The Rainbow Bridge

An advantage of skipping out on most of the ice game is that you bank money fast. This means you can biotic agendas easily, and what ice you do have can be pretty significant. For this reason I’m running three Heimdall 1.0, a Heimdall 2.0, and one Ichi 1.0 as my only ice. They can singlehandedly make a server frustrating to get into and, while vulnerable to being shutdown, that’s not as much of an issue here as elsewhere given the sheer amount of money you can generate. The low number of them doesn't matter so much using The Foundry: Refining the Process. They can snowball into HQ fairly quickly.

Adonis Campaign, Eve Campaign, PAD Campaign and Jackson Howard provide the economic core of the deck. Installing these basics on a Hokusai Grid only makes them more of a positive trade for you. Runners have to choose to leave either Hokusai or whatever was on it standing, a big win either way. A secondary set of economic tools are Alix T4LB07 and Shipment from MirrorMorph. Neither are fantastic on their own, but together they let you run a turn where you install and rez Alix, shipment three cards and then use Alix, for three installs and 5 net credits in one turn.

To frustrate the runner, Snare! and Cerebral Overwriter provide some unexpected annoyance and force them to be careful about just running everything all the time. Enhanced Login Protocol is another frustration for the runner and can counter other currents the runner might use. Isabel McGuire is a great card that let you pull a lot of unexpected plays. Isabel McGuire can click your almost-finished campaigns back to hand as well as the aforementioned Snare! the runner has been foolish enough not to trash.

Biotic Labor and a hard-to-read agenda suite of Accelerated Beta Test, Project Vitruvius and Gila Hands Arcology provide dual ways of scoring out. Bluffing on the ground and Biotic Labor to clear the hand if the runner is spending all their time checking your remotes. NAPD Contract can be scored with a bit of both, in a pinch, or be placed behind a Heimdall to tax hard.

Finally, since you’re going to be running through your deck fast and probably seeing sets of all three of a card here and there, a Reclamation Order lets you get them back. Since these cards are somewhat situational, playing multiples that can clog up your hand is not the best idea. Despite their power, I’m keeping the count low.

How to play the deck

The most important thing to learn playing this deck is reading your opponent and controlling your own tells. You are going to put down unprotected agendas every game, so making sure that Accelerated Beta Test looks like just another Cerebral Overwriter is pretty important. That kind of bluff is important, but you can also do the five-card-install turn (Shipment from MirrorMorph and two more) and use your Snare! and Cerebral Overwriter to create windows of fear. Sometimes this does necessitate balls of steel.

Keep drawing through your deck and installing at least one, preferably two cards per turn under normal circumstances. Put heimdalls down as you get them. First priority is R&D because a lock can really mess you up, though if you suspect siphon recursion, protecting HQ can be pretty important too once you start banking lots of credits. If you’re low you can just rez a bunch of the random cards you’ve installed to blank the siphon.

Use Ash 2X3ZB9CY to block runs on ICEless servers. Possibly use them to protect asset economy as well.

Try to keep the runner running and spending. You don’t want to give them time to get their economy rolling. Once the runner is down to only a credit or two, consider putting out an agenda (particularly Gila Hands Arcology or NAPD Contract) to mess with their recovery plan. Often times if you’re going to put out 3 for 2’s on the board, two in a turn is better than one. The runner will hit one of them, assume they’ve called your bluff and let you score the other in peace. These trades are actually a good idea in this deck, since with the rate you go through your deck and the economic advantage you should have you can often finish off a game that’s 4/4 in a couple of turns with Biotic Labor.

The first few turns are the most critical, often enough. Ideally you want an unwary runner to think you have a bad draw with little ice and you’re making the best of it, encouraging them to run you early rather than setting up their own economy. The temptation to trash things will hopefully set them back a little and let the deck snowball.