Played Spark today at a 18-player tourament, went 3-2 with it (won against Apex, Reina & Hayley, lost against Kate & Leela), finished 3rd overall (had Noise as runner and went 4-1). MVP was definitely Ash, making it a lot easier to have a safe remote. Advertisement tax was definitely annoying for runners, I guess I could use more practice in playing the deck (decided to take it on the evening before the event so my first game with it was round 1).
Spark Agency: Worldswide Reach (Data and Destiny)
Agenda (10)
3x AstroScript Pilot Program (Core Set)
2x Breaking News (Core Set)
3x NAPD Contract (Double Time)
2x Global Food Initiative (Data and Destiny) ••
Asset (11)
2x Adonis Campaign (Core Set) ••••
3x PAD Campaign (Core Set)
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves)
3x Launch Campaign (Data and Destiny)
Upgrade (8)
1x SanSan City Grid (Core Set)
3x Ash 2X3ZB9CY (What Lies Ahead) ••••• •
1x Crisium Grid (First Contact) •
3x Product Placement (The Universe of Tomorrow)
Operation (3)
1x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
2x The All-Seeing I (Data and Destiny)
Barrier (4)
1x Wraparound (Fear and Loathing)
3x Resistor (Data and Destiny)
So Spark hasn’t been getting the attention it deserves lately. Let’s spark up another conversation with this interesting list: Spark Despotism - King Beale · NetrunnerDB
I feel like this lacks enough tools to be a proper glacier in the late game, especially against Shapers, but the concept is solid. Firing off Closed Accounts is definitely a massive tempo hit, and that’s always comboed with Red Herrings. Another Ash would be a godsend. I like that it’s got plenty of 1-pointers to turn on Archer, but 11 agendas feels a bit bloated. I’d personally love to stuff in at least one Archangel.
Honestly the deck rarely gets into tag storm territory despite all of the tag delivery . Its much closer to a weyland kind of tag pressure, where its about the pressure of a very powerful binary threat,
once players see a single closed accounts they will grind their play to a halt to avoid a tag me situation, because if they ever hit a “target lock” tag pile it equals to a free scoring window for the deck any time it wants.
Should the spark thread still be in the new cards and spoilers forum rather than decklists forum?
Anyway, I had an idea for a never advance deck. You use sansan city grid behind a bunch of ice so the runner is forced to repeatedly trash it, recurring it with Interns and the new card Museum of History. If the runner declines to trash it then every time you install another card in that server they have to worry if it’s an agenda or just another econ asset / random upgrade
Here is the Spark deck I’ve been working on. The idea behind is pretty simple. Tax, tax, tax the runner into the ground and score out agendas. I took it to my local FLGS game night and ran against a Null and Andy (not link Andy). Both got off to decent economic leads early because I did not have any advertisements in my opening hands, but the Spark tax and my taxing ice eventually wore them both down economically. I easily could have lost both games, but they were fun and tactical and NBN glacier was novel enough to be entertaining for all involved.
The deck still needs work. I’ve toyed around with adding some tag punishment, mostly to make the runner more wary of going tag me and negating the tax on most of the ice. I’ve thought about swapping Eli for IP Block but don’t yet have a good sense of where I’d put the extra influence if I had it. Turnpike is not a great taxing ice once the runner gets some link or just goes tag me, so it might be up for a change.
I love Spark as an ID, but never quite managed to make it work. For the ice, I would either add some kind of tag punishment, or reduce your number of tagging ice. I would also remove Flare in either case, as it’s alot worse than the 3rd tollbooth, costing you 9 to rez and being easy to go through with D4vid. I can see some surprise value, but I wouldn’t expect many good runners to faceplant it and lose their console, as most people are wary of running on low credits against NBN anyway.
Do you find the scoring plan robust enough? Presumably it’s mainly fast advance, but I could imagine the foods piling up in hand.
I understand on the Tollbooth v. Flare. It likely will get dropped for another beefy sentry. I have only had two games with it but the score plan is a combo of taxing to open windows and FA. Agendas can stack up. If they steal a GFI or two, though, the game is not over.
If you want that slot to be a sentry, I reckon both Assassin and the new Thoth would be better options. Neither are that great right now due to Andy and Kate often having alot of link (which is an issue for Flare too), but that depends on what your meta looks like.
My first impression would be to cut Restructure for either Closed accounts of Exchange of information. Closed accounts plays well with the taxing theme and might let you immediately jam an agenda in the remote and score it. Exchange would let you get those global foods into your score area a bit more often.
Latest version of the deck. Thoth in for Flare. Keegan Lane in as additional tag punishment behind ice that gives tags. Closed Accounts and Exchange are both good if tags stay around until your next turn. Keegan Lane punishes during runs if the tags land. Still more tweaking and work needed, but this is an update.
One lesson learned. Against Cutlery decks hold your Friends to bring back ice. A lot of this ice works in combo with other ice. Anarchs can blow up that synergy hard. I tried to get rid of the 3xEli but found the other barriers I might bring in either made the deck just too weak to link decks or were not at all taxing once breakers came out.
I am finding Friends in High Places a huge help in Spark. One problem I’ve had in the past (other than Employee Strike) is running out of advertisement denial as the game goes on. Being able to bring those back with Friends and get the quick double rez is a big help in that regard.
So here’s my list. As others have pointed out, Friends is very good in spark. I’ll agree with the above posters that Adonis is simply not worth it, and is a no-rez against Whizzard. I am running Service Outage, and it certainly fits the theme of making the runner poor, but is probably worse than other includes. I also have two influence to spare.
Surprise Tracker Spark
Agenda (9)
1x AstroScript Pilot Program
2x Global Food Initiative ●●
3x NAPD Contract ★★★
3x Project Beale
Asset (9)
3x Jackson Howard
3x Launch Campaign
3x PAD Campaign
Upgrade (4)
2x Product Placement
2x SanSan City Grid ★★
Operation (11)
3x Friends in High Places ●●●
3x Hedge Fund
2x Service Outage
3x Sweeps Week
