Nope, sorry, that’s a non-virtual resource.
Aside: Harbinger in any other Aesop-using runner is going to be quite strong. 6c for a click, from 0 credits, over 2 turns is nothing to sneeze at. No MU requirement or anything.
Leprechaun? I’ve heard they’re very hungry Irish Faeries. Maybe the install order problem will be insurmountable but 2c for +4 MU seems alright. I think Safety First is worth a try too. I need to play a few games to get my head around Apex’s tempo. It seems Apex’s setup time might be limiting, even if using Hunger + heartbeat + killer is good enough. Mass Install to get up and running might be good.
Endless hunger seems a really good troubleshooter for pain in the bum ICE - mostly high end stuff, but I don’t think it’s enough without regular breaker support. I guess we’re all agreed that if Endless Hunger doesn’t work, Apex is rubbish.
Wasteland + chopbot means you gain a credit each turn for cycling a card. Wasteland is non-unique - it’s a pretty low barrier drip econ. Drip econ doesn’t suit rush decks, but calling runner decks rush decks is always a bit awkward, you have to play at the pace of the corp really. Apex might have the Val thing of locking up the early game, meaning the corp can’t rush behind binary ICE and Hunger makes a lot of commonly played taxing ICE really tough to rez.
I think it’s going to be hard to build a good Apex, but I think there’s lots of potential there. Adam and Apex’s cards seem to have a lot of synergy. Adam’s cards are cheap in influence (except the directives).
Hey everyone,
Been playing around with Apex on acoo.net and think this is an OK list.
Apex: Invasive Predator (Data and Destiny)
Event (23)
1x Legwork (Honor and Profit) ••
2x Apocalypse (Data and Destiny)
3x Prey (Data and Destiny)
3x Infiltration (Core Set)
3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
3x Dirty Laundry (Creation and Control)
1x Lucky Find (Double Time) ••
3x The Maker’s Eye (Core Set) •• •• ••
3x Quality Time (Humanity’s Shadow) • • •
1x Levy AR Lab Access (Creation and Control) •••
Hardware (7)
2x e3 Feedback Implants (Trace Amount) •• ••
2x Heartbeat (Data and Destiny)
3x Prepaid VoicePAD (Second Thoughts)
Icebreaker (4)
1x Mimic (Core Set) •
3x Endless Hunger (Data and Destiny)
Program (3)
3x Harbinger (Data and Destiny)
Resource (8)
1x Always Be Running (Data and Destiny) •••
3x Hunting Grounds (Data and Destiny)
3x Wasteland (Data and Destiny)
1x Sacrificial Construct (Core Set) •
Total Cards: 45
Total Influence: 25
Event heavy econ/draw/multi-access to mitigate the lack of resources/MU, Levy to bring it all back
Pre-paid for extra econ from this
E3 has obvious synergy with Endless Hunger
Mimic for Architect and other low strength sentries
Infiltration and Sacrificial Construct should help mitigate surprises or disasters
Always Be Running is an inspiration from this thread, it should help against major headaches such as Susanoo or Wormhole etc…
Chop-bot makes no appearance as it eats into Quality Time’s influence, plus Chop-bot is only good mid to late game you have enough fodder to work with, whilst Quality Time is good all the time.
An additional tech with this might be -1 Maker’s Eye +2 Independent thinking with the include of Always Be Running.
Any thoughts? Is this a monstrosity fit for Apex, or just a monstrosity?
I got a hold of a Gencon Data/Destiny and have been playing APEX nonstop since then. Some observations:
APEX was designed to run super poor, and APEX does. APEX has so little card draw, and so few out-of-faction options that aren’t expenseive (looking at you, quality time). However, when all APEX needs is “food” for breaking ETR’s and can damage dodge, APEX doesn’t need much in the way of credits. So far, I have had success with Faust. I tried e3, but either A) never had sufficient credits to install or use them or, B) ended up using them as food. APEX is super aggressive early, and there hasn’t been a game yet where I haven’t seen both Heartbeat and Endless hunger hit the board in the first 3 turns. Prey/Kraken has actually been a superstar combo- Once established, typical turn is 1) draw or credit 2) run or Prey on a central and destroy ice 3) Run the same central again if no score 4) Kraken to eliminate another ice on the board. Rinse repeat. Too bad Same Old Thing can’t be used by APEX. Early aggression has also led me to include 3 Notoriety as well. In the last 4 games since their inclusion I have been able to score at least 1 per game within the first 5 turns before the corp is set up.
[can we take a moment to note the similarities between Liga’s art for APEX and for Kraken? Flavor text seems very fitting. Is it possible that an early Kraken got too strong/hungry, devoured a Susanoo-No-Mikoto-like entity and thus APEX was born?]
Chop Bot, All of Adam’s directives, spoilers, and probably a 2nd LARLA (since the first could easily be trashed accidentally by Hunting Grounds) are all things I will experiment with next.
As for Apocalypse, I have cut down to 1 in the deck- the window to score it is the same with notoriety, thus by its nature, it has to be played last click. The difference is the tempo hit. The Tempo hit of losing YOUR ENTIRE RIG is too much for mid-late game. All the corp has to do is re-ice their centrals the following turn and you’re back where you started, except now your console and main breaker are gone. Done mid-late game, this could be Game Over for you since the other copies of said breaker and console were consumed. Apocalypse needs a LOT of planning beforehand in kind of a “stars-are-right” way, or needs to be played early game just as the corp is starting to get into a position of strength.
TL;DR
APEX wasn’t meant to be run with a traditional breaker suite- When you run APEX you play APEX’s game, APEX doesn’t play yours. I think to get the most out of APEX (or Digithulhu as APEX has been colloquially called at my FLGS) we will have to fundamentally change the ways we think about running.
12 Likes
Also, I’m officially petitioning to have the Thread title be renamed to 01000001 01010000 01000101 01011000 (APEX in binary) or anything else fitting in binary
9 Likes
Dare you play an Unscheduled Maintenance the turn before you Apoc and hope they run out of ICE before you run out of destruction?
3 Likes
possibly as a 1 of? Since it’s APEX’s current, would it be turned face down as well?
Currents are not installed.
Hey, wouldn’t you know it, sacrificial construct is a remote resource, and it’s therefore non virtual. We’re really going to have to think outside the box on this one. I don’t normally post decklists, but this might be fun, I love cards no one plays.
3 Likes
Does Apocalypse specify installed cards or all cards?
Installed. Which is good, because otherwise you turn your ID over!
3 Likes
So then by the same token Apocalypse wouldn’t destroy a Corp current? Damn- that could really hurt APEX with the wave of currents coming to NBN
1 Like
It certainly doesn’t seem to have any interaction with currents (or scored agendas, or other non-installed cards).
Ah I see, I was confonding with Chopbot there.
I proposed a list on r4g with wasteland and Aesop for Adam, so he could have some money before the first click to run, I figured this would be cool in wasteland natural faction…
Well this leave space for a pop song Kate then (cache Aesop Kate).
Currents are not installed cards 
Corp’s and Runner’s are not affected.
If you play unscheduled first, you just removed the corp’s.
That’s an excellent idea
Yeah. The more I look at it, the more I like Unscheduled Maintenance as a x3 in APEX. Good for slowing down the corp after a damaging Prey/Kraken run, and keeps 2 centrals open after the Apocalypse. Good call @camelCase !
1 Like
god damn it, oh well maybe the infiltration is enough
I’m running Infiltration as filler currently, until I can rework the influence. 2x LARLA 3xDiesel and 3xFaust are eating up 18 influence.
Any chance of you posting your current list? 
APEX: Invasive Predator
Event (28)
1x Apocalypse
3x Diesel ••••• •
3x Dirty Laundry
3x Infiltration
3x Kraken
1x Levy AR Lab Access •••
3x Notoriety •••
2x Retrieval Run ••••
3x Sure Gamble
3x Traffic Jam
3x Prey
Hardware (3)
3x Heartbeat
Resource (9)
3x Wasteland
1x Eden Shard•
1x Hades Shard•
3x Hunting Grounds
1x Utopia Shard•
Icebreaker (6)
3x Endless Hunger
3x Faust ••••• •
Program (3)
3x Harbinger
25 influence spent (max 25)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Underway
3 Likes