Biotic Keystone (London SC 1st place)

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iainreid 78

  • Won London Store Championship (62 players)
  • Also piloted by Kranse to win Chicago Store Championship (31 players)

The skeleton of this is a standard Keystone deck. Check out, Keystone, Keystone v2.1 and Lanri for good write-ups of the core ideas.

The main variant here is 2x Biotic Labor. Biotic is an incredibly strong card in Blue Sun. A challenge with Biotic is the initial credit hump to launch it, and Blue Sun provides that. Trashing important ice positions doesn't matter if you combo into a game win. Biotic unlocks some key game winning moves in Weyland such as:

  • Biotic-Atlas from hand
  • Biotic-neveradvanced Atlas into a Hostile (or an Atlas-chain).
  • Double-Biotic into a neveradvanced 3 pointer.
  • Biotic into SEA-3xScorch
  • As well as "make it up as you go" plays, like Biotic a Hostile to get the extra install click vs Leela, or Biotic an avanced Atlas just for an extra counter.

Basically, the Biotics turn your late game into fast-advance, and make your Atlas counters stronger than they already were.

Once you run 2x Biotic, you are low on influence, so Midseason Replacements has moved to a SEA Source. You could still run Midseasons if you want to.

3x Jackson Howard is pretty much a must if you want to run Power Shutdown (and why wouldn't you?). That only leaves you with 2 influence and a few slots. Daily Business Show is incredibly strong, both in this and other decks. I would run more of them, but it's not obvious what other slots to replace with.

The final part is ice selection which is reasonably flexible. I've gone with Lotus Field, Caduceus and Taurus, but Rototurret, Data Raven, Datapike and others all work well here. Errand Boy might be good too; not tried that.

3 comments
17 Feb 2015 ItJustGotRielle

@iainreid just read your write-up! I'm intrigued by your changes to the deck, namely the agenda adjustment (1 PB, 2 Fracking, to run 2 PriReq). The PriReqs are interesting, a pretty high risk/reward scenario. I usually go for the never-advanced Atlas or Geothermal with Biotic, but the idea of 2 Biotic is a smart one for scoring three-pointers, so the second three-pointer seems a good addition. It increases draw odds and means Atlas is just as versatile, but easier to score off the bat. With 1 PB I assume you Atlas for it once the kill cards are in hand (in a scenario where you have the cards in hand but they are not running to turnon SEA Source) to force them into the checkmate? The look of the deck seems a lot more controlled, with less BP overall and less dependencies on it to keep the game going.

I have been tweaking mine as well for new Anarch, and am having fun putting Patch on Archer. How is yours treating you post-O&C?

17 Feb 2015 iainreid

I'd really love to fit an extra Bounty in. It's another win condition, and Weyland is all about the multiple win conditions. If I had an extra card slot, I'd change a PriReq into another Geothermal and a Bounty. It might even be worth dropping an Ice to do this, but I've tried a lot with 16 ICE (6 of which you'll remember are not rezzable in a starting hand without an Oversight), and it does hurt the early game variance.

You could rock it either way. You certainly don't want less than 10 early rezzable ICE, not without more card draw anyway.

17 Feb 2015 iainreid

O&C, even though we are Weyland, hasn't helped us as much as we would like. High Risk Investment is awesome and is generally better than PriReq, as it provides more money, and turns back on SEA-Scorch against turtle runners. (It doesn't allow for the free agenda point with an Archer though, so not always better, but in general it is).

Orion is nice, provides an extra credit when bounced, and is generally no more fragile for Oversight-death than Curtain Wall. Better for face checks and is less vulnerable to Inside Job. But it's a minor difference.

That really just leaves the Space ICE, as you don't have space for other utility stuff like The Twins. And while the Space ICE are totally amazing, they have a bit of an anti-synergy with Blue Sun (unless you run Trick of Light). So... mmm... not that great. I've been playing around with Wormhole anyway, as even a hard-rez can be good, but it affects the early rezzable ICE problem I mention above.

It seems that Lukas, the cunning devil that he is, has released a whole bunch of Weyland cards that buff new and interesting decks rather than existing ones.