Gagarin Appreciation Thread

She’s my greatest critic :wink:

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@crfluency
NEVER TRUST HINKES

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I’ve had more chance to test Gagarin Glacier (also known as GG…)

I’m at 2 influence left, looking to cut two Lotus Field for some other ICE… so anyone got a good 2-inf ICE I can bring in for Glacier? (Tollbooth is currently high on the list)

Tour Guide is doing a surprising amount of work. I have the Clone Chip+Parasite include on MWL to thank. (If anyone was wondering, turns out that yes, running through ICE multiple times is worse than just blowing it up.)

Singleton Atlas is working well because after they see two 5/3’s, they start to figure the entire deck is 5/3’s… So far I haven’t won off Atlas+2 Public Support+5/3, but it’s a dream.

I did pull out the 2x Team Sponsorship, but that’s only because I’m only scoring two agendas in the game, and the second one is for the win… It’s still ridiculously powerful pulling a Public Support back. (I wanted to try TS, and forgot that I was a glacier deck that only scores twice in a game… I figured that out and facepalmed, and took them back out after the first game with them in, despite recurring two Public Supports because I scored an Atlas and Government Contracts.)

Singleton Corporate Town is also very effective. I don’t believe Archer would be, however, as I don’t often have extra agendas to throw for it. Too many Runner economies are built on Resources these days, so you almost always have SOMETHING to hit with it, and the threat of DLR is still existent.

You can never have too many Tollbooths.

Really? How has sync not hated it out of the format?

Because it’s strong enough to play against even SYNC. Granted, it’s a poor matchup, but it doesn’t just auto-lose. Seriously, there’s a reason DLR Val won Worlds…

I’m wary of Tollbooth because it’s happened once or twice that I didn’t have the money to rez even the Lotus Field… Right now, it looks like that’s my best option (And the TS did come out for a pair of Launch Campaigns, so money should be easier…) so I’ll give them a try.

What is the list that you ran?

The Mundane Goddess v1.0 (The Portal, CT)

Gagarin Deep Space: Expanding the Horizon (Order and Chaos)

Agenda (10)
1x Chronos Project (First Contact)
1x Government Takeover (Order and Chaos)
3x Hostile Takeover (Core Set)
2x NAPD Contract (Double Time)
3x Project Atlas (What Lies Ahead)

Asset (25)
2x Blacklist (Breaker Bay) [color=#FF8C00]••[/color]
1x Corporate Town (Chrome City)
2x Daily Business Show (All That Remains) [color=#FF8C00]••[/color]
1x Elizabeth Mills (Second Thoughts)
3x Executive Boot Camp (All That Remains)
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) [color=#FF8C00]•••[/color]
3x PAD Campaign (Core Set)
3x Public Support (The Universe of Tomorrow)
1x Sealed Vault (The Spaces Between)
3x Team Sponsorship (The Universe of Tomorrow) [color=#8A2BE2]•••[/color]
3x Turtlebacks (The Source) [color=#DC143C]•••[/color]

Upgrade (3)
1x Crisium Grid (First Contact)
2x Cyberdex Virus Suite (Order and Chaos)

Operation (2)
2x Interns (Mala Tempora)

Barrier (4)
2x Spiderweb (The Underway)
2x Wraparound (Fear and Loathing) [color=#FF8C00]••[/color]

Code Gate (1)
1x Quandary (Double Time)

Sentry (3)
3x Tour Guide (The Universe of Tomorrow)

Other (1)
1x Mother Goddess i[/i]
15 influence spent (max 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Universe of Tomorrow

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

Didn’t he get like a ton of points right off the bat?

Has anyone tried a shell game deck with Mushin, Psychic Fields etc? If so how did you like it and was your ultimate win condition win via flatline or score out.

The problem with a deck like that is that Weyland has no traps worth naming, so once you import the Mushins there’s really not enough influence to get you going. PE Mushin decks rely on the threat on both things like Cerebral and Rhonin to build a hostile board state, so that the runner is afraid of checking remotes, but also needs to do so or risk dying to Rhonin. Against @Zeromus’s IG deck, I died to a rezzed Hiro combined with a Rhonin and a Neural. But Weyland doesn’t have anything that’s an actual threat. Contract Killer just isn’t enough damage to be threatening, and there’s nothing like Neurals to follow it up with.

If you do import Cerebrals, there’s no room for Snare!, which is also needed. Otherwise, running at every unadvanced remote becomes perfectly safe, and there’s no threat in R&D, so ignoring remotes is also a fine option, since you can’t kill the runner until you get three contract killers out (also assuming they don’t have a Plascrete by that point).

As you can guess, I’ve tried to build this deck, and there simply aren’t cards enough to actually have a win condition. It’d be cool if that were to change in the future, though.

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You have to play a different trap game. Holding a double punitive in hand with a boat load of cash and trying to score out a Gov. Takeover is pretty trappy IMO. Is it possible to regularly create that situation? Not sure.

Okay, so I made a concept deck on this idea, not because it’s good, but because I think it isn’t. Here’s that deck:

Probably Terrible

Gagarin Deep Space: Expanding the Horizon (Order and Chaos)

Agenda (6)

Asset (22)

Operation (12)

Barrier (1)

Code Gate (2)

Sentry (6)

I kinda just threw in 3 of everything, because I honestly have no idea where the right balance lies with these things.

The first problem was finding low-influence traps to Mushin that the runner would actually care about. I settled on Ghost Branch, because a Mushin/Ghost Branch → advance turn leaves it with 4 advancement tokens, which is more tags than the runner can shake in a 4 click turn, and we’re Weyland, so tag punishment is in faction. Our Ronin replacement is Contract Killers, which as I said is a poor as hell replacement, but whatever, it’s the tools we got. Ronin is 4 influence, so it’s waaay the hell off the table. I also threw in a couple Sahttered Remains, because we’re Weyland and basically all our threats revolve around meat damage, so Plascretes gotta die.

For unadvanced punishment, we’re left with three influence (after Jackson), and only Space Camp in faction. I chose to say fuck space camp because it’s really, really terrible (sorry @d1en) and put in a Snare!, because it tags and we have Dedicated Response Team in faction, and a Psychic Field, because it’s about as threatening a thing as we can fit in for a single influence. I could have gone 3x Psychic Field, but it doesn’t do dick in R&D itself, and I want at least something in there if we’re on the 6 agenda plan. Also, Snare! tag punishes running last click.

The sad thing is that this leaves us playing Scorch with nothing to tag them with on our turn. I suppose the Snare! could be an SEA, but in a deck like this I guess I like the Snare! better. Still gotta play them scorches, though, because Ghost Branch is the best trap we can do. Punitive is also in, since we’re on the 6 agenda plan, and that can get you free wins sometimes.

Since I don’t normally play this kinda deck, I’m not sure what the right ICE count is. I know Jinteki can get away with a hell of a lot less, because they can make their hand and R&D trappy as hell, making it so that they need less ICE. We’re Weyland, so we have dick for traps, making us need some sort of protection. After including all the various traps and punishment into the deck, I was left with 9 slots, so I have concluded that 9 ICE is the exact right number for us to have.

We’re Gagarin, so Tour Guide can be taxing if people want to break it rather than murder it with Parasite, so that’s in. Shadow threatens tags and potentially makes us money for traps and Punitives, so I threw in a couple. Hunter threatens tags as well, and is out of Mimic range, so sure, why not. Beyond that, Enigma is in for an annoying face check/code gate, and a single slot was left over for a barrier, so I threw in Changeling, because it can also be a Str 4 Sentry in a pinch. It’s probably too expensive for the deck, if I’m going to be honest.

The deck doesn’t have as much money as I normally like, especially since we’re on traces for Punitive, so all the agendas make money. We’re on the 6 agenda plan, so they all need to be 3-pointers (and GT). That leaves us with exactly 2 options (again, and GT), so I picked them.

I’d love to hear people’s opinions on this, because I’d like to see it done better, and I know there’s probably optimizations. In closing, please nobody run this abomination of a deck, and may god have mercy on my soul.

2 Likes

I dunno. I think there’s an idea lurking in here somewhere. Ghost Branches are a pretty neat start … I still think at least you need the threat of agenda’s being scored, so I would srsly consider Project Junebugs.

Mushin seems essential to the idea in general, is there any way to drop inf and recur 2 of em, rather than go with three. The Junebugs at 1 pip are pretty appealing. Lockdown could be a really great remote ice. They’re also only 1 pip.

Honestly though, I’m just preferring the idea of building a little server to store my install, advance, advance shenanigans, with back-channels, and tonnes of asset econ. Still pure Gagarin idea, but closer to home correct I would posit. So I pretty much agree, it’s not the ID for shell-games.

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I don’t think gagarin is right for traps. It doesn’t really synergies with that kind of strategy. I would rather test in another id, blue sun probably.

I don’t agree, Mumbad Virtual Tour will work great in Gagarin. It’s a trap, but a taxing one.

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When it comes out, we can try it …

I considered Junebug, but a runner can just click up to 6 cards and run it, knowing there’s almost no way Weyland can kill the runner the following turn. Maybe Contract Killers could do it, but only if they didn’t draw after the initial run. Dropping a Mushin basically kills the deck, since seeing them is 100% necessary to the deck working. Most of the advanceable traps Weyland can run aren’t a threat at all at 2 advancements, so IAA doesn’t really work.

But yeah, I’m not sure Gagarin is the ID for this either, I just threw it here because that’s what people were talking about. Honestly, no green ID is good for this, though.

That being said, it’s probably right to go -1 Snare! -2 Government Contracts and then add 2 Vanity Projects to threaten the 2 agenda win, since there’s almost no way on earth you’re getting 3 of them out, and there’s not really room (or a way to score) Public Support. But again, the idea is terrible. I don’t know why I spent so much time thinking about it =P

Honestly I think one of the best Trap Agendas is Posted Bounty. The threat of scoring it turns on all of the other traps and forces the runner to run advanced cards (similar to Ronin) and therefore I think any Weyland trap deck should play 3 Posted Bounty.

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kind-of a tangent (I generally agree with Saan that the shell game is just unbearably weak in green) but this reminds me of my desire to make a posted bounty 24/7 deck happen. the trick is figuring out what would allow it to cross that “why isn’t this deck better in NBN” threshold (similar to the “why isn’t this in jinteki” threshold that weyland trap decks resoundingly fail to cross…)