I have a particular dislike for the card, so that may affect my opinion. However, I did test it multiple times in Apex, one and two copies. I never liked it. It is expensive, you gotta be careful not to lose it, it makes Hunting Grounds more risky, and most importantly I almost never reach the bottom of my deck. If you are playing Chopbot though (or another deck burn style), I could see it possibly being necessary.
Yeah, the lack or SOT hurts. Deja Vu would help, I guess.
Just asking, because in a primary Faust build, I would think that eating up cards, and quickly, at times, would make it a necessity.
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If you play aggressively, sure. But that requires so much draw that I just haven’t been able to support. I kinda sit around and set up for the Apocalypse. Which is fairly boring, really. 
I don’t think the version of Apex I came up with is particularly good or fun, so I really hope others can come up with something better.
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Has anyone tried bringing Adam’s Safety First into Apex? The drawback seems like it could be mitigated with Heartbeat and constant facedown installs, but 3 influence is tough.
Every doomsday cult leader feels your pain, Chris.
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I just don’t see how you leverage Apocalypse. Medium seems the best way but it’s 3 influence per copy, and this ID already needs a lot of support. Have you posted your list in this thread? I’d be keen to see it. I just feel like Corps almost always have extra ICE in hand, and you can’t run on naked servers the turn you Apocalypse, without relying on bad options (my opinion) like Hyperdriver. Moreover, since Apocalypse is basically the only thing Apex can do better than other Runners, the Corp is probably playing a bit in expectation of the wipe, so the likelihood of them having spare ICE is even higher.
How does one leverage Apocalypse into a viable deck?
Put it into another faction. :’( Preferably Shaper. Then you get in-faction access to Levy, Hyperdriver (bad or not), Clone Chip/SMC, Diesel/QT and Aesop to turn any facedown cards into credits for the next Apocalypse.
Choose Hayley, and with enough cheap-to-install cards you’ll be able to manage a clickless install per turn, near enough. Is she just a better Apex?!
Isn’t taking away the ability to protect an agenda in a remote enough leverage? Maybe tech against fast advance.
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I think if you aren’t running Apocalypse, you shouldn’t even bother playing Apex. Why import Medium into Apex when you can run it so much better natively in Anarch?
I posted my list upthread. You’re not wrong that Corps almost always have extra ice in hand, but it’s not about that. In fact, no offense to Chris, but I think a game plan of “I’m going to Apocalypse, and then run while they have no ice” is kind of like those “I’m going to Hyperdriver and mill 17 times, then run Archives” all-in plans. It feels like it won’t work more often than it will and therefore it’s not really worth all that investment.
The key to Apocalypse is that the Corp goes back to not having their ice set up the way they want – they have to make do with what they have, if anything. The “three fuels” setup I describe above functions best when you don’t have a ton of ice to break through. I don’t mind spending a card to Faust or Hunger to get an access! It gets untenable when you’re repeatedly breaking through 2 or even 3 layers of ice, though. That’s where Apocalypse comes in. As an additional benefit, you take out whatever else was in play, so PADs, Daily Business Shows, Ash, Caprice, all remote ice… it’s all gone. I prefer not to worry about attacking centrals on the turn I Apocalypse and there’s no ice, and focus on attacking for the next few turns while there’s minimal ice again. I try to curate my hand (and my trashing to Faust) so that I can drop a breaker and start running immediately post-Apocalypse.
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I don’t think I’ve seen a Shaper yet that isn’t looking to build a board state. You’re looking to set up your econ (Prepaid VoicePADs, Aesop’s, Personal Workshop, Magnum Opus), your breakers, your Clone Chips, and your R&D Interfaces/Same Old Things. You lose all of that when you Apocalypse. Right when you are at your strongest, you lose everything you’ve built. I don’t see why that should make more sense in Shaper than in Apex, who basically can’t build a board state because a) his ID won’t let him install most resources, and b) his in-faction cards are all built to function without a standard board. Endless Hunger doesn’t get better if the Corp drops Cerebral Static so now you can install Kati Jones, nor Heartbeat.
I built my Apex list so that I can get in with two cards: Endless Hunger and Faust. With them, I can Apocalypse. (Sometimes I can even manage it with just Faust and credits!) I lose 2-4 cards (oftentimes I have a Chop Bot and a Heartbeat installed), and the Corp loses everything. That, to me, seems like the way to use Apocalypse.
I could see certain Anarch lists, like the old tag-me Anatomy of Anarch, that might not shy away from sacrificing their board to destroy the Corp’s. But Shaper? I don’t see it. I’ve yet to see the list that isn’t set back just as much as the Corp is by Apocalypse.
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If my was not so tight I almost feel like trope would be a way better include than levy. I almost never milled out as Apex, but I did not go super heavy in on Chopbot.
Would a x1 of clot help versus fa? It seems most fa ice endless hunger kills outright. If you ran clone chips you could shut out fast advance on a whim and still apply pressure while building a board state. Plus Faust and Apex’s ability both feed clone chips pretty well.
Edit - Had to get my thoughts down. Here is my suggested tweaks based on my small experience with Apex and this threads combined insights. I think it might be better? I dunno. The idea of clot is pretty appealing to me just to completely shut down Fast Advance.
What Lies Beneath?
Apex: Invasive Predator
Event (17)
2x Apocalypse
3x Day Job •••
3x Dirty Laundry
1x Levy AR Lab Access •••
3x Prey
2x Quality Time ••
3x Sure Gamble
Hardware (11)
3x Chop Bot 3000 •••
3x Clone Chip ••••• •
2x Dyson Mem Chip
3x Heartbeat
Resource (7)
1x Ghost Runner
3x Hunting Grounds
3x Wasteland
Icebreaker (5)
3x Endless Hunger
1x Faust ••
1x Mimic •
Program (5)
1x Clot ••
3x Harbinger
1x Medium •••
25 influence spent (max 25)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Data and Destiny
Deck built on http://netrunnerdb.com.
If you like, you can run two Faust by dropping Mimic and one Day Job. Probably worth it as Faust is a great compliment to Endless Hunger.
As a one-of without SMC or other means to fetch it quickly (e.g. Street Peddler), I’m not so sure it would be helpful. But try it and see!
fair enough @Brodie , i’ll have to play some Apex and see for myself. gonna go ahead and use your list for starters (:
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The hope is that you either draw it early and use it to slow them down while you set up apocalypse hits, prey ice or generally make their life miserable or you draw it mid to late game and leverage it to deny the final 2 pointer while you close out the game.
Also in a non fa matchup you can use it to feed your abilities. I think investing more than x2 influence into the card slot really hurts its utility.
I am testing the build tomorrow along with my weird refractor-stimhack adam build.
I think a reasonable boon they could have granted to this ID is the inability to lose due to meat damage.
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Meat damage still makes sense thematically as Apex has hardware. More importantly, it’s good for the meta that there’s not such a hard counter to an entire category of corp decks.
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I agree - traditional Shaper decks would be the worst place for an Apocalypse. But I reckon one could put together a barebones Apex-style deck in Shaper that doesn’t need much of a board state, mainly thanks to Faust and Endless Hunger as you say. Then all you’ll need to do post-Apocalypse is drop Aesop and Endless Hunger to start using up any cards you do have installed, followed by Clone Chipping your Faust and threatening another Apocalypse.
I’ve tested an early (admittedly terribad) version of something like this in Hayley and you’d be surprised at how small the tempo loss from an Apocalypse can be, even without most of the Apex signature cards. With the money from Aesop rolling in, you can Levy on a whim and you’ll make the Corp think twice about spending any effort to set up again.
(Also selling Aesop’s Pawnshop to Aesop’s Pawnshop is great flavour. “Sorry I kinda broke your shop. Here, I’ll give it back to you. For 3 credits”)
It’s funny, how most of Apex’s cards require it to have lots of cards installed, but Apocalypse works better the fewer you have…it’s a deckbuilding dichotomy, though I imagine the soltuion lies in the piloting as much as anything else. I’m definitely going to give your deck a whirl, I really like the different style Apex brings to the game and I agree that if you’re not using all of its support cards you’re not really playing Apex!
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This is where exile gets mentioned, and everyone feels awkward.
Endless Hunger and Faust are 2 influence each; feels like you won’t have enough for those plus Apocalypse, which is 3 per copy and you’d want at least 2. I say forget Hunger and use some Shaper nonsense. Atman, or…dare I say it…Alpha/Omega. 
Obviously you’d want to avoid actually paying full install for those, but you’d use α / ω to break low-strength ice and Faust to break high-strength ice, while using Aesop’s to make money off the facedown cards.
Give it a shot! I can see how Hayley would enable a very fast bounce back post-Apocalypse, and having Maker’s Eye and Indexing in-faction would certainly help to bring the hurt after you clear out all the ice. Plus in-faction draw in the form of Diesel and Quality Time. I don’t know whether it’s better than Apex, but it’s an interesting idea and I’d like to see how it performs!
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Exile would be a lot more tempting if Apocalypse trashed the Runner’s board, as opposed to just flipping all the cards facedown. As it stands, you’ve got to find some way to trash them before you can even make use of Exile, and as slow as that’d be you might as well just use Hayley to bounce back faster, I should think. But maybe I’m wrong!