Stealth Ship [Startup]

Publishing this because I feel confident enough that this is "pretty good" after some play testing!

Turns out one of Padma's best abilities might just be drawing 2 every turn by powering Earthrise Hotel. The next best thing is turning them into accesses.

Strengths & Playlines

This engine takes a minute to set up but once it is boy is it full steam ahead! Try and save a Mantle credit so you can charge up your The Twinning on the Corp's turn. Once you do that you're basically able to access 3 cards on any HQ or R&D run for the rest of the game (which generally leads to winning).

The relative efficiency of the stealth suite and Penrose + Simulchip helps contest the remote early as you set up. If you get lucky you're wealthy enough to BOAT UP early you can just contest whatever the hell you want. Once The Twinning engine is set up you can start charging the Endurance and forget about losing.

Daeg is a quiet MVP and can set you up or keep you going with whatever needs some charge at any given time.

Weaknesses

The engine takes a minute to set up. You lack the instant contest that something like Botulus or Boomerang provides. You make up for it in inevitability but that doesn't help you if you lose fast. Try to contest as best you can with your early economy. Finding room for a Jailbreak or two would probably go a long way; I haven't found it.

Telework Contract's click investment isn't ideal, but it's a decent chunk of money and comes when you need it. If better econ becomes available in future sets this is what gets dropped first.

EDIT: Pretty sure -1x Telework Contract + 1x Jailbreak is the correct call. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to find the next cut for Jailbreak.

Tags are a real bummer, man. If tags become a real meta issue then I might suggest replacing the Career Fairs with some No Free Lunches. Same money, just an extra click. When it's the difference between keeping your resources or not you'll be glad you have them. Not being as draw-order dependent is a neat fringe benefit.

EDIT: I'm testing out 2x No Free Lunch and 1x Wildcat Strike instead of the Career Fairs and it feels real solid. Helped me avoid trashing my Trickster Taka after stealing an agenda (smarter play would help but it's not nothing') and the Wildcat was excellent extra draw when I really needed it. 10/10 would recommend this change.

Last Thoughts

I've seen other decks using other power counter cards to take advantage of the charge mechanic, but I really feel like they're not improving enough on existing cards, or encourage you to include bad cards in your deck.

I'm a life-long Shaper player and I've always liked stealth so I'm jazzed to jam it into Startup. I generally like how this one's been able to deal with a variety of challenges. I'm interested to see any feedback or suggestions anyone might have! Thanks for readin'.