[startup] Built for something

My own take on the Weyland: Built to Last identity

The Built to Last identity is extremely powerful -- getting 2 credits in exchange for taking a standard action, that you will be able to do on many turns, is comparable to the old Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future identity (+1 credit for install)

To maximize the benefit, you want to play a lot of:

• Advanceable ice
• Agendas
• Traps

Many of the advanceable ice don't actually get better with just one advancement, and need 3 advancements before they get a boost, but getting paid to make the first advancement makes it easier to get to 3, and build a pretty nasty glacier.

A key card here is wall-to-wall. Note that when you advance a card for the first time using wall-to-wall, you don't trigger the identity and you don't get the 2 gp. Wall-to-wall gives you a steady trickle of gp, cards to play (and then advance for money), and tokens to boost your ices to the third level.

I have found that between wall-to-wall, 3x hedge fund and govt subsidy, and the ID money, (as well as the Send-A-Message agenda), you can build up plenty of money to fund your glacier. (4 for 5 on jinteki.net at time of writing).

In terms of ice placement, a key card is Ahket. You will almost always want to put Ahket on R&D if possible and get it to 3 advancements quickly. In startup, many runners cannot break triple-advanced Ahket cost effectively, and you will get those sweet gp and advancement tokens when they do. If they are burning powerful card combos like Chisel + Devil Charm, or playing their Botulus on your Ahket, that is putting you ahead, because this is really not your scariest ice. In my games, the runners have been more likely to use those to get rid of Colossus.

Also, don't underestimate ice wall. Ice wall is great to play early in pretty much any position, because you will make money for advancing it once, more than the rez cost even. Later you can put a few wall-to-wall tokens on it. If the runner is an anarch on cleaver, then later on they will likely have to burn leech tokens to get past it.

I prefer to stack the biggest ice (pharos, archer) on the scoring remote (which will also be where wall-to-wall lives). You will also want at least one magnet in there, to counterplay if they put a botulus on your Pharos.

I also play 1x Afshar and 1x Winchester. I would only play these on HQ, in this case, they are both pretty taxing. You should have plenty of ice to put on the other servers. The main selling point for Winchester is that it has pretty good cost for a 4 str 3 subroutines ice, but also, the runner really wants to break all 3 subs, and they can't do that with Boomerang or just-installed Botulus.

Finally, there's the question of what cards to import. Here's what I've picked:

• 2x trick of light. This gives you a fast advance option and you will easily have tokens to feed it.
• 2x urtica cipher. The goal here, at least when I do it, is not to kill the runner, but bait them into running the scoring remote. You make 2gp for playing it and advancing it once, and from the runners point of view, this could easily be a send a message with threat of trick of light to score it next turn. It doesn't cost you anything to trigger it and cause 3 net damage either, but if they spent money running the remote and took 3 net damage, that will create a scoring window for you the following turn.
• 2x sprint. This is extremely helpful in the glacier style because you can avoid being agenda flooded before you are ready.
• 1x spin doctor. Another very helpful card, for baiting runs, and for recycling valuable cards that got trashed. Wish I could find influence for a second of these.
• 2x magnet. This just works very well in the deck. It's another ETR code gate that makes them find their buzzsaw or whatever, and it gets the Botulus off of your other cards. The best place to put it is somewhere before your triple advanced Pharos, so that you can trigger it in the run before they hit Pharos. They can still counterplay in various ways (simulchip, gachapon) to install a Botulus during the run, but these are limited resources that they will have to invest. This card is your main answer to Botulus, besides just playing a lot of ice.

You have a few mechanisms to help you find the cards you need:

• Malapert Data Vault. This is a value play -- it keeps the runner guessing, it's an upgrade so it doesn't screw with Wall-to-Wall even if it is rezzed, and it gives you a way to quickly find ice or money cards. In at least one game, the runner successfully destroyed ice on central servers, but FA + Malapert made sure I could keep finding new ice to plug the hole.
• Project Atlas. A great agenda -- don't forget about the benefit of advancing it beyond 3.

Notable cards that aren't played:

• Anoetic Void. Looks pretty beastly in a glacier deck, but costs a lot of influence and costs a lot to trigger the effect. It is most effective at the end of the game, when it is very good. The Urtica Cipher costs nothing to play (actually makes you money if you advance once) and is good at all stages of the game, and can also create a scoring window.
• Clearing House. Very popular right now in weyland glacier -- it gives you a win condition and it isn't an agenda, and actually costs 3 to the runner to trash it. You could reasonably put this in if you like this card, but I didn't because (1) it is often paired with La Costa grid, but we don't have influence for that (2) usually this deck either wants to have Wall-to-Wall going, or be scoring agendas. If you spend a few turns on clearing house you're not getting agendas out of your hand and you aren't improving your board state. The runners don't know if you do or don't have clearinghouse anyways.
• Cyberdex Virus Suite. I have found that having two magnets is enough counterplay for the viruses. However, you could put in more hate in the form of CVS or the Cyberdex Sandbox if you find otherwise.

There is probably another version of this deck, where you go all in on Clearinghouse as a win condition. In this case you would

• Maximize agenda density, so probably, 3x Send a Message, 3x SDS deployment
• 2x or 3x clearing house
• Cut trick of light, urtica cipher, malapert data vault
• Maybe run Anoetic Void, to protect the clearing house?
• Maybe run Punitive Counterstrike?

But that would be a pretty different deck.