7-point CI shutdown puzzle thread

Yes. With the right cards, you can just overadvance each agenda. Alternatively, with enough credits, you can make enough clicks to just trash it three times for $6.

Here’s one example of the former method, but there are many ways to make it work depending on what cards you do/don’t have in hand. I assume all three Diagnostics in hand here, but it’s easy to get them during the combo if you don’t have them at the start – I only Biotic once in this entire combo. If you’re overadvancing rather than making clicks to trash, it does get a little clunky since you have to play SfSS at least 8 times (preferably 9), but it’s not that bad.

In hand: PS, 3x AD, 2x SfMM, Jackson x3, EC, GFI, 1x SfK
Shutdown, SfMM Jackson EC (, $2)
AD -> Biotic, SfSS x2 (**, $7)
Advance EC to 5 (
, $8)
Score EC, no bounce targets, make clicks (, $8)
Install Jackson from hand (
, $8)
AD -> Interns (EC), SfSS x2 (**, $9)
Play Kaguya just to advance EC (
, $9)
Score EC, make clicks (*, $9)
SfMM Jackson GFI (
, $10)
AD -> SfSS x2, Archived (SfSS) (**, $11)
Play SfSS on GFI and score (no clicks left, $11)

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Worth noting that if you res jackson before you score, you can keep extra jacksons on the table. Saving you the click you’ve used to install jackson from hand by putting it into the first SFMM.

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How would you play around Leela and PolOp? Pre-rezzing Jacksons opens them up to trashing.

You only need to prerez for the score. You can also sac JH before passing priority.

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Councilman, on the other hand…

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Yes, it’s more annoying than Clot, but not impossible to play around. At least you can’t use saccon or fall guy to keep recurring him and it’s not necessarily great in other matchups, so it might see only little play.

Is there any better counterplay beyond trashing the Jackson they derezzed and installing a new one? It seems like you need significant card redundancy (extra Jacksons, Archived/Interns, etc) and the ability to make an extra 1-2 clicks per installed Councilman (it isn’t unique). Either that or you score one with Biotic ahead of time and just let them shut down one of your Jacksons at combo time since you only need 2 piles.

Not that I expect Councilman to be everywhere, I’m just theorycrafting.

Going through a single Councilman isn’t too bad provided you don’t need to beat Clot at the same time. The example line below works the same regardless of when they pop Councilman.

Hand of: PS, AD, Mirror, Jackson, Jackson, Biotic, EffCom, agenda, $14

PS (, $1)
Mirror Jackson, Jackson, EffCom (*, $2)
AD Interns Jackson, Biotic, RO AD (
, $8)

Rez 2nd Jackson and shuffle back Interns, SFSS, SFSS
Rez 3rd Jackson now, Councilman is now popped

Biotic (, $12)
Install agenda over “dead” Jackson (
, $12)
AD Interns Jackson, SFSS, SFSS, take clicks (
, $13)
AD Interns agenda, SFSS, RO SFK (
, $14)
SFK x3

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That’s better than I was thinking. Nice.

Yeah it’s pretty much just one extra install, which is already done with CVS a lot (not quite as simple though, but not much worse). That won’t work if there’s also Plop or Leela, but I think it’s still ok if it’s unlikely you’ll encounter that stuff. There’s plenty of stuff 7-CI just autoloses to. Ed Kim and Archives Interface come to mind as a recent example.

AI yes, but Kim? You’d just ICE HQ more and they need to hit exactly both PS or all three AD and AM and RO out of a big HQ? Sure Kim is a worse MU than Whizzard but I’d think far from auto loss.

Or did you mean Ed Kim with AI, in that case yeah, pretty hard, someone REALLY hates CI then :stuck_out_tongue:

Ed Kim has to have a reasonable shot vs CI. He slows down early progress and has a free imp for combo pieces. If you particularly want to hate on CI Ed is probably the best ID. Of course there are non ID cards that are pretty potent hate - Archives Interface is one of them. Vamp is pretty good too.

Sure Kim slows it down MAYBE. In my experience Vamp has not done much, I’ve comboed out the turn after the runner vamped me down to 0 so. Maybe helped that I saw the Vamp coming a mile, but still.

Vamp is good if you can land it before they find Reuse. Otherwise not so much.

Vanp isn’t auto win (especially if CI had reuse) but if the corp has to reuse, then HQ is rich pickings (especially if you’re Ed Kim). It helps.

Yes, i think it was both. :smiley:

But even just Ed is pretty tough, because all he needs to do is run HQ every turn and he’ll take down important cards and get agendas. There’s no ice to keep him away anyway. He needs to be aggressive from very early on or the combo can be assembled anyway, though.

I was able to manage this with $9

AM PS **
PS $1, *
AD -> mirror JEV, RO AD, biotic $8, **
AD -> SFSS SFSS sublim $8, **
get clicks *****
install GFI, interns JH, kaguya $8 *
AD -> kaguya, kaguya, sfss $9

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Went 2-1 with CI in the swiss at the Detroit regionals before losing with it twice to get rudely ejected from the top 8. Two of the three losses (to josh01 and WhackedMaki) came from Employee Strike. (The third loss also featured Employee Strike, but only after he landed the god opener as Leela of turn 1 Maker’s Eye an agenda, bounce HQ ice, double Siphon for all your money - and I still was one turn from winning.) Each time, I only had one Biotic Labor in hand, and that wasn’t enough - one opponent played Clot and Strike at the same time, one opponent played another Strike the next turn, and in the third game the only agenda in my hand was Committee.

I’ve been trying out Targeted Marketing in place of Reuse to try to combat Strike. It punches a big hole in your protection against Vamp, and makes doubles harder to move around, but at least it doesn’t require assembling multiple expensive pieces just to clear each Strike. I also run a slightly different blend of ice (Turing, Mom, and Paper Wall) which I think helps a bit more against Vamp.

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Also, on a lighter note, a problem from a recent game. Easy, but I’m curious if it’s improvable (especially if you had Reuse).

This is the 2 Biotic list without Reuse. Your opponent is on Leela.

PS ** 1
Biotic *** 5
SFMM JEV ** 6
AD Biotic Biotic SFSS ***** 15
SFSS ***
Score, take clicks, bounce Vitruvius ******
Interns JH ****
Play Vitruvius ***
AD SFSS SFSS Interns Jackson ** 16
Rez Jackson, score Vit w/counter, use counter to get GFI
Play GFI *
AD SFSS SFSS Subliminal * 16
SFK

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Puzzle #22 (edit: believed to be impossible)
Beat Nasir. They played Employee Strike when you didn’t have Biotic, forcing you to throw some agendas away. The facedown cards in Archives baited a run, though, and you kept your opener on purpose: it had PS + AD. Unfortunately, Nasir has SMC + Clone Chip and enough credits to make and recur Clot. Your deck has 1x CVS and 1x Cyberdex Trial, 2x Biotic Labor, and you have piles of credits.

Hand: PS, AD, Jackson, EC, GFI
$30, ***

In the actual game, I misplayed after Strike: I used a Jackson to clear, thinking I’d be able to Biotic a 3/2 later. A couple of turns after that, he dropped SMC. He was able to win on accesses before I could find another Jackson.