I started playing some rush decks with 45 cards and it felt pretty decent. Im not saying better but definately viable.
I ll keep it going at the very least its refreshing 
Why is 54 versus 49 the real debate?
Probably not the best of ideas to light up this thread again, but here we go: If we’re going to think about the necessary conditions for a hypothetical 45 card deck, how does it play?
- It wants to score out agendas early and in rapid succession
- It can reliably defend R&D or doesn’t worry about losing agendas to R&D accesses
- It already includes tempo cards that you could otherwise add to pad out a 45 card deck to get to 49. (I’m thinking of Fast Track, Subliminal Messaging, and similar in-faction cards.)
Off the top of my head, you could experiment with a NEXT Design deck built along those lines. Rush early, fast advance late.
I think a 45 card corp deck would have to be one with Punitive Counterstrike and like Vanity Project and suchlike.
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Before clot came out, I had a 40 card TWIY deck that was fun to play and I used in a tournament. It was very fast but obviously vulnerable to R&D digs.
Maybe an haarp deck could have 45, since it has builtin protection?
…then you realise you could play this in 40…
If you realize the runner don’t phase 3, then better catch him in mid phase 2.
There’s tricks to learn there.
18 in 40-44 is not the same as 20 in 45-49. Agendas will fall in your basket or the runner’s but if frequency of scoring is high, if your deck is adapted, you’ve got an advantage vs the (maybe slow, maybe poor, maybe gearchecked) runner.
I ve been playing all my rush decks with 45 since my last post here. Never looked back
The higher consistency (especially in Jacksons) helped offset the higher density.
Im not saying its the same as playing 49 its just not at all as bad as I thought.