[GNK - Undefeated] Sleepy Time Mercury

As pointed out below, Virtuoso doesn’t work with Mercury’s ability. That makes this deck weaker but I’m not sure how much weaker. My other note with more plays is that this deck needs more card draw. I’d probably go down to 1 of each breaker, add a Mutual Favor and add 2 more of The Class Act

I won a small (9 player) GNK with this list so I thought I would republish with edits. Thanks to the Calgary crew for a great afternoon!

Overview

This deck isn't better than the other Mercury decks, but I think this deck does a better job than most at leveraging her ability. I am certain this deck can be improved but it works as is.

This deck is different from other decks I've seen in 3 ways:

1. Console - I run Virtuoso instead of Hermes. I checked and there were no published decks with Mercury and Virtuoso. Not a single one. Virtuoso requires more ice on centrals to avoid free 3 HQ accesses off of runs on the other central servers.

2. Tranquilizer - I think Mercury uses Tranquilizer better than any other Criminal. Tranquilizers de-rez the central ice requiring additional funds or more ice to be dedicated to protecting central servers through re-installation. Mercury's ability makes the threat of undefended centrals hard for the Corp to ignore.

3. Eru Ayase-Pessoa stacks with Virtuoso so you can access 2-3 cards from R&D and 2-3 card from HQ, depending on where you want to leverage Mercury's ability. That is before considering WAKE Implant v2A-JRJ

Big picture, the idea is regularly attack central servers forcing the corp to dedicate money, cards and clicks to defending the central servers, which causes agendas to pile up in HQ instead of scoring out.

The List

A kind genius posted the 10/10/20/5 schema for designing Runner decks a couple of years ago and I've been using it ever since. If there is a similar schema for Corp decks, I'd love to know about it.

10 Identity cards - Why you are running the deck

• 3x Tranquilizer

• 1x Xanadu

• 2x S-Dobrado

• 1x Eru Ayase-Pessoa

• 1x Networking

• 2x Inside Job

The first 10 cards are the cards you want to build the deck around.

Tranquilizer was the first card I thought of for Mercury. If the ice is unrezzed, Mercury doesn't have to break it and the fact that Tranquilizer will de-rez ice turn after turn, made it a no brainer for me.

Xanadu makes the Tranquilizer hit a bit harder.

Eru Ayase-Pessoa and Networking work great together. I chose Eru Ayase-Pessoa over Sneakdoor Beta because I wanted R&D pressure and the 2 MU on Sneakdoor Beta doesn't work well with Tranquilizer. Try Eru Ayase-Pessoa before you switch it out. I was surprised how powerful she was.

Inside Job is the foundation of the standard criminal game plan and works with Mercury's ability. Does what it says on the tin.

S-Dobrado is for multi-access at the end of the game once the Corp has stabilized. It works with Virtuoso along with all the access buffs.

10 Functional cards - Make a functional deck

• 2x Virtuoso

• 2x Cat's Cradle

• 2x Curupira

• 2x Carmen

• 1x Docklands Pass

• 1x WAKE Implant v2A-JRJ

A functional deck needs breakers and multi-access.

Virtuoso giving free HQ accesses is very strong with Mercury's ability and can help in every stage of the game.

Cat's Cradle is a cheap, functional decoder and also makes the Tranquilizer bite a bit harder. I’d recommend installing this as soon as you see it as at least half of the value of this breaker is the passive ability and you can recur it if your rig gets shot.

Curupira is a cheap, functional fracter and also has it's own bypass engine.

Carmen was Femme Fatale but with the number of high strength sentries I've seen, Femme wasn't really viable.

Docklands Pass stacks with Virtuoso and Mercury's ability.

WAKE Implant v2A-JRJ is another flex card. It stacks well with Eru Ayase-Pessoa but it could be a different card as well.

20 Economy cards - Money and cards

• 3x Career Fair

• 3x Sure Gamble

• 3x Daily Casts

• 1x The Class Act

• 1x Verbal Plasticity

• 3x Earthrise Hotel

• 3x Liberated Account

• 3x Bravado

None of the other cards matter if you don't see them or can't pay for them.

Career Fair works with about a 3rd of your deck.

Daily Casts, Sure Gamble, and Liberated Account are all money that doesn't depend on running. So you can set up if you need to.

Bravado is high upside running money.

Earthrise Hotel keeps the cards coming.

The Class Act and Verbal Plasticity play really nicely together.

5 Bonus cards - Finish off the deck

• 3x Tread Lightly

• 2x Simulchip

Tread Lightly is functionally another Inside Job. Good for challenging early remotes.

Simulchip prevents auto-loss to rig shooters and also keeps Tranquilizers on line if they over-install ice to remove it.

This deck is really fun to pilot. I hope you try it out and enjoy it as much as I have. You can get to 17 accesses (the baseline expected number of accesses to win the game) pretty quick when you access 2, 3, 4, or 5 cards at a time.

I’d probably take out WAKE Implant v2A-JRJ for another S-Dobrado since we aren’t really hammering HQ, we access HQ through Virtuoso.

I’d love to put in Capybara but slots are hard.