Bait and Switch

analyzechris 773

Concept
Like Null, it's not always easy to see what Omar's plan is going to be at the beginning of the game. This deck uses that confusion to its advantage by offering win conditions for both HQ and R&D. Bait them into covering one central, then switch to the other.

Mulligan

  1. Account Siphon
    There are only two, so you need to find it pretty early.
  2. Inject/I've Had Worse
    Card draw is vital for filling up your grip and finding the requisite parts to your end game!
  3. Sure Gamble/Day Job
    Economy is not quite as important as finding Account Siphon and Obelus, but you will need at least some cash on hand to get your minimal rig set up.
  4. Faust
    It's the only breaker and the only way you'll be able to hit Account Siphon if they get their ICE up.

Early Game
This is the trickiest part because you need to know when to start taking tags. Ideally, you don't run your first Account Siphon until you have both Obelus and one of the big draw cards in hand. That way you can end the turn tagged with a hand of seven cards to avoid BOOM! Spending a turn on Day Job is not the end of the world unless all servers are getting ICEd. You will need to have some kind of a cushion to install Obelus.

Mid Game

  1. Avoid Danger
    Once Obelus is installed and you're tagged, you still want to be a little coy. Don't randomly drop a Medium just because you have a huge credit lead. Don't trash a Fear The Masses after a big Inject, instead, toss your cutlery as not to give away your game plan. Also you should hold onto a spare Obelus if you can in case the corp is packing Observe and Destroy or other hardware killers. Also be careful about letting the corp rez non-HQ ICE too early. It's much easier to drain their accounts and run through unrezzed ICE while they're broke as a joke.
  2. Build Your Grip
    This stage of the game can be spent bolstering your economy (unless it's NBN, because they're mean), increasing your tag count with Déjà Vu siphons or Vamping them into oblivion. I was pretty surprised at the efficacy of Account Siphon into Vamp. You can use your earnings to shut down the corp's ability to retaliate, all while increasing your hand size.
  3. Destroy ICE
    This isn't a fabulously wealthy deck unless you land a half-dozen siphons (though it can happen!), so you have to be discriminating in the ICE you destroy. It may be tempted to blast a Vanilla right away with a Parasite, but you may need that later, and you could always break with one card and Faust. This is another case where you don't want to make it too obvious which central you want to focus on. Use Datasucker/Parasite to take down particularly tricky ICE.

End Game - Medium
This is the most common end game because of Omar's ID ability. Once you have a clear path through R&D, you can drop one or more Mediums, take some brain damage, and run roughshod into R&D. If your grip is big enough, you should be able to fend of any nasty agendas, and if you've done a good enough job detroying their economy, even Snares won't stop you.

It's helpful to have some money to trash cards as you dig, and don't forget that Obelus is amazing at replenishing your hand the first time you hit HQ/R&D. The more Medium counters, the more cards you'll score.

However, if they've got a lock on R&D and HQ, you can use Omar's ability (once per turn) to add virus counters to Medium. This is not ideal, but with Faust and a huge grip, they may get scared and purge virus counters, giving you time to destroy some more ICE.

End Game - Fear the Masses
Granted, this doesn't happen very frequently, but if the corp has committed to covering R&D and Archives, you can get pretty nasty with Fear The Masses, leveraging Same Old Thing and Déjà Vu to get as many 4-6-card mills as possible.

"Well That's Just Janky"
Perhaps, but this is just something people say when you Amp Up three times and your hand size is still in the double digits. Trope is not the greatest piece of recursion, but most games don't take that long. Just try to find it if you're going up against Jinteki IDs like Potential Unleashed or Personal Evolution.

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