ASA rush, protect, tax & reset (38th at Euros 2018)

This is a fairly straightforward ASA rush deck that helped me to a 38th place at the European Championships 2018.

It aims to ask the runner four questions: 1) Can you find your breakers quickly enough? 2) Can you find a way to deal with the defensive upgrades quickly enough? 3) Can you do it without going broke? 4) Can you do it without losing your rig to a strange robot man that you probably forgot about?

The decklist name sums up the fundamentals.

RUSH

This comes from click compression and agenda economy. Asa Group gives an extra click per turn. Advanced Assembly Lines and Architect help to do it on runner's turn. Lateral Growth and Ultraviolet Clearance get an extra install. Rashida Jaheem and Ultraviolet helps draw up because you'll be playing a lot of cards at a fast pace. Relative low agenda density of 8 to avoid drawing too many agendas and making R&D more resilient. Do not try to score Ikawah Project unless it's for the win, because it slows down your tempo. Take risks with SSL Endorsement because stealing them cost the runner tempo and speeds you up, while scoring them still maintains your pace.

PROTECT

Asa makes the early rush stronger since it doesn't just rush behind a single piece of ICE, but also allows quickly installing defensive upgrades or additional ICE, which fends off several early rush prevention tactics.

TAX

Even though some of the ICE is quite taxing, this comes mainly from the upgrades. Stealing agendas can be expensive through Ash and Herrings. Mumbad Virtual Tour often goes to the root of R&D or HQ to add annoying tax to central pokes, while Warroid Tracker makes it taxing to trash the other upgrades, Rashidas or Assembly Lines.

RESET

Mumbad Virtual Tour in a remote on a Warroid Tracker or two. It doesn't fire often, but is oh so enjoyable when it does. It's basically your reset button if the runner succeeds in matching your speed, finds breakers and enough economy. Especially enjoyable if the runner Stimhacks a remote with this combo in it and loses half of their rig.

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I've been working on this deck since ASA was released and even though I don't play online, I've had enough games with it over a table that I was convinced that it is strong enough to win some games in a tournament. I went 6-2 with it at Euros. My runner was a silly Adam Twin-Turbo deck which I posted earlier.

Euros was my first big tournament and I really enjoyed it. The atmosphere was great and the community was very friendly. Big thumbs up to everyone I met and had the pleasure of playing against. Hats off to the organisers for bouncing back with good humour after initial technical difficulties. Finally a big shoutout to the Irish Netrunner gang for a great team spirit throughout the weekend. Cheers!