Prepaid Punk Rock

BTrain 2971

Make your heap your hand and damn this puppy can move.

MaxX has the potential to put on blistering aggression right out of the gate, and she's the first runner to essentially have two hands to choose from. Seeing three new cards a turn takes the standard Anarch problem of consistency from 0 to 60. The one trade-off is that those cards in the heap will be harder to get to than the others, but not by much.

It's no surprise then that Deja Vu, Retrieval Run, and Same Old Thing are automatic 3-of's. Deja Vu is hands down one of the best recusion cards in the game, and once two of your Prepaid VoicePADs are out, it doesn't cost a thing. Retrieval Run is a fantastic way to cheat out big breakers, and once your Eater is on the table you can not only bust into Archives to fire that Retrieval Run off, but you can build a bank and face-check across the board with impunity. It's not a bad idea to consider Mimic for some Swordsman hate, but I've never found it to be worth the slot; Swordsman doesn't end the run so your card effects will still fire, and worst case scenario, you fetch Eater out of your heap again or play the other one that's probably already found its way into your hand.

Torch is a contested slot in the deck right now, because it's a beefy four influence, but it's a 1:1 swap for Account Siphon which, across numerous test games, just didn't really perform the way I wanted it to. This deck is almost always rich, and fetching a one-of Siphon out of the heap never felt like the smartest use of the recursion cards, and you will find yourself needing to conserve those as much as possible. On that note, I'm all for anyone who can slot another Levy AR Lab Access in here because you really do move through this deck faster than you'd think. But better to burn out than fade away, right?

4 comments
30 Jan 2015 akonnick

@BTrain Very helpful write-up. I am curious to test the cut to 2-of Morning Star and Parasite, so let me know what you think. I am ultra paranoid about not seeing breakers when I need them, but haven't played enough games to know if me seeing them early was just lucky, so really curious what you think.

Torch is an interesting one to your point as I couldn't get myself past the memory and influence, but it clearly solves the Lotus Field problem. I see you swapped for [Medium], so am curious whether you find yourself getting more regular accesses compared to Eater accesses with Keyhole . I found myself doing the same in my early games because the setup was so fast, so it is an interesting swap. Thanks for the shout out and deck ideas and keep us all posted on how your testing is going!

30 Jan 2015 BTrain

@akonnick Great initial deck list, my friend! Such a solid foundation to build from.

I went to 2x Morning Star and Parasite because I needed to make room for Datasucker to join the party, and honestly between MaxX's ability and the recursion this deck packs, getting breakers on the table was rarely ever a problem. But yes, like you said Lotus Field singlehandedly locks you out of servers (without Scavenge, trying to reset your Femmes is such a royal pain it's almost not even worth it), so I used the leftover influence from Account Siphon to slot in the Torch. Though to make room for one of the Shards, likely Utopia Shard to really just put the extra hurting on HQ (or maybe even Hades to grab anything you've hit with Wanton Destruction), I'm also going to test dropping Torch for Gordian Blade. The only reason Torch went in in the first place is because I had the extra influence, and if you're cheating the breaker out anyway, why not go for the biggest one you can find? Crypsis is another potential include here since it plays really nicely with Deja Vu, but that might come later because Eater seems to be doing plenty of work on its own.

31 Jan 2015 Myriad

Hey! Thanks for the list.

Economy in this deck is sound. I had maybe one game where it dragged on so long that MaxX's self mill made this a huge liability, otherwise it was powerful and I never had any money problems.

Really, I think my only problem with the deck is with Morningstar. Its such a memory hog in my Keyhole deck, I can see why you went Medium.

I think all MaxX decks will have to make a decision regarding Eater. Do you go all in and run Keyhole? Or do you cut back a bit and pop in your bigger rig.

Torch is sweet, but I will probably be searching out alternatives in terms of influence. Might even just try two clone chips to lighten deja vu's load and to give parasite a bigger bite.

31 Jan 2015 cranked

Speaking of Keyhole, do you find yourself missing it in this deck? You've already cut it and Siphon, so the only run replacements that Eater is able to do are Retrieval Runs and Wantons. I think it might be worth finding room for Keyhole if only to have that win condition in your back pocket.