Down Holo Drive

Went to a Standard CO the other day here in Naarm/Melbourne and it was a great event. I still feel new to all this after a year of playing and it's been enlightening to get downloads of info while playing and witnessing other player's decision making.

My runner had a few wins and I was feeling good with Kit, but my NBN deck fell to pieces. I played with the HOLO MAN! HOLO FAST MAN deck. I wanted to give another run at NBN, I've been slowly learning the different corps, but NBN has been a fave. There were a lot of rules misplays on my part, but I had a lot to think about after the games. Just how efficiently-inefficient could this deck possibly be? My self deprecating rapscallion side was enamored with this deck despite how ugly I played it. So I sought to tinker with it and make it something I could really drive.

The main problems I had on the day were to do with 2 things: ICE ICE and ICE. I know that's 3 things.

So I added this Ice suite - the combo is:

Funhouse into Hydra into Capacitator.

If you can hold that Ice together on a server it's pretty promising. (Maybe a Mesnichevsko could make it's way back in the deck but I cut it, and didnt really miss it.)

Ice Walls are your low cost ice to keep the runner at bay early game. And if you have some spare cash and a Holo Man already installed it's fun to smash 3 counters on there just to mess with them.

Messy plays:

It's a messy deck for my messy skills. I wanted to give more of an incentive to keep the runner pushing their clicks towards runs that go nowhere and everywhere all at once. This was a learning curve for me because I'm used to trying to scare runners with mean Ice or assets. So this deck has become just stupid fun to play. How Daily Quest, Amani Senhai and Tiered Subscription give the Runner something else to do. Kinda like an annoyed parent. The runners will trash stuff and you just go "Ok shoo, go play have fun" as long as your Holo Man is doing it's job. You will have to pull Holo Man out with Spin Doctor and Trust Operation a few times. Such is life.

The best games are the ones when you can get an AR Enhanced security down early.

Agenda Suite:

The thing is, stuff gets trashed and thats a good thing. Epiphany gets counters and using them with this deck will do good things. So good. Whether a simple tiered subscription install, or a big Stoke The Embers play, it's usually worth using the power counter asap. The combos I enjoyed and have kept:

Use epiphany's click, draw a Stoke The Embers, install onto a Holo Man server, reveal Stoke The Embers to gain 2 credits and put an install on itself. Click and spend 4 creds for Holo Man to finish the job. So the math is : With only 2 credits in the bank, and a rezzed Holo Man, if you use Epiphany to draw into Stoke The Embers you have installed and scored a 4 cost, 2 point agenda for one measly click. Hooray. Magic.

The other combo is Kingmaking into a Thinktank or AR Enhanced. There are 13 agendas in the deck so... they are around for the runner to poke into thats for sure. Which means Kingmaking is pretty reliable as a 3 point agenda. However it's a glass cannon.If the runner is digging they will find it. I took out the Bellona though for the reason that it seemed to sit in hand and was more of a liability more than anything. Could be misplays on my part but part of the fun of the deck is the Kingmaking and the Stoke The Embers combo wombos. So Bellona is out. Not to mention that Oracle Thinktank can come back to R&D for a credit and a click if things are getting wierd.

Overall: This deck feels a lot better and I think it sings a bit more to what I know. Having a bit more Ice and ways to recurr it helps.

Threats:

Not sure what would happen if this deck got played a lot but in terms of off-meta jank, every time I have tested with this deck since the tourney, the runner spends a lot of time removing tags. This is great because it's money and clicks for them, but there's nothing super deadly in here to do with tags. It's just more of an annoyance and threat. I added Trust Operation, Capacitator and Hydra, so there are a few big surprises if the runner wants to play tag me.

Overall a work in progress but something to mark as a good deck that I put my thoughts into. Gotta keep playing and see what changes. Let me know what you think :)

[Snedd]