Shellgame Shipments

postalelf 74

The central conceit of the deck is, of course, that I have 3x copies of each "Shipment from..." card. I built the deck because I thought the idea was funny, but as it turns out, it's actually pretty decent!

The deck runs like a standard PE "death by a thousand cuts" shellgame. You have 6 pieces of ice in the entire 54 card deck, so don't really count you being able to draw them. If and when you do draw them, however, they go over your HQ and R&D first. Do not ice remotes, and instead just leave them out in the open. Remember that Komainu becomes a death threat the moment you have one House of Knives scored.

Because you have so little ice, you can usually get by simply by just clicking for money (either manually or with a Melange). On the flipside, because you have so little ice, you similarly don't have to worry about the runner's economy! That's why Profiteering (always take 3 bad pub!) is so beautiful here.

Try to keep Snares in HQ for as long as possible, to deter HQ multiaccess. Ronins are ideally Mushin-no-Shinned, but they also make excellent Shipment from Kaguya targets. Shell Corporations go on top of failed traps - such as triple-advanced Junebugs or never-advanced Psychic Fields - and they are a surprisingly good way for you to bounce back from a Siphon.

Speaking of Siphon, this deck crumples against the increasingly popular Reina Taxes and Death deck which aims to Siphon and Vamp you into nothing. If you have 0 credits, you cannot fire off your traps or even rez your Melange to bounce back, which makes it very painful. However, as long as you have even 1 credit in the back, you can threaten them, so there's that I guess.

Your ideal opening hand is a Shipment from Mirrormorph and three things you can drop onto the board. It is best if one of the three things is a Profiteering so you can triple advance and roll around in your cash next turn, but Gila Hands is a nice consolation prize.

If you have a Fetal on the table, try to slow advance it: ideally with Shipment from Kaguya, but manual credits are fine as well as long as you spread out your advancement counters so the runner is never sure what that card is. Always always remember to save at least 1 counter on your House of Knives so that you can threaten a kill with Komainu and/or Junebug.

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