My main issue with going to 54 cards is that your ice density goes down (unless one of the five is a piece of Ice, which feels like a waste?). Anathomical (my partner in crime) is trying 54 cards with Tech Startups. I could see going to 54, especially in my Gov Takeover build.
Gagarin is in an interesting place against Whizzard.
He still has to pay a real dollar just to get in, which makes Gagarin uniquely strong against Whizzard. Still, we’re talking about Whizzard vs Asset-heavy decks, and Whizz brought a gun to that knife fight. Gagarin bringing a sword to the knife fight is impressive, but ultimately not enough. Even better, since Whizzard is worst against Upgrades, and Gagarin is best with Upgrades, Gagarin has hands-down the best Asset game against Whizzard.
Whether that actually matters is a different question.
I’ve been testing versus both Whizzard and Valencia with Scrubbers (d1en’s build from Worlds, http://www.acoo.net/deck/14963/worlds-championship-2015-9th-dien-tran-the-reg-ass-cinderella-story/). Neither were problematic. Usually you just overwhelm them with assets. Eventually they run out of steam and Corp Town seals the deal.
Yea, I found protecting a couple remote servers with any amount of ICE made Whizzard run out of steam, combined with the threat of keeping his icebreakers up to date against a Corp Town push, it was possible to slow him to a crawl quite often. Gagarin does indeed have the best damage-control remote game against Whizzard, however odd that sounds. This is where Expo Grid & Paywall Implementation shine, and all of your crap costs him at least a real credit to trash, often two.
@voltorocks For the MWL tax of NAPD, been thinking about either going Ichi 1.0 --> a) Nebula/Grim to keep the NAPDs, b) cutting Marcus, or c) going full 3x Oaktown/Atlas. Gong to be trying the no-NAPDs build first, but if Desperado Good-stuff Val and DLR Val see a decrease in play I think going the first two changes to be the better option to keep at least two NAPDs.
Also thinking about fully cutting the PADs for Launch. Dunno yet.
recently I’ve been trying out @Saan’s very similar list (it’s up on the main site) to pretty good effect. right now I think my favorite influence spread (using the MWL) is
3x jackson
2x GFI: what can I say that hasn’t been said? it’s so good.
2x NAPD: it’s still the best agenda in the deck, the synergy with gagarin and ash is amazing. MWL made me replace one with oaktown though, which isn’t the end of the world.
1x tollbooth: fills a big hole in weyland’s ice suite; in front of an ASH, makes a pretty nasty 2-card scoring server.
2x sportsteam: the thrumming heart of the deck, obviously
2x ash: just so, so crazy good in gagarin and with sportsorship and with NAPD and with tons of hard ETR.
as you can see, I felt I needed to abandon the batty/ichi destroyer engine to make room for MWL and GFI (which honestly seems must-have to me). However, with clone chips taxed so much more heavily, it seems like sharpshooter is amuch less attractive include, so I’ll be monitoring my archer performance to see if I need to find Marcus (but probably not ichi) a way back into the deck.
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So I’m guessing you’re dropping Popup for the NAPD influence. What did you replace them with. So far thinking Crisium and another Enigma.
[quote=“warpchy, post:366, topic:4134”]
So I’m guessing you’re dropping Popup for the NAPD influence.
[/quote]correct.
[quote=“warpchy, post:366, topic:4134”]
What did you replace them with. So far thinking Crisium and another Enigma.
[/quote]there are a couple of ok options. crisium seems like the top of the list so far, followed by a third spiderweb (the less parasite that’s out there the better it is…). I’ve also tried a third tour guide (feels solid, falls apart somewhat vs. whizzard or another aggressive asset trasher) and a third enigma (solid, but expected. I’d say it’s the worst of the lot - 4 code gates is plenty maybe? pop-ups never really counted anyways)
I could also see a Caduceus, potentially. It’s worse against Nexus builds, quick which make the subs basically blank, so it might not be the right call either. I like the spiderweb; I’m rarely unhappy seeing them.
I suspect that most Gaga builds might be in trouble if Apoc becomes popular … including the Stimhack Gaga build?
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While I love sealed vault, maybe 2 crisiums that can be recurred constantly with sponsorship and interns would work. Crisium can provide some protection against siphon as well as holding off the apoc and eater/keyhole.
The only asset solution I can think of is hostile infrastructure which has the advantage of being fetchable with EBC.
[quote=“mittens, post:370, topic:4134”]
maybe 2 crisiums that can be recurred constantly with sponsorship and interns would be some protection.
[/quote]just one I find is usually enough to throw a serious wrench in the gears. it also serves as the canary in the coal mine- if they relentlessly trash crisium then you have a good idea that they might be trying some shenanigans. in any case, I’ve had good luck with aggressive rushing against apoc builds. they often can’t seem to decide if they want to go off early (no biggie, nothing I have is irreplaceable) or late (oops, I won already. what were you gonna do this turn?)
I have 1x Sealed Vault, 1x Crisium. In addition to dodging Siphon and Apocalypse they have different secondary uses in different match-ups (SV buffs Tour Guide if they decide to try and trash your assets, Crisium stops Indexing/Medium) so I prefer the diversity.
is Errand Boy worth a look as a Popup replacement? If Parasite use decreases (…kind of doubt it will) then EB kind of fulfills the same role. It’s a card I’ve tried numerous times before but never made the final cut, has a nice Caduceus-like effect of generating econ from a facecheck but taxes Mimic more.
Eh, it’s an okay ICE, but a 4-cost ICE that the runner can choose to run through isn’t something that I like very much in this kinda deck. It would be okay protecting an asset, but spending 4 to protect an asset isn’t usually where I’d want to spend those 4 bucks, especially when the runner can choose to ignore it and let you gain the money. It’s more cost efficient for you in that scenario (since you got up to 3 bucks back), but it didn’t do anything in terms of taxing the runner or stopping the run either, and that’s really what you want from the ICE in this deck.
I think Parasite might be seen less as a splash outside of Anarch, but I’d be very surprised if Anarch stops running it. It’s still super good.
A better choice might actually be Negotiator. Same cost to rez, but has subs that actually matter. You’ll probably get 2 credits from it if they can’t break it, and they’ll almost always pay 2 to get through the trash. Once they have their Mimic (because let’s be honest, its always fuckin’ Mimic), it still costs 2 to get through, which is okay.
However, Caduceus is probably still a better call. It has the soft ETR, and a lot of people simply pay the traces to keep you from getting money. If they don’t pay the first, you can use a buck or two to boost the second as well. It’s 1 less to rez, so that’s better too. It’s just a really good piece of ICE.
Anyhow, that’s probably more detail than I needed to go into there =P
4 Likes
Good arguments for caduceus here; really the only reason not to play it would be nexus Kate, which is everywhere right now for me, hence my preference for spiderweb.
From what I see, both Nexus and Parasite recursion are very popular.
[quote=“Jander, post:376, topic:4134, full:true”]
From what I see, both Nexus and Parasite recursion are very popular.
[/quote] No doubt, but right now I think it’s reasonable to ride the wave of anti-parasite sentiment; any decks running a parasite recursion package just lost a minimum of four influence, and often as much as 6. I think a lot of people are scaling back both clone chips and parasites for this reason, which gives decks like this a great window to tax these resources by re-installing the same only-parasite-solves-this-problem ice over and over with team sponsorship, jackson/tutoring, and interns.
Nexus on the other hand is super hot right now as Kate players are grasping for the next One True Deck ™. Long term I expect both of these cards/strategies to remain popular, but right now I’m hedging against the tide as people react to the MWL. That said, I’m also speaking from a very local perspective (not finding many MWL games online yet) so YMMV…
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Quick update on Store Championship in The Portal, Manchester, CT: 26 players, I ended up fourth. Had one loss in Swiss (Gagarin, sadly, Runner played R&DI and top-decked Government Takeover on turn 3), ended up first in Swiss. My two losses in Elimination were versus @Zeromus’s IG deck and versus @Neuvost’s NEH kill, both of which flatlined my poor Kate (I had one Gagarin game in elimination which I won).
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Good to see Gagarin representing =) And yeah, @Zeromus’s IG is frickin’ murder, especially when played by the man himself.
2 Likes