Trading Places (1983) - 2nd Swiss at Huddersfield Regional

Once there was a time when Runner credit pools mattered. But in these days of ICE being broken with tokens and cards, where powerful resources fuel a sense of inevitability as the Runners sit their with their Professional Contacts, Wyldsides, and Aesop's that the focus on how many, you know, actual credits the runner had started to fall by the wayside.

When I first built this deck, it originated as one of my many experimental Scorch/TA 24/7 Kill Decks. I tried it out of Spark originally thinking that the Spark ID ability would generate enough of a credit gap early to both slow the runner down and make landing an early Midseasons more likely. However, playing the original incarnation of the deck, it became apparent that the element of the deck that was winning me matches was forcing the runner to pay attention to their real credit pool at all times, and that both ignoring my assests or running them could be bad, as a well timed SEA Source often punished greedy runners by tagging them and taking away whichever resources they needed most.

Coming back from my performance at the UK Games Expo, I went back to work on the list, stripping out the Kill package and replacing it with additional effects which reinforced the decks ability to use the first few turns to pressure the runners economy in a significant enough way to generate scoring opportunities - and so, 'Tax Advance' was born,

This list represents the version of the deck which I took to both Stockport and Huddersfield Regionals. Between those two events, the deck lost twice only, once to Sam Burdock at Stockport (who was the eventual Swiss winner) and once in the Top 8 at Huddersfield due to an exceptional agenda flood. I'm still not 100% convinced the influence spend is correct here (the Adonis could be switched back to a PAD and that 2 INF could be another Ash or Archived Memories), but its performed exceptionally solidly against a varied field of runners and good players.

When playing this deck, primarily you are hoping for an opening hand with 2 advertisements, either Launch Campaigns or Product Placements ideally, plus some ICE. Triggering your Spark ability on both your first turn, and on the runners first turn leave them in an awkward position starting on 3 credits. Often, a naked Launch Campaign will be left alone (because no-one except Whiz is going to particularly want to spend an additional 2 creds to trash it and leave themselves on 1c); a Product Placement on an unICED central can often be a strong disincentive for the runner to make speculative runs there for the same reason.

Generally, I would attempt to find a News Hound and Algorithm or a Tollbooth to start making a scoring remote. Assessing the runners board state, something like Hound + Algorithm, especially with an unrezzed advertisement you can use to tax your opponent should they run, mean they often need a minimum of 2 credits in their cash pool once they have broken the ICE (since you can Spark them before access if they are on 2 and you have Predictive in play).

Installed Breaking News advanced out the following turn gives you chances to land trashes on key economic resources, and often spending 2 creds and a click to eliminate a loaded Liberated/Daily Casts/Technical Writer can be a devastating blow under the right circumstances.

Once you have a 'scoring remote' (often only something like a Tollbooth or News Hound), you can place upgrades, assets or agendas in there depending on your read on the runners willingness to run into it and check what you installed every turn. Run happy Runners might find themselves punched out of credits and vulnerable to SEA source either for key resource disposal or the obviously powerful Exchange of Information. If they seem cautious, an Ash or SanSan plus an Astro can put a huge amount of pressure on.

One of the great things about this deck is that while it definitely has the ability to operate as a normal Fast Advance deck, I've won several games with Clot on the board, simply by installing agendas into a taxing remote, and forcing the Runner to Clot in response, but in doing so cripple their ability to get to the agenda anyway (especially should it be something like an NAPD).

All that being said, and I have genuinely enjoyed playing this deck, it's difficult to recommend that people play it. Having just finished the Huddersfield Top 8, more and more Runner decks are moving away from key resources to provide their economy and back to a mix of Events and Resources. Its much harder to economically hamper decks which can burst through that early part of your denial game, and while the deck does have tricks and can still win in those situations, it loses a lot of its power an edge against this changing meta.

Here's a list of the matchups I have had with this deck over the last 2 events:

Stockport R1 - Goodstuff Kate - Win Stockport R2 - Noise - Win Stockport R3 - The Professor (Sam Burdock) - Loss Stockport R4 - Siphon Quetzal - Win Stockport R5 - Security Nexus Kate - Win Stockport R6 - Goodstuff Kate (Tagore) - Win Huddersfield R1 - Turning Wheel Chaos Theory - Win Huddersfield R2 - Siphon Whizzard - Win Huddersfield R3 - PPvP Kate - Win Huddersfield Top 8 - Noise (Win) Huddersfield Top 8 - BBlum Whizzard - Loss (mainly due to insane agenda flood)