[STARTUP] Forever Keeling: 3rd, 2-1 @ Seattle CO

I am very much not a fan of Keeling, but you know what sometimes I just want to play netrunner and be mean.

What's worse then 3 Keelings? SIX KEELINGS.

Gameplan

The goal of this deck is to build 2 unassailable remotes, and then either score out, jam Dr. Vientiane Keeling + Ronin for kill threat, or some combination of both.

Forcing the runner through these remotes 3-6 times is either going to destroy their credit economy, force them to use limited tools, or possibly just kill them with ice like Anemone.

It's great if you can score out, but most of the time I'm fine giving away a Fujii Asset Retrieval and Send a Message to build my boardstate and grind out more cards for the Keeling wincon. Giving away 6 points can put you a bit on the edge but it can be worth it.

This deck needs TONS of money, so a turn or two might just be to use the entirety of a Regolith. Giving away a Send a Message to rez Vampyronassa can also help.

I was extremely worried about any Shaper decks with K2CP Turbine in them, since it trivialized a bunch of ice, but I was expecting the runner side to be a ton of Esâ and Sable. I brought this out, then added 5 more cards to give a little more sabotage buffer + allow for an 18 ice endgame without the draw ratio of 18/49. It does reduce the Keeling density, but I think the extra econ cards were worth it.

Shaper or not, if you can set up Dr. Vientiane Keeling fast enough, it becomes difficult for any deck to keep spending 4 credits on trash + whatever it is to run the ever-increasingly iced server.

Of course you are extremely weak to centrals runs but hopefully you can set up a server that ends up forcing resource spend on it and becomes higher priority.

There are two main changes I would consider making to this list:

• I like having a few upgrades, but the 1x Nanisivik Grid and 2x Adrian Seis is a bit weird. Nanisivik Grid is insane but you don't have tons of setup for it (plus Esâ or Sable run archives anyways).
  • Going +1 Adrian Seis could be good here, but if you have a better idea for an upgrade do that instead. I could see Anoetic Void working once or twice a game.
  • Fitting more upgrades in general would also be nice here just to make more use of A Teia's ability.
• Urtica Cipher came from me walking up to my roommate (who has never played netrunner before) and asking "Snare or no Snare?" with no context. Swapping this with Snare! would probably be better for centrals defense, but I'm worried about needing to spend money on it killing your econ even more. Removing it for anything else is also an option.

I ended up going 2-1 at the Seattle CO, winning vs Arissana (Just get Keeling and kill lol) and Sable, and losing to Esâ (RIP my buffer).

Big shoutout to @FireRL, @Santa, and @maninthemoon for helping me test out this deck the night before the tournament! I think the list is in a much better state thanks to them.

Also huge thanks to @SMITTYL for organizing the CO to begin with! He posted some great Road to Startup lists that really got me into the groove of prepping and exploring decks for this tournament. Y'all should check those out too!