Dead Space 2

Edit: Meant to drop 2x News Hound for a 3rd Raven and Psycho. NRDB didn't save the change :P Also, 15 Minutes should become Media Blitz

"Now In Yellow!

From the same guy who brought you the middlingly popular Dead Space, comes an all new iteration of the exact same set of combos and playstyle - Now with newly updated graphics!

Welcome back everyone, to the realm of asset-spam! We've been both Blood-Stained Red and Burnt Green in the past year, and it's finally time to move onto Scumlord Yellow. This build was in orbit for the majority of its testing, but after crash-landing back to Earth, the road to victory was so much easier to pave.

Primarily, the avenues to our win conditions were much easier to meat, whilst also being more plentiful and flexible.

Let's Look at the Wincons:

• Consulting Visit-BOOM! is the easiest and most consistent win condition in the deck. Tags are almost inevitable at this point in the game, and BOOM! punishes you for not having an answer to it immediately. It's trashability is almost irrelevant with the ability to 3-click tutor it through City Hall at almost any time, in conjuction with it constantly being in R&D.

• PsychoBeale - When BOOM! answers are present, you usually have the ability to deal with them, but when you'd rather skip the hassle, classic instawin Beale brings you to victory in one swift strike. Often, when runners do have answers to BOOM!, they go hardcore tag-me to keep up in tempo and "effectively blank" CtM, amassing more and more tags. Once they have 13/11/9/7, depending on your QPM count, you can install, silently wait a few moments, and City Hall-Consulting-Psycho out of basically nowhere and grab the win before an action window is present.

• Aryabhata Tech-Restructured Datapool is a corner-case strategy that's gotten me out of a few binds. It's mildly challenging to pull off, but between QPM, EoI, Psychographics, and the fear of Midseasons, you can usually get one into your score area through some shenanigans. If you ever do. the game is almost certainly over, as long as you've placed your Resistors on HQ and R&D. Closed Accounts locks them into a situation where you can just click Datapool 3 times and reset them to zero every turn, amassing enough credits to do whatever you please.

• Classic EoI bullshitery can also get you places, but usually, you can just win with the above wincons if this one is ever available. If you find yourself taking this route often, though, I'd suggest dropping the Explode-a-paloozas for cards like Private Security Force or Remote Data Farm.

Syngergies:

• Aryabhata-Manhunt ends up being an influence-free, convoluted Encryption Protocol, and is further bolstered by Primary Transmission Dish, hopefully forcing the runner to take 2 tags and spend/lose an additional 1-3 credits for trashing assets. These cards all bolster the deck individually in their own right, so the combo isn't completely nullified when a piece is missing.

• MVT is an impressive protection for both your political assets, forcing the runner to spend an extra 5 on a run, or floating beneath it, opening them up for a HHN. Better yet, this upgrade is tutorable through City Hall, and recurable through Museum of History, allowing you to constantly keep it on the board. If you're going to cut other cards from this deck, extra MVTs are going to go a long, long way.

• Archangel/News Team/QPM serve as loose protection in R&D, especially vs Medium. Archangel in particular is brutal to brick into with a rezzed Aryabhata or two.

• Diversified Portfolio is just a wonderful 1-of to play when you're low on credits, and a natural fit into almost any asset spam deck. It can really propel your economic advantage over wealthy runners, and only gets better as the game goes on. Like every event, it's always tutorable, and always recurable.

• Foxfire is an odd one, that can swing you and the runner up to 6 credits in your favor with rezzed Aryabhatas. A fantastic card to play from hand before a Consulting-HHN.

Tech:

• ASI for DLR

• Foxfire for Net Mercur, and those pesky Rabbit Holes (And yes, trashing them actually happens)

• Aryabhata Tech - Probably the 50th time I've linked this card in this write-up, this card changes the game so much. Runners often think they're safe ending a turn at 8 credits to protect from HHN, but this asset ups their minimum balance by 1 for every copy. It's almost mandatory in any CtM Prison deck, in my opinion.

Troublesome Runners, and How To Deal:

• Plascrete seems to, at the moment, be the go-to defense for BOOM!. Just BOOM! through as many plascretes as need be, and shuffle them back in. You can blow them up every other turn. Easy fix.

• NACH/Film Critic prove to be the truest counter to this deck, and you have to juggle a few things to get out of it. Namely, hard-scoring a Datapool. You can try to rush it out behind a Resistor, throw it down naked if they're poor on credits and punish with HHN, throw a MVT on it, protect it with Archangel (to bound FC, allowing Midseasons over it), or try to recover it with an EoI at a later time. None of these are perfect solutions, but you do have possible outs if the runner isn't too far ahead. Once it's scored, you try to stasis them down with Aryabhatas

• Whizzard may seem like a strong pick, especially with Salsette, but Anarch usually lacks reliably ways to avoid your tagging, so even if Whizzard exiles a few cards, you can often just punish him for his aggression. Elizabeth Mills can potentially be a fantastic include if this problem becomes too relevant, swapping out a Commercial Bankers Group for her.

• Criminals often still rely on run-based econ, so you need to get your Manhunt out ASAP. By, like, turn 2. This significantly slows down their Security Testing bullshit, and HHN even more. If you can ever land a Closed Accounts, you've often won a game against most Criminals. MVT also really shines in this matchup.

Alternate Card Includes:

What you drop is up to you, but if you ever find the room, here's some fantastic cards you should definitely consider:

• Firstly, strongly consider a second or third copy of MVT. This card was made for CtM, and gives you an unavoidable protection on any server, including political ones.

• Similarly, Prisec is also bonkers out of CtM.

• Observe and Destroy can potentially lock the runner out of servers, likely aiming for their breakers/console.

• Mumba Temple is a card I would love to have, but influence is tighter in this deck than in any other deck I've ever built.

• On a similar note of influence, Global Food Initiative will save you slots, and give you noticeable results with runners stuck at 6 points. Definitely drop the Explodas for it.

In Conclusion:

Similar to the original Dead Space list, patience is a must in this style of prison deck. You'll occasionally blow the runner out on turn 3, but often, your victories are going to take you time. Always know when to click for credits, create 3 remotes, or threaten a Datapool score.