The deck rarely wins cleanly, but the runner scoring 5 points in round 1 is only problematic because you might need those specific agendas the runner has stolen (it could be Hostiles, it could be your one three-pointer).
Power Shutdown has to stay, it’s critical vs. ICE destruction decks, and can considerably slow down people that drop a Corroder and start doing bad things you. Also, don’t underestimate the importance of robbing a Shaper of his search and recursion, or a Criminal of his Faeries.
It’s a simplification, but I don’t think it’s over-simplifying it. twiy rush and supermodernism both have very similar plans (twiy can also run scorched kill as a backup, but they actually have options), and are weak to the same things (ai breakers and people finding their rigs quickly). The difference is twiy isn’t just dead if the runner gets to full rig before you’re on 5 points, weyland usually is. Yes, they have to install a plascrete, two if they’re tagme, but that is not that big of a tax, and when all your ice is 1 sub low strength, the tax often doesn’t matter much
While Supermodernism is a very strong archetype GRNDL can be played completely different, too. I tried the following version of GRNDL on the premise that the extra credits can serve the same function as Andromedas extra cards - making the deck more consistent.
The basic design of the deck is far from new but so far I have only seen it with the core identity and I was never really satisfied with it. The results are promising but the sample size (20 games even with 95% win rate) is far to small.
Hive works really well in the deck, since it will only become entirely useless when you have basicly won already. GRNDL refinery is anther great card. It forces expensive runs and in case you do get the money you are in a very good position to protect the next agenda.
Identity: GRNDL: Power Unleashed
3x Government Contracts
3x Hostile Takeover
3x Priority Requisition
But the question becomes: Is GRNDL worth it here? Your game plan seems to be rather hurt by both the fact that all the runs all game long will be taxed for 1 less, and by the loss of 5 influence.
For instance, you could have one of the Hives be a third Tollbooth, and change the third Troubleshooter into an Ash. That seems like a stronger version of the concept to me already.
I know what you mean and I did try a similar deck based on similar thoughts. However, the 5 extra credits in the beginning are a huge boon because you are much less dependent on economy in your starting hand and you can rez pretty much everything forcing the runner to take some time to build their rig. Which you can reset with Power Shutdown and Archers(+Troubleshooter) giving you more scoring opportunities of which you don’t really need a lot.
I’ve been fooling with a similar build. I think I may like yours more. I had Punitive in for a while, but decided to eschew damage for the threat of damage, and straight up lock out.
Had a great game the other night. Faced a Kate Big Rig uber-recursion deck. 2nd turn, I place a GovContracts behind a Hive. He face plants, and Test Runs a Morning Star.
Game on.
I proceed to have him smash into an Inazuma’d Archer (killed Star/Femme), and use an Inti (!) to get through a Hadrian’s, so he could crack the Oversight’d Curtain Wall behind it, only to have a Troubleshooter save it. Used Shutdown to kill Inti on my turn.
DESPITE that, he still kept the pressure on, but only scored a HT the rest of the way.
I do like the secretary in the deck and I think I will swap Jackson + Troubleshooter for Secretary + Fast Track just to see how it goes. Regarding your ICE selection, did you run into trouble with the Grims and Inazuma having no end the run subroutine?
AggSec is a top-tier trap; it’s my first choice in a deck where my gameplan is IAA (JRP/Vegan Weyland). “Let me just solve that MU problem you had there, runner” ;).
My experience of Bad Pub is that its effect is exponential, the first you can usually just live with, the 2nd not so much, anything more than 3 and you’re in big trouble if the runner can make any runs. More so if they’re running any particular ugliness like Personal Workshop. I think Witness Tampering is probably worth the slot, especially if you’re going to score your hostile takeovers before match point (which you kind of have to, to turn on Archer), get your fracking money and rez Grim.
I will say this: my testing of Witness Tampering has shown it be better than I initially expected, so much so that I added a second copy into the deck in question. It actually made Swarm almost playable… almost.
Witness tampering is one of those cards that is really awesome from an economic standpoint, but with Weyland, so many of your cards are already situational/triggered that I’m a little scared of other situational cards (just having a hand full of cards you can’t actually play). Luckily, GRNDL gets to 2 twice as quickly, and against datasucker/desperado, it might be worth cleaning your oil spills (get it? like BP because British Petroleum and also Bad Publicity and also because BP has BP? because they’re always spilling oil? In the oceans? On cute little penguins? …wordplay) with only one bad publicity to stop them getting TOO much every run.
I have been having the same debate with myself regarding tampering with some witnesses. Leaning toward yes, especially if one can score the first hostile early enough.
The way I see it, there are three real choices for the neutral 3/1 slots:
Profiteering is the worst of them, as it duplicates other Agendas and floods you with even more BP
Veterans Program is decent, excellent if there are people that’ll punish BP around (Blackmail, etc), but it’s primarily meant as a binary deck, not a taxing deck, so floating two extra BP isn’t the worst thing against most people
False Leads is the kill card. Prevent the runner from drawing up after a Snare, or removing tags they accrue on their turn, or even just stop them from making it into a scoring server they’re dropped the necessary breaker for/following up on an Indexing. Puts the runner in a bad spot more than the others, but is only useable the once, and sacrificing it to Archer is less appealing.
@PeekaySK Or a Weyland Agenda that can pull anything from your deck without spending the click…
