I’ve built it with interns and Adonis and it was good but too slow. Root is strictly better. Root is amazing…especially with refinery.
I hear you. The thing is, Public Support “rush” into Glacier is a lot less threatening than that good ol’ FA strategy. There are obvious differences between the two; my argument is that NEH Turtles is a much stronger and more threatening deck than Gagarin Turtles. Personally I don’t think Gagarin can even leverage Team Sponsorship that well. NBN just has much better targets for recursion than Gagarin.
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What other econ are you running with it? It’s strong for sure, but I’ve been having trouble finding a suitable economy package to let me rez it early when it’ll have the biggest impact.
I don’t think there is a defined strategy for Gagarin yet so I think Turtles is worth exploring. It does dictate quite a lot about your build though. And this is definitely the thread to be posting your outcomes.
Strategically, Gagarin is a taxing identity that through asset installations compresses the runners turn in a way he can’t keep up with having to trash multiple strong assets during his turn. (well this is my take on a solid Gagarin strategy)
The only tactical decisions I’ve made about Gagarin is that it must include a minimum of 10 trash-on-sight assets/upgrades and the root certainly fits that mold. The other I’m leaning towards is multiple single iced remotes, to create highly taxing turns. It becomes very very hard for the runner to make money, break through multiple spiderwebs or tour guide’s and then trash the stuff that’s in the servers.
Imagine a situation where you have 2 iced remotes, with a spiderweb and tour guide, and 2 rezzed pad campaigns. You then install a public support and expo grid into one, and a it department in the next. That becomes a quite on ordeal for any runner to cope with relying on 4 clicks and the income needed to deal with that setup. If he get’s in and deals with both, that’s at least 2 clicks and about 14 credits (even to smc/para the tour guide) … And then you interns your IT department back on the next turn. (tee hee)
If he leaves them, well gg.
Contract Killer, Reversed Accounts, IT Department, The Root, Corporate Town, Public Support are the sorts of assets that I like because they are must trash, and high trash cost.
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I haven’t found exactly what economy engine I’m looking for either. I’m running a pair of Expo Grids because they’re awesome (there are always assets to be installed on them), but Pad Campaigns seem far too slow for the tempo game Gagarin encourages you to play. I figure unless the runner is contesting the remote I drop the asset in, the asset probably isn’t good enough. Runners tend to leave Pad Campaign alone, which probably means it isn’t good enough. I’ve tried Capital Investors, and that didn’t work. The Root, Public Support and Corporate Town have been the biggest successes so far.
I’m going to try 3 Root, 2 Adonis, 2 Expo Grid as my asset economy package. If you can rez an Adonis with Root money and use the money productively on your turn too, I think you’re cooking. You just have to be prepared to make use of the Runner going broke to trash your Root eventually - scoring an Oaktown is a pretty good move, since Atlas can be bluffed and NAPD + Ash + Gagarin can often finish things. Public Support can close the game too.
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I like The Root as well, but if you want to jumpstart your econ isn’t playing a couple of Restructures better? Supported by steady drip of Pad + Expo Grid.
If that’s the case, BABW is better.
A restructure is +5 credits. The Root, played correctly, should pay for itself in 1 turn and then be at least -5 credits for the runner. Ideally it’s +3 to you and -5 to the runner because they can’t trash it for a turn. That’s far better than Restructure in a deck that has no way of dealing with a rich runner (Caprice, FA). Restructure also requires 10 credits…
Now, all that is ideal. The typical scenario isn’t so ideal. So maybe The Root isn’t quite there yet and we should all play BABW.
what is the point of this post? that NBN is the best? yes, it is. everyone knows that. Frankly, it probably always will be. Now let’s move on.
This is exactly it. If you’re playing gagarin, your goal has to be forcing the runner to choose between constantly being broke and letting you get stupidly rich (though with corporate town, sometimes they don’t get to choose 
). the root is ideal for this- even un-iced it generates a 6 (w/o turltlebacks or any other synergies) credit swing without breaking a sweat, and with even one ice (especially early) to delay the trash, the differential gets rapidly wider.
this is super important. blue sun or BABW often sit on huge piles of credits and tall stacks of un-rezzed ICE. Gagarin, not so much, As often as not, I find myself feeling “rich” at 7 credits because most of my shit is already paid for and the runner is flat broke. 10 credits is often a big ask (not to mention that it gets nothing from the ID)
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Has anyone tried Eliza’s Toybox in Gagarin lately? Between Weyland’s high-priced ice, Archer, Corporate Town and asset tutoring/recursion support through Tech Startup and Team Sponsorship, it might go a long way.
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The problem with elizas is that you have to include enough high cost ice so you can get value out of the box, but by doing so you cripple your early game with all the expensive ice.
I like the concept but it’s a bit too combo-y wombo-y for my taste. If you don’t see your pieces in the right order you’re in a tough spot.
I’ve actually been using a variant on the list I posted earlier that switches them out for more econ and a copy of Early Premiere. That card is AMAZING for Gagarin. It makes NAPD an easy score, advances ICE if there’s no agendas on board, and it’s an absolute must-trash that you’ll just take back with Interns, Sportsball, Jackson, etc. 3 influence is really tough to swallow though.
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Neh turtles is strictly worse than standard FA, but it is still good because NBN.
Edit: just to be clear, I think modern Astrobiotics plays TS. I don’t think that Turtles makes it better, but it can confuse players who don’t know how to deal with asset spam. At high level, I think Turtles Astro is worse, at low levels, somewhat better.
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I wonder what to swap out the Root for, maybe it’s worth a consideration in the deck we are playing. Maybe -1 PAD, -1 Paywall? -1 Capital Investors, -1 Paywall/PAD? I’ve put 1x Cyberdex in mine and went down to 15 ICE, the Dex has been amazing, as always. I’ve used to stuff Mimic + Datasuckers, block Sucker farming in Archives, and hose a couple key Imps.
I’m still not sure whether the Root is good, I originally had it before the Capital Investors and I almost never rezzed it, because like you said, 4-7 credits is the norm for the early-mid game and I only played 1 copy. I have used the Investors in a handful of games to dig myself out of holes, especially econ denial decks. But it’s worth a shot to try again now that I’ve played the deck a ton. Launch Campaign sounds interesting too! Maybe the deck could speed up if PADs became Launches and the Root came in.
BTW, brought to our recent ANR PC. Gagarin & Kate took it to 2nd, beating a standard Val and Andy, while losing to two other standard Andys. One of them was expertly played by Sam and he crushed me, and the other was a nailbiter that came down a yolo run that ultimately was a loss only because I didn’t have Global Food.
Kate was undefeated, but mostly because she absolutely wrecks Turtleback NEH with a little bit of remote honesty checking and standard play.
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Yeah, I don’t honestly know if the root is right for your list - mostly have experimented pulling cap investors for it, but I’m not sure about it. the root has some great use cases, but also some weak ones. cap investors does less for you over time but when you need them they do their job, from within the scoring remote if need be.
One other thing I’ll be trying is to pull a paywall implementation, which while good, tends to end up as a dead draw a lot I feel.
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Yea it’s definitely good but as I play more and more with people who know the deck they run less and less. 3x definitely isn’t always welcome. Could go down to 2x for sure. After all, that’s what TFIN and Atlas are for - making them check remotes even after they know the list.
My notes did see it pulling more than Beanstalk almost all games, except where maybe you draw them all early. Will help with Employee Strike too and sometimes you find a Hacktivist Meeting to break.
I’ve used Oaktown more than Capital Investors when I want to click for 2 credits.
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Sadly, Early Premiere can’t be used to advance ice. It’s limited to cards in servers, not protecting them.
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You’re totally right and I have no idea how I never caught that. Glad you mentioned it before I played anything other than casuals with it.
Still like the card though, it’s obnoxious.
Makes those naked atlas plays a bit nicer.
I won a small (18 player) GNK tournament with this list. It’s weak to Criminals with Desperado/Security Testing, and Bank Job. Unfortunately, 3/5 games I played were against just that, but I got lucky. My runner (standard Noise fare) went 5-0.
I played Andromeda (won, but should have lost on R&D accesses - lucky win), Professor (strong win), Leela (loss, but no shame in losing to @Cerberus ), Noise (loss, but I was 6-2 when 4 points fell into archives and my opponent hit R&D for another 2), and Leela (win, barely).
Gagarin Deep Space: Expanding the Horizon (Order and Chaos)
Agenda (11)
3x Project Atlas (What Lies Ahead)
2x Gila Hands Arcology (Creation and Control)
3x NAPD Contract (Double Time)
3x Oaktown Renovation (Chrome City)
Asset (12)
3x PAD Campaign (Core Set)
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) •••
3x The Root (Upstalk)
1x Corporate Town (Chrome City)
2x Public Support (The Universe of Tomorrow)
Upgrade (7)
3x Ash 2X3ZB9CY (What Lies Ahead) ••••• •
1x Crisium Grid (First Contact)
3x Expo Grid (The Universe of Tomorrow)
Operation (3)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
Barrier (8)
3x Ice Wall (Core Set)
2x Meru Mati (Breaker Bay)
3x Spiderweb (The Underway)
Code Gate (3)
1x Tollbooth (Core Set) ••
1x RSVP (True Colors) ••
1x Quandary (Double Time)
Sentry (5)
1x Ichi 1.0 (Core Set) ••
1x Archer (Core Set)
3x Caduceus (What Lies Ahead)
15 influence spent (maximum 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Universe of Tomorrow
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