I have also been trying to think of a Gagarin deck since getting one of these IDs, and this was the piece that made it feel weird to me too. Has there been any thought on changing mindset and just just letting the runner in as long as they pay for it, basically playing like it wasn’t a Weyland ID?
In particular, I was thinking back to the old Making News tax deck that ended very few runs but could get by anyway on keeping runner credits low and using fast advance. Is there card support for something like that out of Gagarin, bringing in SanSan, cheap taxing ICE, and maybe something like Reversed Accounts? My guess is no from only one 3/2 available and the only 2/1 blanking the ID ability, but that is where I was going to try to start. That feels more like the type of deck this ID is made for, assuming card support was there for it. It is also entirely possible that runners are just making too much money for that to be a valid deck idea anymore.
I was going to try to put together a list like this sometime this week, I might post it here if I can convince myself it was reasonable enough on paper to be worth trying.
Throw in Paywall Implementation and every time the runner checks one of your assets, it is a 2 credit swing. Add Snares, DRTs or maybe just money assets and Ash. The main issue with going Never Advance is you don’t really have anything that hurts the runner that much if they let it live. Old NBN never advance could punish the runner that never checked remotes with a SanSan or a naked astroscript, I’m not sure what the replacement Weyland could use.
I’ve found from my time with NEH Turtlebacks that a Psychic Field or three would handle this nicely. Heck, I kind of want to just repurpose that deck into Gagarin, but I’m not sure Weyland has enough usable expensive-to-trash assets to make it work.
Maybe instead of Never Advance, which is a horrible fit for Weyland, it’s time for the return of the long-forgotten Always Advance. Run a mixture of 5/3s, Refineries, Cerebrals and Reversed accounts, Could it actually be a deck where Simone Diego doesn’t entirely suck?
The problem with this is that unless you’re scorching or ash tracing ‘net swing’ doesn’t matter a whole lot. Its one of those things people imagine as being great, but without anyway to leverage it, or a starting point, it doesn’t matter.
I wonder whether The Root works better for the same function now, especially factoring in Breaker Bay. The Root is a lot more flexible and has an additional recurring credit. Not sure how much of a difference the asset vs upgrade distinction matters for this role considering the difference in flexibility.
Done fairly well with this Quinn variant, but haven’t had many reps against experienced opponents. Goal is to rush, get data raven on a remote, and leave a central lightly defended for paywall profit.
Unlike HB and NEH, Gagarin doesn’t net you a click. Instead, Gagarin potentially denies your opponent multiple clicks in a turn. How to leverage this? You probably can’t, but who cares acrylic ID.
Took me a while to get to a stable internet connection (travelling sux), so apologies for being a bit late to the party. Anyway, my thoughts on Oaktown Grid follow:
Obviously only good for a remote, and since it’s missing the Red Herrings clause, we need some way to get more mileage out of it than “+3 trash cost once”, especially if we’re also paying influence for the card. I can only really think of two cards that force the runner to access cards out of sequence or in a gimped fashion: Ash and Hudson 1.0. Of these two, Ash is by far the more sensible option. Despite all this costing a shit-ton of influence in Gagarin, the ID has good synergy with the multi-upgrade style of play… And to me personally, it seems that an obvious component of the Ash+Grid plan is Oaktown renovation - advance the agenda to make the money!
Now, all we need is a way to get Ash back mid-run. Architect triggers seem like the way to go (potentially copied by Wormhole), but, again… Influence.
The thing I’m most afraid of is that this will just be better out if ETF. You lose the good agenda(s) for this style of play, but you gain… Pretty much everything else
I have been trying lots of different builds with Gagarin, but keep struggling. It goes back to the very basics of the ID; what does it actually do and how do you leverage its ability? Obviously there has to be remote play, otherwise, why bother. What is the function of these remotes though? To tax the runner or to scare them off running remotes?
If the latter, usually some ambush assets will do, but at that point I start to wonder: the runner is now not running my remotes, my ID doesnt do anything anymore, if I had played these assets in another ID wouldn’t that have been more beneficial to me?
So taxing the runner then I guess…and here is where I have struggled the most. Where is the balance between having the runner run your remotes, and it being too taxing and the runner deciding “this is simply going to cost me too much, I will focus all my efforts on multi accessing centrals”. Weyland doesn’t have The Future Perfect, so letting the runner access centrals instead of remotes isn’t nearly as good as it is in RP (and that’s without even starting to compare ice).
I’m just rambling now…bottom line is, I don’t know how to make this work right now.
(I know, she’s still terrible)