is Archives, and Shocks + Caprice + fear do that well enough. Instead, I've loaded up on taxing ice - in damage, credits, and clicks - to further slow your opponent down and stunt their growth. If you do hit them with a surprise Cortex or Komainu and break something important, so much the better. Himitsu Bako is here principally as insurance against Siphon spam, though if you really want hard insurance I could even see adding Chimera instead. I really like Eli, though you may want something a little more permanent and threatening. At least with FA, you're less reliant on oddballs like Ashigaru.