JANKGARIN ACTUALLY WORKS

Bigguyforyou518 1758

Look buddy, I know why you're here. You're a fellow addict. A "Space Enthusiast". A Rocketman.

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You saw a new Gagarin Deep Space: Expanding the Horizon deck posted, and an involuntary shiver of excitement went down your spine. Your breathing became rapid; beads of sweat started dripping down your forehead. Did...did someone finally do it? That voice of childlike wonder and naive hope bubbles to the surface of your thoughts. Did someone make a Gagarin deck that ACTUALLY FREAKING WORKS??

The answer is yes.

I think so.
Maybe.

WELCOME TO THE USS JANKTERPRISE: TOOLS IN SPACE

Congratulations, kids, you're playing a horizontal ID. You actually have deck-space now.

This deck is more of a loose framework than a concrete list, so I'll go over the key pieces, and then explain the tools I decided to slot in. Once you understand how to play it, you have quite a bit of room to experiment.

The basic strategy of any Gagarin deck (really any Wayland deck) is to create scoring windows or flatline windows through economic dominance. This is the reason you're playing Gagarin instead of that other horizontal Space ID.

While our ability makes it slightly more annoying to steal installed agendas on the "big run", the best way to leverage it is to create a number of remotes that the runner is pressured to run on. That means naked Jackson Howard. That means naked Cortana. That means...you get the idea. Assets that are worrisome for the runner but have a (relatively) high trash cost are generally what we're shooting for - you want the runner to trash this stuff (and be financially impotent afterwards).

The "Toolbox" Strategy

The main inspiration for this particular deck, the toolbox strategy uses Tech Startup and Executive Boot Camp to tutor out the right asset for whatever situation you find yourself in.

One of my personal favorites is Tech Startuping a Reversed Accounts and nuking 8 or more of the runner's credits. There's a lot of fun stuff you can slot in here to adjust for your particular meta (Blacklist, Hostile Infrastructure, Allele Repression, etc). The beauty of tutors is that you can usually just run one-ofs of what you need. Just a reminder here - Assets with a "when your turn begins" effect will not work the way you want them to with Tech Startup. This makes a lot of the drip-econ assets less desirable than the click-econ ones.


After that, the general strategy is just tax, tax, tax, and find a way to create a scoring window. The cards that you really want early are the cards that have 3 copies included - PAD Campaigns and Paywall Implementations. 5's to access and trash a PAD Campaign is absolutely brutal, and with your Paywall up, it's a full 6 swing. Ohhh baby. Either you're going to be rich as hell, or the runner is going to be broke. Possibly both.

This deck loves recursion, as the only thing more vexing than wasting all your s on trashing assets, is to have those assets immediately reinstalled via Interns or Crick.

NAPD's are easy to score all game, and having them stolen is almost as good as scoring them. Aside from that, your most reliable scoring method is firing off Project Atlas's from a SanSan launch platform. When they break through The atmosphere to trash that SanSan for 6's (or more), Interns that shit right back in there. Don't forget to have a good laugh. You've earned it.

18 comments
16 Jul 2015 ANRguybrush

looks good actually. I will sleeve this up tomorrow and tell you how it went.

16 Jul 2015 JohnnyMilton

I'm excited! This is the real Netrunner.

16 Jul 2015 W4lt3r B15h0p

I like your Agenda mix. I've been playing Gagarin Deep Space: Expanding the Horizon and haven't been satisfied with agendas. So i dropped one of my 3-pointers and added in Oaktown Renovation. Now it's only running two 3-pointers and the rest is 2-pointers. Thanks for the idea.

17 Jul 2015 clercqie

"The basic strategy of any Gagarin deck (really any Wayland deck) is to create scoring windows or flatline windows through economic dominance. "

So where is this flatline threat you're speaking of? Also you only have 1 Ash and otherwise not so much taxing ICE AND aside from Atlas, your agendas need to be advanced once. So what's stopping your opponent from just camping your remote and scavenging RnD?

17 Jul 2015 RubbishyUsername

Why Tech Startup instead of a 3-of Executive Bootcamp? Bootcamp costs 1 more to fetch stuff, but has additional benefit, can turn on those "beginning of turn" assets and crucially has a greater trash cost. It's a bit like running Interns in HB when you have Archived Memories. Also, I don't mean to say Shadow is awful, but it really, really is. I'm fairly certain Hunter is more taxing and cheaper here, although that's mainly because the runner's trying to avoid the Scorched Earth threat that you don't have. I would check out Quinn's Gagarin deck (which is a little out of date now) if you want spaceman strats. netrunnerdb.com

17 Jul 2015 Bigguyforyou518

@W4lt3r B15h0p Thanks. I really love the public agendas, and have been toying with making a Gagarin deck based around them (especially fun when you can score out an early Utopia Fragment). They work so well in Wayland, who has little in the way of advanceable surprises anyway.

@clercqie

The basic strategy of any Gagarin deck (really any Wayland deck) is to create scoring windows or flatline windows through economic dominance.

So where is this flatline threat you're speaking of?

The "or" qualifier implies it can be one or the other (or both!). I never said you had to include a flatline strategy. More to the point, the flatline threat exists simply because you're playing a Wayland identity. Until they've seen a good chunk of your deck and/or hand, most runners will play expecting SEA Source/Midseason Replacements/Punitive Counterstrike/Scorched Earth, etc. This means they will install Plascretes, and they will cautiously draw back up to 4 cards when they could be playing more boldly. They may be hesitant to check unrezzed remotes or to aggressively multi-access, worrying about a Snare!.

There are a few Wayland decks that don't run a kill package (I've seen several cool pure rig destruction decks do this), but they are by far the minority. Unless this deck makes the slightest dent in the meta, it's not something you need to worry about. If you want to add in a kill package to this, that's excellent, but it will be a different deck. I might suggest a Dedicated Response Team/Snare!/Data Raven combo here, but a more standard trace-tag & Scorch setup wouldn't be terrible either.

I'm not sure what you mean about "not so much taxing ICE". I can reliably charge 3-5 credits on centrals and 7-12 on my scoring remote. If they're hammering one central particularly hard, you just refocus your ICE accordingly. You don't need a glacial ICE suite to tax where it hurts.

@RubbishyUsername Tech Startup and Executive Boot Camp both do similar things, but with significant differences.

Executive Boot Camp

  • Free to rez
  • 1 to grab the asset
  • Pulls the asset into your hand, requiring another to install
  • 3 to trash and can be fired mid-run to still get the asset
  • Awesome bonus allows you to rez stuff more cheaply (and provides a nice counter to Leela and Valencia)

Tech Startup

  • Free to rez
  • Free to grab the asset
  • Immediately installs the asset on the board, requiring no further s
  • Only 1 to trash, and cannot be fired defensively when it has been run on

The bolded points show where Tech Startup has a strong situational advantage. Neither card works particularly well with drip assets, because you're still going to have to wait a full turn before they kick in. Executive Boot Camp telegraphs what you're doing if you can't do it in your remaining 2s after the install. This is an absolutely crucial point for cards like Melange Mining Corp., Reversed Accounts, and Contract Killer, and hurts the efficiency of cards like Private Contracts and Capital Investors. Those cards have fairy niche uses, so Executive Boot Camp is a stronger choice for most Corp decks. But here, I really think Tech Startup has room to shine.

17 Jul 2015 Bigguyforyou518

@RubbishyUsername I agree wholeheartedly on Shadow. It made its way into the deck when I decided I really wanted Crick over Architect + Wraparound (in terms of influence), so I needed something to plug the ICE hole. I was thinking another Sentry, so for 0 influence, my choices were limited. I chose Shadow over Hunter because earlier versions of the deck were having trouble leveraging their economic advantage against the runner. The idea was that Shadow could (in theory) be a guaranteed tag, especially against a fixed-strength Killer like Mimic, and could still tax as much as Caduceus when I'm poor. The reality? Meh. I could definitely live without it.

I am familiar with Quinn's decks, and I very much love his write-ups :D

18 Jul 2015 ANRguybrush

@Bigguyforyou518 what about errand boy?

Didn't playtest this too much yesterday, but this deck is fairly annoying to play against. I swapped one paywall for Elizabeth Mills and it payed off already. She is not as good as in Blue Sun, but Valencia doesn't like her.

18 Jul 2015 Bigguyforyou518

I made a deck adjustment to account for my Reddit-infested meta:

Good god when these people find a new deck they're like a dog with a bone. This time it's Gang Sign Leela (with HQ Interfaces ofc), and Jackson help you if you don't have Snares splashed in for that crap. Thankfully, through Executive Boot Camp and Atlas counters, this deck is very good at instantaneously putting the Snare into your hand before Gang Sign's forced access, so if they don't have their Feedback Filter up and running yet, they're going to get nailed.

18 Jul 2015 Bigguyforyou518

@mcpba I do like Errand Boy, although it would be going all-in on the low-str-many-subs ICE strat (which I'm personally a huge fan of, but it is admittedly vulnerable to Parasite decks). I'll try it out.

Why Elizabeth Mills, if you don't mind me asking? The bad pub removal is pretty irrelevant except as a counter to Valencia (and you arguably already have the Executive Boot Camp for that). The location trashing is quite nice for all the Off-Campus Apartment decks coming out now, although they tend to run Fall Guys more often than not. Otherwise, I'm not sure the bad pub would be worth it (for this identity, in particular) to blap a Personal Workshop, Earthrise Hotel, or Wyldside.

19 Jul 2015 ANRguybrush

I mainly play her against Valencia, but there may be situations when blowing up a location may be worth it.

21 Jul 2015 ANRguybrush

crick didn't do much for me, econ is weak if I don't draw PADs early and I'm struggling to protect my centrals early , so I cut a few cards and tried pop-up windows. They are nice so far.

About this deck in general...I dunno. It's kinda slow like RP, but unlike RP the agendas are easy to steal.(except NAPD).

18 Aug 2015 Vimes

How do you most often utilize Tech Startup? Is it better just to leave it out and accept it as a click to tax two, or pop it in the scoring server to make them spend a lot more credits? Man, that latter sounds good, especially if you have an agenda in hand they may not be able to run it twice in a row. Sigh, this sounds great if never advance Weyland could ever be a thing.

18 Aug 2015 RubbishyUsername

I've been playing Gagarin for a month now refining a list and gentlemen, Old Hollywood blows everything out of the water. Ronald Five and Team Sponsorship, Public Support with a Corporate Town. Tour. Guide. Come back to this list.

19 Aug 2015 Vimes

I'm really interested in Ronald Five @RubbishyUsername, but its influence seems a bit too heavy for importing. I also agree that the last few sets are definitely trying to get asset Weyland back as a thing and look forward to smarter players than me to incorporate them.

I actually agree that Tech Startup should have a place in Gagarin, but it is hard to find room for it in my builds. You can stick it in your scoring server for instance and you either bait the run through ice and the 2-3 credit swing for trashing it, or you plop a high-trash annoying thing in a remote. Never really a downside. It works especially with Contract Killer or clickable econ, which is different than Executive Boot Camp. I starting to feel that asset-wise one needs to play towards the strength of one or the other, not both, and Boot Camp might win for inherent Valencia protection.

20 Aug 2015 Bigguyforyou518

@Vimes The way I use Tech Startup varies quite a bit based on the board state and how early in the game it is. With Paywall Implementation up, it's a 3 swing for the runner to trash it (they technically come out ahead on s though, since you need to both draw and install it). So I'm fine throwing it out naked, but if there's an empty scoring remote (or any empty remote with ICE) I'll always toss it down there.

If I'm just planning on pulling more econ out with it, losing it isn't a huge loss. But if you're trying to pull something out that you need badly (Contract Killer to blap an overflowing Kati Jones, Executive Boot Camp to get ahead of Blackmail recursion, etc), then it's fine to throw down ICE to defend it until it pops next turn.

20 Aug 2015 Bigguyforyou518

@RubbishyUsername

Ronald Five Too much influence, I agree, and frankly too easy to play around once its been rezzed.

Team Sponsorship - More recursion in the vein of Architect, Crick, and Interns is always worth considering. The influence here is pretty cheap, and I like how you can wait to reveal it until right as you're scoring the agenda.

Public Support - This looks obscenely good for Gagarin. I doubt I'd ever successfully score it, but once it hits the table with a Paywall, it's just a guaranteed chunk of s they're going to lose (easily recurred as well). A new version of the deck may very well be built around this.

Tour Guide - Cute, and a much cheaper sentry gear check than Changeling. I'm worried that it's not a good enough taxer though, which is arguably more important here: it's obviously vulnerable to Parasite, but more importantly, based on my experience with this deck it will rarely have more than 3 subroutines. This is the same reason Diversified Portfolio looks great on paper but flops in practice. Without the asset spam that NEH enjoys or the inherent untrashability of Industrial Genomics, Gagarin tends to benefit from its assets primarily by the runner trashing them and losing s. Still, 3 subs would make a 3 tax for a 2 rez cost, which is a solid mid-to-late game taxer.

28 Aug 2015 Bigguyforyou518

Just posted a new flatline-oriented Gagarin deck. Check it out!

netrunnerdb.com