In his helpful article on Corporation Play, Dave Hoyland says one of the key things to do is to think about how the Runner plans to beat your deck. As an expansion on his discussion, I wanted to try to summarize what I understand some of the ways Runners plan to beat Corp decks and try to describe some ideas about how a Corp might want to counter those.
I in no way mean to suggest that any of these observations are correct. But I hope that they generate conversation and comments from better players to help us all improve our play.
Classic Criminal - Control HQ. Use Siphon and early aggression to choke Corp. Use Inside Job or other tools to remote lock so agendas stack up in HQ. Late Medium can be used after Corp has dumped massive resources into HQ and remotes.
Corp Response - Protect HQ early. Seal off run-based economy. Anticipate Siphon with places to dump credits and/or plans for quick bounce-back from Siphon.
Basic Shaper - R&D lock. Build up rig with lots of tools that can foil any Corp scoring plan. Remote camp and use R&D multi-access tools to lock R&D.
Corp Response - Try to get ahead by scoring fast before the rig can get fully set up. Don’t over-invest in R&D defense if you can’t protect it once the rig is fully set up.
Whizzard - Make it impossible to score with ice destruction until Medium can be set up. Destroy key assets to cripple Corp game plan.
Corp Response - Petition FFG to ban Sifr. Win before Medium lock takes hold. (I’m not sure.)
I know these thoughts are too simplistic and probably wrong in important ways. I’m curious about how people would help extend this conversation.