Real Fake News - Post Rotation Val

Everfree616 588

Blackmail is dead! Long live Blackmail!

Jade!

But who needs Blackmail anyway when you can choke the life out of the Corp with Bad Pub and lots of angry protesters?

This deck is is focused around dumping more and more bad publicity onto the corp and then using it all to incite a riot. Provoke enraged protesters to line the streets, spraying graffiti and chanting catchy slogans about corporate negligence and corruption and see if your opponent can somehow manage to keep things to business as usual.

Previously this wasn't the greatest strategy as Fast Advance made it hard to keep pace or keep your current in play, bad pub was hard to dish out and, well, Blackmail was a thing, but now in the new world of post-rotation the old Order and Chaos intended playstyle for Valencia actually seems very viable. Viable enough to win games. Viable enough to provoke ragequits with snippy, often salty quips on Jinteki.net from people playing Asset Spam Gagarin and 1-turn combo Cerebral Imaging.

That's the sign of a strong deck architype in my experience.

A few key points on the deck:

  • Mining Accident is your chief form of Bad Pub application. At worst it's a neutered Account Siphon. Getting these off early usually means an easy game and forces the Corp to spread their ice thin making the Bad Pub you do have all the more painful.
  • Salsette Slums is vital. In a world where trashing assets can now auto-tag you once per turn this isn't just a silver bullet for CtM anymore. It's standard anti-NBN in general.
  • Gang Sign is the best. Forget the other restricted cards. Levy is a crutch. This allows you to pressure the Corp and buy you time to get set up so that your econ is online. Late game it puts the Itinerant Protester squeeze on extra hard.
  • The Archivist and Investigative Journalism allow you to safely apply more bad pub if you Mining Accidents fail to leave their mark. Archivist also helps Gang Sign in your agenda score punishment plan.
  • Drip econ is nice. Your memory is pretty free so Data Folding fits cleanly into the deck to ensure you have credits in the mid game to keep running now that big ice is a thing again. Along with all the bad pub you're rocking you will rarely find yourself short on cash.
  • Itinerant Protesters makes the magic happen. It synergises with Gang Sign, Vigil, and even your run events by forcing a reluctant corp into installing ice just to free up their grip when they can't afford to rez. It also shuts down other currents like Core NBN Door To Door. Which is great. Because I hate Core NBN Door to Door.

Other potential includes that I've tried and considered are The Source to slow the runner down while letting your Bad Pub handle the extra cost, Legwork so you can see everything in the Corp's hand, and Hemorrhage but I've found the current selection has been doing the most work for me.

Rotation means there's going to be a lot of experimentation with a lot of different IDs for a time and Anarch seems to have taken a hit from their pedestal but I have a feeling BP spam may be able to hold its own along with Tag Me Anarch decks.

Have fun exposing the truth! (And making up whatever the heck needs to be made up in order to get that truth out there.) It's all for the Greater Good.

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