The Valley of Evil v2.1

ODie 725

Updated version of "Valley of Evil v2.0.2“, taking on board Celebrity Gift, Unorthodox Predictions and Sundew. Sundew is a potential monster for RP, and there's been few occasions where I've not been prepared to get the full payout from Gift.

Lack of any Ambush Assets is a possible weakness for this iteration, though one Snare! seems hardly worth it. With the influence count so high it's hard to see where to include Jackson Howard; this deck, unlike PE, wants to stop the Runner if it can. Archer gets a guernsey again with the inclusion of Unorthodox Predictions, which timed right can chain in another Agenda, but with three-odd turns of advancing you both need to shift to credit consolidation and shoring up defences after that. UP can become Archer fodder after it's done its job, though.

Ideally you're able to score one of the Priority Requisitions, along with a two points Agenda to head to match point, or set up a couple of 3/1st to establish the lock in phase three of the game, negating the Runner's advantage in that stage of the game.

3 comments
11 Feb 2014 x3r0h0ur

I was just looking at splashing Ruhr into weyland off the grid earlier. I think to get good milage out of it, and it works with other things, include Interns. I'm not sure what you slot, but I think you have way to many ice for an RP deck. I'd feel free to up it to 3 snares, get 3 fetals, include shock (since they work in archives and people exploit that to run remotes).

You might want to run something like Uroboros too, except the traces get painful after a while.

Definitely get profiteering and max out gift and add restructure, all solid cards in this deck. Well profiteering les so since you don't want them trashing sundew/ruhr i guess.

TL:DR cut back the ice, increase the work by putting in more assets. Run Fetal and snare!

12 Feb 2014 ODie

I can see your point about too much Ice, but think this deck plays quite differently to Personal Evolution, being less reliant on Ambush damage, and more on chipping away at the Runner's clicks. Definitely coming back down to somewhere like 19 Ice (vs. 22) above, will increase the space for traps. Putting in Snare! also places more burden on your economy, needing to keep four credits in reserve at all times to avoid wasting them. I.want to keep the Ice count up to have a decent chance of being able to.defend a slow advance Priority Req. early game, too.

I'm not a fan of Fetal AI in RP. You're not looking to flatline the Runner here (simply not enough damage in the deck) and Fetal is too click intensive to score for points, compared to Braintrust and Nisei. My operant theory is that Fetal belongs in PE, Nisei in RP, and rarely the other way around. Fetal could bluff as a second Priority Req., though, so it might work.

I've tried Uroboros in a v1.X of this deck and wasn't happy with the performance overall. Viper and Hourglass are better options I think unless you're facing a Yogosaurus deck, which I've been facing a lot recently. The Uroboros traces were a sticking point where Jinteki economy was weak and high link Runners.were everywhere. Viper suffers there as well, but it is much cheaper to rez and so less of an investment to get trounced later on by link.

Profiteering is bad news in this deck I think - I do want the Runner paying real money to break through, because the indirect pressure to get the credits to run costs valuable clicks which mean that I can get the lock down with less work. I'll try Restructure in here and look into getting more Ambush (Shock in Archives is a good thought, but the Runner can just jack out before they hit after he knows they're there) assets too.

Thanks for taking the time to comment, BTW, it's much appreciated.

25 Feb 2014 ODie

Blog post discussion for this is finally up: http://daman-asha.livejournal.com/30610.html