Tower Defense [Startup]

Watched a deck like this on Jinteki.net pummel a runner into the ground. 10/10 I will be stealing this deck.

Thesis: Make runners pay dearly to run while you hide centrals and 1-2 remotes behind towers of dangerous ice. Ever play a Tower Defense game? That's this.

Gameplan: Use Brasília Government Grid to derez Tithe to strengthen nasty Sentry/AP ice while also getting a buff from the fluid Tributary. Runs glacial, but 12 of the 16 ice benefits from Thunderbolt Armaments: Peace Through Power corp ID and so gets even stronger and another subroutine. Up to +6 strength and a lot of subroutines (corp ID is not limited to once per round!) means runners go broke, jack out, or sac a lot to gain access. Let's not forget Stegodon MK IV to derez our cheap Tithes to reduce icebreaker's strength! The differentials get BIG.

All that ice is expensive, but 2x Vovô Ozetti helps keep it cheap, and HB always has the suite of 3x Marilyn Campaign and 3x Nico Campaign to to fuel economy without spending influence. Additionally, 2x Cybersand Harvester benefits from all the rez/derez shenanigans and can fuel the stacking ice. The assets can be thrown in the remote where you've scored from to see if the runner will commit to throwing resources away to try and steal. Recursion with Spin Doctor and Marilyn Campaign help us play for a long game, as we don't advance on agendas fast.

We're weak to Hermes of course (few aren't), so it's helpful to only score out when we have a click to replay the bounced target.

Tweaks: I changed the 3x Lightning Laboratory down to 2x and added a second Offworld Office because it seemed like scored Labs were either bugged or not doing much for me. By the time I score them the big ice is rez'd and I don't need to rez/derez except with the Grid and Stegodon.

Why only 45 cards and not 49?

I actually recently added 3x Sprint and a Manegarm Skunkworks to get it to 49. Springs smooth draws, Manegarm further punishes. Could easily run Ablative Barrier for another cheap rez/derez target.

This looks very good

I swapped out the Marilyn Campaign for Regolith Mining License because I was spending a lot of clicks on income while I built my towers. So far the ROI seems much preferable. Also swapped 1 Sorocaban Blade for another Ansel 1.0 to improve the danger density of the ice. The Sprints smoothing draws are nice, and I ended up with a singleton Ablative Barrier for the 49th. Manegarm was underwhelming.

I barely beat this deck by trashing about 8 cards in a last ditch effort, it's a wild and fun deck, I loved it!

Have you been able to use Tributary reliably?

I've started using it in response to this deck, but I can't get it rezzed early enough to rely on it much - but that may just be some piloting issues lol.

Identifying where runners need to target is key to getting Tributary rez'd and active. If they're running Cataloguer, putting it in front of R&D makes sense. If they're piloting Steve Cambridge: Master Grifter, HQ. Otherwise putting it the remote where you plan to score from can get it rez'd and moving, especially if you advance an agenda in root.

I took this deck to a recent startup CO. took 2 wins and a loss with it. This was a LOT of fun. Thank you for sharing it!

That's awesome, Alkama! Congrats!