Originally published at: Deckspace: Stronger Together With Markus 1.0 - StimHack
Discuss the latest StimHack article by @Nagnazul here.
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Reversed accounts looks pretty good here too. 1 inf for a “lose money running this server and lose money trashing this…or lose money!” Of course you’ll need money to advance it, which is where this struggles I think.
Any ST deck I’ve ever made has ran 3 Celebrity Gift (or as my love girlfriend calls it…The Deer Card)…with access to 3 archived memories. So money is no issue when I play them. I like the philosophy here though, and I think I could easily import that idea when I want to break out the mean white and purple HB card.
Loved the sense of humor in the article, thanks!
If Heinlein Grid wasn’t working for you, that’s because it’s stronger together with False Lead. Then you can make them lose all their credits and two actions whenever you feel like it. C-c-c-c-combo!
Once you’ve accepted Heinlein Grid into your life, consider playing Director Haas instead of Private Contracts. Both are 3 to rez, 5 to trash, and are barely better economically than clicking for three credits a turn. But Director Haas is badass and can also fast advance things.
When they come to kill her, that’s when you rez Ichi, Heinlein, and forfeit False Lead. Now they have no money, no programs, and a tag and a brain damage. That’s why you don’t mess with the Director.
Speaking of Ichi - if +1 strength on your Bioroids is good, why not double down with Experiential Data? It’s not even unique so you can stack all three copies on a server and push your Ichi 1.0 to 8 STR - out of Knight and Switchblade range. Or just leave it unrezzed and people will think it’s Ash and won’t even bother running.
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Secret deck do not steal
I actually like Director Haas though 
I was thinking about this earlier actually. If you could run unlimited copies of cards, would there be any ice other than eli that you would consider? Would 12 eli and 6 architect be better than 18 eli?
12 NEXT Bronze, 6 NEXT Silver, 1 Shinobi (surprise!)
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Hudson is not useless, This ice is much better than described. However, it needs additional cards to shine. Combo it with Ash, shiro, yagura, kitsune, Plan B or Toshi. Cheap ice that is taxing to break - especially in Stronger together… 3/6 with 2 subroutines? Yes please. If you have the other combo’s pieces, it is actually quite useful over R & D as it serves to minimize the impact of multi access.
Zed is not good. However, if there is a use case for it it is this:
Drop multiple ice on awakening centers, as well as ice in front, such as eli. When you KNOW that Zed will land - then choose to rez it.
good article, I just have to disagree with the statement that there isn’t much difference between 2clicks and 1click +1credit tax for Runners (example being Eli). there are innumerable ways for Runners to get more credits, and not many for them to obtain more clicks. I think taxing clicks is almost always more powerful than taxing credits, which is why Quetzal + E3 reduces the best piece of ICE in the game to just okay. IMO
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I enjoyed the article, although I don’t particularly share its view of Markus - especially in ST where Viktor 1.0 does the same job better. Unlike most bioroids Markus has a poor strength to cost ratio (except in ST, where it becomes respectable but not stella). It punishes face-checking only in the sense of sucking up a click if the runner has installed cards - doubly situational, unlike Viktor 1.0 or 2.0. True it is less situational than Ichi, but Ichi is three subroutines (two of which are better than Markus) and plus one strength for only one more credit.
If we are looking for reasons to play ST, I would be looking at Architect (finally giving HB some redress in those first few turns of pain - particularly in ST where the runner expects they’ll be able to click through anything) and Enchanced Login Protocol.
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You keep going on about how, with Sherlock, Noise will love replaying his Caches. You do realize the corp chooses which program to ebb, right?
Noise has this installed: Wyldside, Aesop’s, Clone Chip, Imp (empty), Cache (empty).
What do you put on top of the stack? Exactly.
I am assuming the point is that because Sherlock is mandatory you may end up helping the Runner.
Thats why you always play datahound behind sherlock.
Mind you it still sucks…
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18 popup. And a singleton Shinobi.
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A combo of pup and eli would be decent, but the cake for me would be 18 next silver.
I dunno I don’t think that would work very well against the 22 parasite runner deck.
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Yeah, Noise Cache can abuse of Sherlock if the corp pilot is, well, actually stupid.
“Oh I’ll choose, hmm let’s see what the runner got… Yeah that depleted Cache instead of this Grimoire. No keep your Aesop please, Cache depleted is so bad isn’t it ?”.
Oh wait. Any runner could abuse of this corp’s stupidity. Sherlock’s target is corp’s choice.
Sherlock only targets programs.
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I’ve been finding Eli seriously underwhelming lately. Lady is a really fine breaker that takes care of him without much issue.