A really bad news day - Hyperdriver Apocalypse Valencia

Ortho 105

This deck does one thing. It Apocalypses. Draw as many cards as necessary to setup a turn where you use extra clicks to recur Blackmail into all three centrals. Then Apocalypse. Then do it again until you win. Once you've removed 7-10 pieces of ice from the board the Corp will really struggle to construct a remote before you can either burn it down again or find another way of Blackmailing it.

Is this a winning strategy? Often yes. It is very, very good against glaciers. Even if they know it's coming it's very hard to keep you out. Political Operative is a godsend as previously anyone who knew to put a Caprice on a Central was in good shape. Of course, if they put it on HQ it's a problem, but you can hopefully just switch to locking the remote with Blackmail and DDoS.

Fast advance is obviously a terrible matchup. If they get an Astro token they don't care if you burn their ice down, and if the Apocalypses are hiding they will just score out before then anyway. Turntable helps a little bit after the boom but it's far from reliable. Previous versions had Medium but I often found it was being turned over after the install and I took it out to just make the deck better at Apocalypsing. Event Multi access would be better but you need the influence for other stuff.

In terms of specific cards Frame Job is there in case of bad pub removal. Chop Bot is there to save the occasional card that gets trapped post Apocalypse and to avoid clicks spent drawing in the times when you want to exploit the free accesses. Faust for just in case they get rezzed etr ice on a central. Political Graffitti was my attempt to help the IG matchup and avoid spiky archives, but it's a terrible idea and needs changing.

Trope is used to shuffle back in Blackmail and recursion pieces. Unless you've got right to the bottom and you can just immediately draw what you've Troped you always want to leave one Blackmail in Archives. "Shuffling" 3 Blackmails into a completely empty stack and then asking the Corp if they want to cut is usually inviting the table flip.

Why no Inject? You don't want to reveal the gameplan sometimes, and ditching Tropes and Hyperdrivers is not ideal.

6 comments
24 Apr 2016 Swiftie

After paying 6 influence to include architects and eli's in my ETF deck is very upsetting to not even rez them.

24 Apr 2016 tomdidiot

How does the deck deal with Turing on a central?

24 Apr 2016 Ortho

You hope they can't get it rezzed or you click through it. I've only once had someone get a Turing rezzed on a central, and they had a Crisium behind it. But they didn't see what was coming and chose not to Rez the Crisium when I clicked through.

Basically the more problems they present for you the more stuff you need to find to be able to pull off the stupid turn, i.e. Hyperdriver and Amped Up together to get enough clicks to get in. That buys them a lot of time unfortunately until you can assemble it all. But on the plus side you only need to deal with it once.

26 Apr 2016 SHIEL

What are your thoughts on Corporate Scandal versus Frame Job?

26 Apr 2016 SHIEL

Also, what would you add in place of the Wanton Destructions?

26 Apr 2016 Ortho

I haven't included Scandal because of the Influence cost. But you could cut a Political Operative to fit it in. Frame Job would probably still get you there but it's considerably less flexible, I accept that.

I like Wanton as it's good against combo decks and it's sometimes a bodyblow early on if you combine it with DDoS and Hyperdriver. I would only recommend putting that many resources into it if you're expecting a fast game from the Corp and want to put on some pressure early.

If you want to cut it I think out in something that suits how you want to play the deck. I have consciously made this deck almost entirely about getting off the Apocalypse as often as possible. Other people I know play more traditionally with Apoc Val and just use the Apoc as a board clearer late game. If you want to be better at Apocalypsing maybe add more draw and econ. Vigil perhaps? If you want to have more of a trad deck maybe Keyhole and switch the Fausts for Eaters.