Mail Bomb

Tozar 696

It's Ken's third stop today and everything is running ahead of schedule. A scanner sweeps across his face and the door slides open, allowing him to wheel in a large package.

"I've got a package for... Ryon Knight?"

The woman behind the desk waves him over, "Let me check that in for you."

She makes a swipe on her PAD and begins waiting for the system to load. After some time she frowns.

"Is there a problem?"

"The system has been acting up all day, I can't access the server right now. The sysops have been working on it all morning."

A man comes in the door behind Ken looking exhausted, yelling into his headset about a runner and someone named Janus. Clearly his day wasn't going well. The woman behind the desk waves him over. "Can you bring this to the server room? They sent a Tenma, I think it's urgent." The sysop doesn't stop his conversation, "What do you mean it didn't fire?" He leans over, picks up the hefty package and stomps off, "Why would they get all the way through and not even try to steal anything?" The security doors seal behind him.

Ken leaves the building and pushes the dolly away, letting it fall on the walkway. He gets in his hopper and starts peeling off the Tenma clone uniform. As the hopper starts to rise a PAD vibrates, but his hands are busy donning a red jacket.

"Accept the call."

A friendly voice greets him, "Express! What's up? Causing some trouble?"

Ken looks at his PAD as three flashing blue skulls illuminate the cabin. He reaches for the hologram as the hopper takes off.

"Oh you know, same old thing..."

His fingers connect with the skulls and the sound of an explosion and shattered glass rings in the distance.

Strategy

Play like a criminal, spam Account Siphon as often as possible and Inside Job anything they try to sneak away in a remote. Once they've got a good chunk of ice rezzed and scoring remote built up, start setting up for Apocalypse. Early Bird, Feint, and Inside Job will help you make that one turn combo happen.

Card choices

Ken Tenma - A perfect fit for a criminal Account Siphon / Eater / Apocalypse deck. The extra influence is great since you're running multiple copies of Apocalypse and Eater. Criminal run events are amazing for sneaking out successful runs and are the bread and butter of a Ken Tenma deck. You're also not under any pressure to build a big rig that will just get destroyed after Apocalypse lands, since your economy comes from running and playing events.

Apocalypse - Best played when the corp is poor or when they start advancing a card in a remote server. You can play it early, but be careful about what's on the board, you can't get it back.

Feint - Great for making your HQ run for an Apocalypse. Also good for getting rid of a pesky Crisium grid on HQ, where it will undoubtedly be due to Siphon spam.

Fisk Investment Seminar - Be careful when you play this and what corp you play this against. Don't play it after an Apocalypse (they'll draw ice) or before a Legwork. This does put a timer on corp as you'll be able to play these all over again if you have a chance to Levy. You can force them to install a bunch of cards with this to make your impending Apocalypse juicier, but be careful that you don't give NBN a hand full of Astros when they already have one scored.

Retrieval Run - Need a successful run on archives but it's undefended and you don't want to access Shock! or News Team? Retrieval Run is here to help! As a bonus it gives you an opportunity to rescue your Passport or Fracter before Apocalypse by installing a program from the heap. You can Same Old Thing into Retrieval Run to get your key breakers back if you need to.

Bank Job - Works with eater! Run a piece of ice or an undefended remote and just take your credits.

New Angeles City Hall - Great with Siphon. Lets you use it without worrying about spending clicks on clearing tags. Can also help keep you alive against butcher shop decks. As a bonus, it let's you access Quantum Predictive Model safely and makes tags a less awful option on News Teams.

Breach, Passport, and Faerie - You need these to deal with Turing, Swordsman, and Wraparound. Try not to let them go facedown too soon.

13 comments
15 Dec 2015 CaKnuckleguy

How, exactly, does Feint get rid of a pesky Crisium Grid ? You can't access cards including 'Grid. The run isn't successful for the purpose of apoc's ability. It's a wasted click for zero effect as far as I can see... Am I missing some kind of weird combo or did you just misunderstand something about the interaction of crisium and apoc?

15 Dec 2015 Bandito

Feint bypasses two ice, but can't access any cards if the run is successful. Crisium Grid makes the run neither successful or unsuccessful for the purpose of card abilities, thus canceling Feint's successful effect and allowing the runner to trash/access as normal.

15 Dec 2015 CaKnuckleguy

I see! You're correct, that makes a lot more sense! Thanks.

15 Dec 2015 Absotively

@Celebnar It looks to me like Crisium prevents Feint from preventing the access.

15 Dec 2015 lilelia

Feint only doesn't let you access on successful run. Run isn't successful -> access and trash crisium. Yeh you have to run it again for apoc, but you wouldn't be doing this on an apoc turn anyway.

15 Dec 2015 gumonshoe

There's no way to recover after you play apocalypse though... You're just stuck if they get any more ETRs...

15 Dec 2015 Tozar

@gumonshoe Very rarely does the game go on for very long after the first Apocalypse. Usually HQ will be clogged with agendas from siphon spam and inside job and they'll have no scoring remote. You might lock yourself out from accessing if you time the apocalypse poorly, but you can always just Apocalypse again.

15 Dec 2015 MrAaronSA

It might be worth throwing in an Aesop's Pawnshop or Endless Hunger so you can at least get your necessary facedown cards to the bin to recur with Levy AR Lab Access though... @gumonshoe has good point that you are pretty locked out if they recover from the apocalypse.

15 Dec 2015 Tozar

It would be better to include extra copies of the breakers you need so it doesn't take away from your influence. The other pieces you install are not important enough to warrant the 1-3 influence spent to pop them off the table. If I did that I might cut the special orders, but that makes siphon spamming harder.

15 Dec 2015 Tozar

Than again, I've played this deck a lot and I've never lost a game just because I flipped a breaker. It might be different if people start to catch on to the fact that there's only one of each besides Eater and start using their Archived Memories just for Wraparound.

16 Dec 2015 gandrasch

@MrAaronSA Independent Thinking could be great

19 Dec 2015 W4lt3r B15h0p

I'd drop the Retrieval Run in favor for Aesop's Pawnshop. That way you can clear your board of flipped cards and get some money back. Thats really the only thing i can see change up. Big Ken fan right here dude.

19 Dec 2015 Dothanite

I honestly like @gandrasch's suggestion of Independent Thinking. Aesops is great, but IT resets your much quicker for the anticipated Levy. I feel like speed is more important that drip economy in this case.