I tried out Tour Guide, and I really wanted to like him, but he's just too Parasite-able in a deck that's already too parasite-able. He's also situationally useless, especially if the assets on the board are ones that I explicitly don't want to rez like Dedicated Response Team and Jackson Howard.

Shadow got taken out for the same reason - I wanted more ways to suprisingly tag the runner, and if they're scared of tags (which they almost always are), it really is a decent taxing ICE. But the strength is just too low, and I would never pay to advance it. This turned into Caduceus.

I may have to shift the taxing ICE around a bit if becomes really big with Data and Destiny...

You know that the runner can decide to not access to Snare! if he see you rezzing DRT ? Cause he has to pay to see the card.

@Zanis

In the case of Snare! in a remote server, yes, you're correct. The window to pay (or neglect to pay) the G-toll is after the window where you must rez Dedicated Response Team.

• You can use this knowledge against them, rezzing a Dedicated Response Team as a bluff to scare them off of accessing an unadvanced agenda installed in a remote
• The runner cannot decide not to access Snare! if it's in a central server. While this is oftentimes a gamble for you, it just as often is not a gamble (or not much of one):
  • Legwork into Snare!-filled HQ (possibly tutored in at the last second with Project Atlas tokens)
  • Huge Medium dig into an R&D with at least 2 Snare!s left
  • Late-game multiaccess into a very tiny R&D, where you Jackson Howard 3 Snare!s back in right before the access.
• You can just rez the Dedicated Response Teams long before the run even happens, if you think you're going to need to bait the Snare! out in the open. Runners frequently check them anyway, and decide to save s and leave them installed until they become a problem ("Oh, I just won't run when I'm tagged then. Saved myself 3 s!").

I like how you've made your Gagarin a hell of a lot meaner, @Bigguyforyou518. I'm still hoping to try a Veganish take thanks to the Universe of Tomorrow cards, but this looks like a lot of fun.

As one of the prominent Deep Space specialists, I wanted to ask your opinion on its compatibility with Checkpoint. At first its anti-synergy is apparent, we're losing the Tax for Chrissake, and our centrals are even more porous! But at the same time, I cannot think of a better ice than Checkpoint for the Gagarin theme of "here's an asset that is doing great things for me but it will be just as good if the runner goes and trashes it." And here with DRT already a big thing...

I'm currently trying to construct a Gagarin deck that has one dedicated remote to entice the runner to frequently go and trash things in, creating scoring and/or killing windows, and Checkpoint seems like an optimal ice to tax in theory. What are your thoughts? Is Trace5 too weak of a tax? Does the average runner not care about continual 3 meat unless you threaten to kill them? Would I need to run Witness Tampering?

Oh Checkpoint, how I so want you to be good. Every time I look at this card again (usually while rummaging around for in-faction code gates), I start to think it has potential. Then I sit down and think about it:

• In any run after it's been rezzed, the bad pub effectively makes it a 4-trace, not a 5-trace. So you're looking at a 4 taxer for a rez cost of 4 (with all the other ancillary benefits of bad pub on other servers)
• With most of the other ICE that gives you bad pub, you can wait to rez them until the perfect time for their subroutines to fire without interruption (Grim, Fenris, Swarm, Muckraker, Shinobi). With Checkpoint, even if you rez it when they can't break it, they can simply choose not to finish the run, making it a big fat dud (or a mere run-ender, if you want to think of it that way).

As a taxer, it's pretty cost efficient, I'll give you that (and it can scare a jack-out if you're swimming in credits). It could work quite well in a multi-ICE server against Faust decks, as they'll be much less likely to have a beefy hand at the end of the run to soak the 3 meat damage.

The only time the runner will really care about 3 meat damage is the first time they run into it and aren't prepared. After that, they'll just factor it in to the math on running the server, and since corp sets the trace 's first, they can just choose whatever is more economical for them.

TLDR I definitely wouldn't consider it in a horizontal deck. Your vertical Gagarin deck might actually jive with it, though. Could you give me some more details? How do you plan on enticing the runner into your remote (if it's just econ assets, then ICE will discourage them pretty quickly)? Are you going to use the same server to score out of, and just try to tax them so hard on the econ trashing run that they can't run it a second time? (Are you going to use cards that take advantage of forced runs, like Paywall Implementation, Power Shutdown, or SEA Source?)

The current idea came from Universe of Tomorrow cards so it is still in early planning stages. It is: rather than play several naked assets with Gagarin that the runner has to check and trash for your credit swings, why not trickle targets in one at a time behind a single taxing ice that will lead to advantages whether they decide to check it or not. I don't know if Worlds Plaza would make the final cut, but you could potentially have multiple cheap assets in the server all protected by the taxing ice, or just save some credits and add a bigger trash cost to an econ asset you put on top of it.
The idea was to make it separate from my scoring server so I could always have an agenda play without having to trash one of my own cards, or do a gimmick of hiding an Atlas and advancing GRNDL Refinery in the scoring.

I think it will primarily be economy cards with an Expo Grid behind it for good money. Paywall Implementation or Manhunt could be potential punishes, depending if it is Vegan or not. Public Support is also amazing for baiting a run at almost no cost to us.

Checkpoint was going to be that one ice they had to run through every turn to get to my money makers, but it may just not be worth it in the end. Without influence, a Spiderweb could do that job with fewer drawbacks, and Errand Boy or Quicksand would be other pains to consistently run. Maybe Data Raven if I want to kill or Matrix Analyzer if I'm running advanceable ice, but bleh. It doesn't solve Gagarin's "central" problem.

I'm more than a little salty that NBN is getting their own in-faction Snare! in the form of News Team (the damn thing even fires in archives!!!).

On-access R&D traps like Snare!, Shock!, and Cyberdex Virus Suite, as well as agendas that "defend themselves" like Fetal AI, The Future Perfect, and NAPD Contract seem to be far and away the best ways for horizontal IDs to defend their centrals, and unfortunately the Weyland faction is pretty impoverished in this department. It's telling that the only other quasi-horizontal Weyland ID, Argus, typically makes use of both Snare! and Data Raven...

But it sounds like you're going for a more standard glacier ICE suite, so you might be able to keep the runner out the same way Haas or Blue Sun does it - big, annoying taxes.

I may have been too quick to dismiss Worlds Plaza when I first saw it - under the principle that you can never truly keep a runner out of a server, the idea of hosting 3 assets on it like fish on a platter horrified me. It still seems like it would be an odd balance of finding assets cheap enough to be expendable, but expensive enough to take advantage of Plaza's discount. You wouldn't even be able to do something fun like hosting a trap, because they just access and the Plaza instead.

For your strategy, I think I'd look instead towards upgrade-stacking, which is hilarious in Gagarin because each card in the server taxes the 1. Expo Grid is going to be fantastic for sure. Consider Shell Corporation, Ash 2X3ZB9CY, maybe even Red Herrings. I'm actually getting kind of excited thinking about the possibilities...

Thinking about Worlds Plaza, seems like you should maybe lean towards either assets you can trash and use right before the Plaza gets hit (Jackson Howard, Executive Boot Camp Allele Repression), or higher rez and lower cost cards, so that the Plaza really is making them harder to trash, and helping you rez them (Adonis Campaign maybe?). Elizabeth Mills hits that sweet spot perfectly, and she addresses your Checkpoint concerns pretty well (she could even bring the Archer/Hostile Takeover brutality to Gagarin!).

You have given me some great ideas @Bigguyforyou518! The trick with the upgrades would be in finding the balance between unrezzed upgrades to surprise them with and rezzed assets to give you money or bait them. Otherwise they'll just know every facedown you install in that server is something nasty. If you can manage that successfully, however, nothing opens up a scoring window quite like a runner going through Gagarin to trash assets and seeing a Will-o'-the-Wisp rezzed right before they get to do so. I'm afraid that Shell Corporation would need more protection to really get going, and Gagarin cannot defend it with an advanced trap asset thanks to the wording of its identity.

I think with Worlds Plaza, it may actually be best as an econ boost to Blue Sun, allowing huge credit gains with things like Adonis and Server Diagnostics. I'm going to try and build a Gagarin with Expo and Public Support for locals tomorrow (might just use greyfield's wonderful example), but I'm not expecting too much on my first try.

It'll be tough finding an appropriate suite of ice. Glacier Weyland without Blue Sun and Curtain Wall probably hasn't been done since forever. I'm thinking just a plethora of ETR ice with a few Destroyers. My mind jumps to Space Ice, but I don't want to get too wacky for Chrissake.

If you're focused on taxing over preventing access, you could go for a ridiculous all-barrier glacier with Superior Cyberwalls :D

Not the worst idea really, what with Will, Wendigo, and Power Shutdown xd. I wonder how it would do with Surfer.

The more I think about it the more I think my idea would benefit from just having one scoring server. Gagarin helps when you just have to be naked, and Public Support in a taxing remote, while slowing you down, makes it even tougher for the runner to deny you the point. No time to build it today, but I hope to have testing and a deck up next week.