Not to detract from the depressing conversation about how to make Apex’s breaker suite viable, but has anyone considered Bookmark as a piece? Apex likes hardware & it seems like a) a good way to a) stash away extra cards from a Quality Time you can’t use at the moment, & b) set up a nice post-Apocalypse turn by rebounding all your vital pieces back into hand. Spending a couple influence on a utility piece like that might be silly, though.
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Unfortunately, you can’t use it post-Apocalypse, since everything on your board just got trashed too, including it.
Not sure if anyone has done this yet, but here are all the ICE that currently exist that can’t broken with endless hunger, or endless hunger + e3. Noticeably, e3 does allow for breaking some ICE that endless hunger on its own cannot - rototurret and heimdall 1/2 for example. If your builds dont include e3 then you should add those ETR + other nasty sub to this list.
So far i’m finding the real hard hitters are ichi, gutenberg, susan and assassin.
Barrier (3)
Code Gate (28)
- 1x Archangel (Data and Destiny) ••••
- 1x Bandwidth (The Valley) •
- 1x Builder (Order and Chaos) •
- 1x Bullfrog (A Study in Static) ••
- 1x Cell Portal (Core Set) ••
- 1x Checkpoint (Order and Chaos) ••
- 1x Chum (Core Set) •
- 1x Clairvoyant Monitor (Chrome City) ••
- 1x Crick (Breaker Bay) •••
- 1x Gyri Labyrinth (Double Time) ••
- 1x Hourglass (A Study in Static) ••
- 1x Inazuma (Honor and Profit) ••
- 1x Lockdown (Chrome City) •
- 1x Marker (Double Time) •
- 1x Merlin (All That Remains)
- 1x Minelayer (Creation and Control) •
- 1x Pop-up Window (Cyber Exodus) •
- 1x RSVP (True Colors) ••
- 1x Salvage (Humanity’s Shadow) ••
- 1x Sensei (Trace Amount) •
- 1x Shiro (Honor and Profit) ••••
- 1x TL;DR (Data and Destiny) ••
- 1x Turing (Breaker Bay) •••
- 1x Viper (Cyber Exodus) •
- 1x Wendigo (First Contact) ••
- 1x Wormhole (Order and Chaos) ••
- 1x Yagura (Fear and Loathing) ••
Sentry (45)
- 1x Architect (Up and Over) ••
- 1x Assassin (Data and Destiny)
- 1x Burke Bugs (Future Proof) •
- 1x Caduceus (What Lies Ahead) ••
- 1x Cortex Lock (The Valley) ••
- 1x Data Hound (Humanity’s Shadow) •
- 1x Dracō (What Lies Ahead)
- 1x Enforcer 1.0 (Old Hollywood) ••
- 1x Errand Boy (The Source) •
- 1x Flare (Future Proof) •••
- 1x Gemini (All That Remains) ••
- 1x Gutenberg (Breaker Bay) •••
- 1x Hunter (Core Set)
- 1x Ichi 1.0 (Core Set) ••
- 1x Ichi 2.0 (Creation and Control) •••
- 1x Information Overload (The Spaces Between) ••
- 1x Janus 1.0 (What Lies Ahead) •••
- 1x Komainu (Honor and Profit) ••••
- 1x Lycan (All That Remains) ••
- 1x Mamba (Up and Over) ••
- 1x Matrix Analyzer (Core Set) ••
- 1x Muckraker (Second Thoughts) •••
- 1x Nebula (Order and Chaos) ••
- 1x Negotiator (The Valley) ••
- 1x Neural Katana (Core Set) ••
- 1x News Hound (Data and Destiny) ••
- 1x NEXT Gold (The Valley) •••
- 1x Pup (Honor and Profit) •
- 1x Sagittarius (All That Remains) ••
- 1x Searchlight (Order and Chaos) •
- 1x Shadow (Core Set) •
- 1x Sherlock 1.0 (Trace Amount) ••
- 1x Shinobi (Double Time) •••
- 1x Snoop (Mala Tempora) ••
- 1x Susanoo-No-Mikoto (Honor and Profit) •••
- 1x Swarm (Opening Moves) ••••
- 1x Swordsman (Second Thoughts) •
- 1x Taurus (Upstalk) ••
- 1x Troll (The Source) ••
- 1x Tsurugi (True Colors) ••
- 1x Turnpike (Data and Destiny) ••
- 1x Uroboros (A Study in Static) ••
- 1x Virgo (The Source) ••
- 1x Woodcutter (Cyber Exodus) •••
- 1x Zed 1.0 (Creation and Control) ••
Other (8)
- 1x Data Mine (Core Set) ••
- 1x Howler (Creation and Control) •
- 1x It’s a Trap! (Old Hollywood) •••
- 1x Kitsune (First Contact) ••
- 1x Lab Dog (Chrome City) ••
- 1x Special Offer (Data and Destiny) ••
- 1x Universal Connectivity Fee (Up and Over) •
- 1x Whirlpool (Humanity’s Shadow) ••
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I started on something similar this morning… But this is awesome ! Thank you !
So, you’re saying the answer is Gingerbread?
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No, you trigger its paid ability to return the cards to your hand just before playing Apocalypse. That way you get back all the cards you needed & were storing on it.
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Ah, gotcha! I was misunderstanding the intended ordering.
Hard to disagree with the marginality of Apex, that’s for sure! There needs to be some form of Apex-playable draw/econ/supertrick to appear for it to finally evolve (heh) and include the tools both decks have. Most importantly, imo, draw. I will say that I actually have found 3x Sure Gamble, 3x Dirty Laundry, 2x Day Job, 2x Easy Mark, 2x Infiltration, and 3x (mostly useless) Wasteland to be suitable econ. I am never hurting for credits in my Apex build, for sure. What I’m missing right now is more draw, primarily, and some sort of solution to pesky 4+ sentries. Faerie + Sac Construct is in the back of my mind for a future test.
Right now I’ve been seeing a lot of wins (surprisingly high and fun to boot) against a meta mostly testing for worlds. That’s the thing - there’s lots of ICE that really hose EH, but they aren’t being played. And the ones that do - Enigma, Architect, Caduceus, Archer, Grim, Susan in popularity order, are only partial fuck-yous and Mimic can help a bit. If anything I’ve learned from playing these two Apex archetypes - is that Prey is very important.
Now I’m not saying use Prey on Archers and Orions, but Prey helps tremendously with the numero uno problemo - Enigma - and sometimes one Ichi 1.0 I manage to sniff out.
Thanks for your ouput @ijw473, my goal is take Apex and win a GNK. Not an astounding achievement, but a step in the right direction.
@phette23 It’s a decent possibility. It does suck that if you want to trash bookmark to get your card bank back, you lose the Bookmark and a potential facedown fodder. Comparing bookmark to brain cage, I might actually prefer the -1 ‘card’ tempo hit of Brain Cage over the 1 influence Bookmark, if I am trying to squeeze in a couple Quality Time because Brain Cage sticks around after Apocalypse (which I am considering in my Apex list still).
@king_mob Thanks for this. THANKS SO MUCH!! Tears are being shed at the prospect of playing against Resistor, Pachinko, Inazuma, and Snowflake. Absolutely hilarious, in a sad clown sort of way.
On a somewhat related note I think this ICE list reaffirms just how little I value e3 without ABR. The ICE that e3 truly helps with, without splashing ABR, is so low that I just can’t justify it. I am counting Enigma (can Prey same or next turn), Archer, and Heimdall 2.0. Worth noting you can go through an Archer with EH, losing your breaker in the process, but it is possible, and Heimdall 2.0 is clickable if you really need to get through for an access. Corps can control their Grail placement and reveals and remove ETRs. Outside of that, e3 adds marginal, luxury value to Hive, Spiderweb/Curtain Wall, and Ashigaru. But simple luxury only - Apex can get the cards he needs to break them once or twice, that’s for sure.
Unfortunately, yeah EH can only break subs that read simply as “End the run”. So things like Turing and even freaking snowflake cant be broken.
why is Little Engine on this list?
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Bookmark seems amazing. All the hosted cards become turned face-down after apocalypse, right? So it’s like a supercharger for his trash abilities!
EDIT: Oh wait, maybe you can’t trash hosted cards that aren’t installed. Bummer.
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Brain Cage doesn’t stick around post-Apocalypse, it would get turned face-down like everything else wouldn’t it?
My theorycrafted APEX deck (I don’t like playing decks without having the physical cards) is running Bookmark to sculpt the “perfect” post-Apoc hand. Test draws seem solid.
I’m guessing most builds will already have plenty of fodder post-Apocalypse, because all your installed stuff gets turned facedown (if you don’t trash to Endless Hunger during the runs). I think Bookmark’s value is in, as @Icedman put it, sculpting the perfect hand for the new few turns. I’d look for at least Heartbeat & an impactful run event or two.
@phette23 I often do the impactful runs (Legwork, Dirty Laundry, Maker’s) on the Apocalypse turn itself. Works out often enough.
Brain Cage does get turned face down. Which is often OK for 1 credit, going card neutral (assuming trashing a card to prevent the brain), triggering wasteland; and duplicates can be used with the ability in a pinch. This is also assuming you are running Quality Time to efficiently use your newfound hand size. In terms of fodder estimates, it’s been felt out after around 20 Apex plays ordered from hardest to easiest:
Supermodernism Rush: NIGHTMARISH. This is actually a horrible matchup for Apex, for the weirdest reasons. Looks good for Apex on paper, but bad in practice. Too much program trashing. Too much damage. Requires ABR/e3 imo. And as a further kick in the central processing unit, they play Enigma.
HB: MED/HIGH. Depends if they run NEXT or not. Few cards are needed to break their ICE, lots of cards are needed to trash Turing and Enigma with Prey.
Weyland: HIGH. Spiderweb, Curtain Wall, Hive (often not worth breaking without e3), Tour Guide, Crisium as the cherry on top. Plus they play Enigma.
RP: HIGH (mostly due to Pup & Caprice) The matchup hinges on how many Ichi’s they find and if you can win Caprice. Don’t waste all your Preys on Pup lest they find an Enigma you can’t kill. As soon as Crick hits the table you have to Apocalypse or, depending on board state, go all in on winning the remote.
NBN: LOW. For obvious reasons, you won’t spend a lot of cards in NBN matchups. Here’s when card quality really counts and your Ghost Runners/Infiltrations/e3 make you wish you actually spent influence on moar econ and multiaccess.
Jinteki: MED. It’s sad to call any Jinteki deck based around flatline as ‘jank’, but in this meta it is true. Kill Jinteki just folds to Apex. One Heartbeat installed and you might not even need to Apocalypse. Hunting Grounds beats Komainu, and Cortex Lock folds to EH. If you want to beat Apex as Jinteki Flatline, consider running Grim and a healthy amount of ETRs.
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fixed it
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Oh a more-serious note, playing normal breakers solves most of these problems, doesn’t it? In my testing having a decoder has been arguably more important than having a killer. Also, has anyone tried Endless Hunger-a-saurus? Could that solve MU problems entirely?
Having a decoder like Yog or Zu would indeed solve some problems faster than Prey. Running Yogs/Zu the same way Apex runs Mimic is an interesting notion, but ultimately a luxury and not a requirement since you can Prey Turing and Enigma. But once you start building a rig that intends on sticking around or cost you real bank, it decentivizes Apocalypse and the build turns into an Adam build that is actually freshly posted in his thread by @Thike. The logic of running Mimic is so that Architect can’t recur said ICE or Crisiums or Caprices during the Apocalypse run.
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So what you’re saying is, run Adam instead? 
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For ABR + e3, I completely, totally concur. Endless Hunger is only 2 influence and Harbinger is 1 inf. Adam, saying he cuts breakers for EH + e3, comes out almost even and sometimes ahead. While playing all kinds of resources!
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Actually in my test draws I was usually looking to sculpt some combo of EH, Heartbeat and something else (CC or Mimic) more than run events.
Basically, looking at Bookmark as an extension of my Grip.
Oh, and I completely forgot about preventing Brain Cage’s damage 