Trashing a Better World (Columbus Store Championship)

teknic 218

I won the Packrat Comics Store Championship in Columbus, OH with this deck.

This deck isn't fast, but wins through a gradual war of attrition where you kill your opponent's icebreakers. With 9 economy cards, you are likely to start with at least 1 along with some cheap ETR ice that will force the runner to play his breakers if he wants to get in. This is exactly what you want.

If your opponent is playing cheap programs (Corroder, Inti, Datasucker, Faerie, SMC), you can pick them off easily with Power Shutdown, which you'll put back into your deck later with Jackson Howard. This is complemented by a suite of sentries designed for killing all types of breakers. Faeries are one-shot and are easily destroyed by Power Shutdown, so you don't have to worry about those too much. Mimic is also an easy kill since it needs strength manipulation in order to beat Grim and Archer. Ninja fares a bit better, but it will be costly for him to break, especially Archer. Garrote is perhaps your worst enemy.

That's where the Corporate Troubleshooters come in. I generally have no economy problems with this deck, so you often build up cash that you don't mind using on a well-timed CT. You want to use this card to pump your sentries and trash the breakers. It's best if your sentries are on the outer portion of a server, but they can work fine on the inside since CT and JH both bluff as Project Atlas, and Aggressive Secretary bluffs as Priority Requisition. Only 1 Aggressive Sec because you want this card late game and you want it to be a surprise. By the time you get it, your opponent has likely seen much of your influence. They will start to doubt whether you have any destructive traps. Play it and double advance it as if it were a Priority Requisition behind a server you think is safe. The runner will often play one of their tricks to get in, wasting a bunch of money only to lose their all-important icebreakers.

Tollbooth is basically in here as Yog hate. Plenty of decks just lose if they are playing Yog/Mimic with Datasuckers since you can reliably trash their Datasuckers with Power Shutdown. If your opponent isn't playing with fixed-strength breakers, they waste money pumping and breaking your subs throughout the game, so you'll likely win the money fight when it comes to Corporate Troubleshooter time.

I choose Priority Requisition over Government Contracts because I like the free rez on Archer and Tollbooth. You're Weyland, everyone already knows you're playing Archer. The real surprise factor is when you increase its strength with Troubleshooter, which PR doesn't give away. Plus you get to keep your agendas.

13 comments
16 Mar 2014 x3r0h0ur

This 'new' archetype of weyland is super strong. The ones that score quick behind broken breakers. I slot 3/5s and 3 2/1's in mine to capitalize on the scoring window. Having to only score 3agendas and 1 from hand is awesome. I don't really want to post mine public right now, but you're along the same lines. Looks solid.

17 Mar 2014 Ozvaldo

if you're aiming at datasuckers, or corrodors or mimic so much - surely the runner will throw a parasite in first to get rid of your sentry ices??

17 Mar 2014 Ozvaldo

and most Anarchs will keep Deja Vu to combat the corrodor/mimic loss. Shapers can recur anyway. So really this deck will hurt a criminal the most if he's just got one copy of a corrodor - it wont hurt him losing a fairie cuz im sure they will have femme or ninja to back up. and you only have three power shutdowns, so chances are you can trash twice at most in 1 game if its long enough.

17 Mar 2014 Ozvaldo

if you like aggressive secretary this much, my advice is switch to HB. There you will have CT, and AS. JH will be cheap to include. You also have the chance to fast adv with biotic. Plus money is never an issue with HB.

17 Mar 2014 mege

I think that's part of the point: being Weyland, noone expects the HB tricks.

17 Mar 2014 Ratatosk

I played a similar Weyland Deck as well, that is based around breaker-denial. I pair it with a rush-style though, splashing in 3 SanSan. 3 Jackson and 3 Troubleshooters just as you. That doesn't allow for the Aggressive Secretary, Roto or Tollbooth though. But it's awesome to be able to score an Atlas from hand at match point :) In the tournament I played, I lost 3/5 matches though. One was extremely ridiculous (no ICE except Archer even after Mulligan in the top 12 cards and my opponent steals 2 Goverment Contracts and 1 Veterans Program), in the other I drew ICE, but only Barriers and no Power Shutdown and died horribly to a Corroder. The third loss was unfortunate. In one turn I trashed his entire breakers (Yog.0, Mimic+Corroder) with Grim and Archer, but he inside jobbed an atlas I behind a bastion i couldnt rez (only 2 creds...)behind an archer. I needed money, but drew into the second Government contracts of 3 cards in HQ. he sneakdoored me (even though I trashed it with a Grim in front of Archives) and stole one of the GC for the win. But I really like this prototype and will play around a little more with it :)

Congrats to the win!

17 Mar 2014 evilgaz

Nice list, 'grats on the win - I'm playing around in this area at the minute, although thinking of a Snare or two in there, as its good to keep them guessing at what you're playing at and slows them down a little.

I've been on the other end of hitting a first turn Tollbooth and it really slows you down as a Runner.

My friend ran a similar Jinteki deck on Saturday and did reasonably well with it - the idea being to kill all the Corroders in sight (Power Shutdown, Grim, Archer, etc.) and score behind Barriers. Worked out quite well, but could have done with the new bumper Jinteki pack being out for the few extra choices on Agenda and so on.

17 Mar 2014 teknic

@Ozvaldo - The Datasucker/Corroder hate is meant to counter the popular Andromeda archetype that runs Anarch breakers, not actual Anarchs. This archetype does not typically run Parasite, so there's no problem there. Jackson Howard is also capable of shuffling Power Shutdown back into the deck, and I've had games where I end up using 3 or more.

Like mege mentioned, surprise is a big factor. People will expect Aggressive Secs more in HB, and I'm forced into using 12 influence if I still want Archer and Power Shutdown, with no easily playable 1-point agendas to sacrifice to Archer. Econ is a big deal too since Troubleshooters can be expensive.

The one thing I don't like about this deck is that it can be slow. I didn't lose any games in the tournament with it, but I had some go to time just because it tends to drag to the late game.

Thanks for the comments, everyone! x3r0h0ur, you should post your list after you win a tournament with it - I'm curious about the differences.

17 Mar 2014 Heartthrob

Dangerous deck to run against. I lost my whole rig last night against a similar deck. Slowed me down so bad that he came back from a 6-0 hole to win the game. He even forfeited a 2-pt agenda to rez Archer (crazy right?!)...but it paid off.

Need to rethink my Whiz deck to legislate for this corp style.

17 Mar 2014 kollapse

Anything you would change (despite not losing a game with the deck)? Love the idea, considering taking your deck to some tournaments but I need to find some things to make it not completely netdecking.

17 Mar 2014 teknic

I'm not entirely sold on the Datapike. I don't like having so many Yog-able ice, but I like forcing them to play a code gate breaker to get through. Quandry might replace the Enigma when Double Time comes out, then maybe 1 Enigma instead of Datapike.

I switched a Green Level Clearance for a Rototurret last minute because I like sentries that end the run and because it can surprise an Atman deck. Depending on the popularity of Atman in your meta, you might want to try 3x Green Level.

17 Mar 2014 x3r0h0ur

The number of codegates in this deck is to ensure you have at least 1 ETR of each type so you can snap off whichever breaker hurts them the most. Sure, you can yog it, as long as you still have your yog...

10 Apr 2014 ShamelessLB

Do you think working in a Witness Tampering to get rid of Bad Publicity would be worth it?