So way back in the early days of the Genesis cycle, TWIY* was the premier fast advance ID. The small deck size meant you saw your Astros quickly and the increased hand size meant they were safer from random access. But like all good things, it’s popularity came to an end.
NEH offers passive card draw that more than balances the five extra cards it’s forced to run, it has five bonus influence so you can pack Biotics plus ICE that’s actually good, and the addition of Fast Track to the card pool means that your agendas can stay safe in R&D until you’re ready to score them rather than rely on a slightly larger hand to protect you.
Taking these into account, it definitely seems like NEH solidly killed it and took its stuff. But lately I’ve been missing that shiny bastard of an ID. Is there any deck archetype that TWIY* can not only do well in, but do better than its alternatives?
The only thing I can think of, as well as several others, is the grail ice suite in TWIY, as you have a bigger handsize. Astrobiotics was a great deck, but NEH can do it much more consistent, and the 5(!) extra influence helps out as well.
TWIY* came out in Future Proof, so this doesn’t actually make sense. EDIT: I see what you mean now.
That +1 hand size lets you grail better than a lot of IDs, which means the runner has to be ready for anything when they try to stop your astrotrain.
The 40-card deck size lets you tinker with your agenda points: You need 18 or 19 instead of 20-21. This actually looks like a bit of a liability, because you have to do odd things to cram in breaking news (which is great to close out games).
If you’re running the 2-point fast-advance suite then it’s going to have to be something like 3 astro 3 beale 2 napd 2 breaking news.
The other thing that looks interesting is that it can run a 6x 3-pointer deck, which means a full load of 2 types of agendas. But that’s silly because you cut astro and beale, lose your fast advance and NBN’s 5/3s just aren’t that exciting. Also you probably still want breaking news to close out the game.
You could use closed accounts and psychographics for your tag punishment and threaten punitives, but HB does it better. Also, the on-encounter triggers for NBN ice (particularly raven and tollbooth) want the runner to make lots of runs to get taxed. I don’t see a 5/3 plan fitting into that.
I’ve played Becky’s TWIY deck in that video. It’s about as fast as fast advance can get, running no ice costing more than Wraparound, and all the influence spent on Biotic Labour. I think it’s lost one game in the last four tournaments. I think unless your get Medium or RDI down turn two you lose. Then you need the appropriate breakers to keep R&D lock.
You’d think it would be vulnerable to Siphon but it can chain an Astro from zero with Shipment from SanSan.
My instinct says TWIY might be better for a Midseasons/Beale build than NEH is - the smaller decksize lets you pack fewer of the pieces you only need to use one of, and th +1 handsize is useful for holding all those pieces you can’t use until they’re tagged. Also, Celeb Gift is obviously better here. Haven’t cooked up a list yet, though.
You even get to run 3 Elis still, if you’re so inclined.
Elephant in the room: NEH at 17 influence was a dire mistake. Even if it was printed at 15 influence, NEH would still overshadow TWIY for super fast advance. The draw ability is superb. I’m not certain what a balanced ability for NBN at 17 influence would look like, but it sure wouldn’t be getting a mini ETF ability.
It’s a shame, as TWIY fastrobiotics was as it should be: super fast, super fragile, and super high variance. It was a cool little 40 card deck. RIP…
Operations burst economy is faster than asset drip.
If you want to play lightning blitz ops-only astrotrain with only one remote for SanSan it is sensible to do so in TWIY*.
You will have consistency of 40 cards instead of extra draws.
Less influence is an issue. I’d suggest going 2xBiotic 3xGLC 1xwhatever and running popups+cheap gear check ICE.
Edit:
I’d estimate this deck to be a decent answer to Runner builds that aim to outrace standard NEH Astrobiotics by relying on remote-hate cards (Bank Job, Astrolabe, Security Testing, etc.)
Here’s a list if you are interested.
Imo, just go 3 BL and anon tips, GLC is nice, but anon is much faster
Andy relies on that sec test(sometimes bank job), and you don’t have the ice to really stop them from sec testing archives, so I don’t feel these deck are ‘better’ vs. remote hate runners
I’m trying the grail with midway station grid, but it’s still a WIP before I give it some kind of label to its strength.
Between Jackson, anon tip, and executive shuffle in faction I have been wondering if there is a clock ticking on some insanely fast deck that accomplishes…something. I presume FA but who knows.
I have also wondered about midseasons in TWIY with no astroscript. just beale, market research, and NAPD. haven’t tried yet.
I don’t want to deny the pilot’s skill, but I honestly think this game would have gone a lot faster if she had used NEH instead of TWiY. She does draw a lot for clicks (which would have been a lesser effect with NEH), and the built-in HQ defense of TWiY is not used all game long.
I’m not sure if Becky posts here, but she’s tried NEH and finds it less effective. She’s a good player and wins a lot. I think her TWIY* deck is a pretty good example of Fastrobiotics. I think the advantages associated with using operation econ are underrated. That said, NEH is bonkers. It absolutely didn’t need the additional influence.
I’ll ask if she wants to post her current list if I see her on Monday.
A midseasons in TWIY with all two-pointers gives them a good jump start on you, created by you to land a midseasons. Beale and market research reduce your required scoring opportunities while NAPD is a fantastic agenda to midseasons off of. Yes astro is a good agenda, but the concept would be winning by scoring twice and it wouldnt fit that.
