So You Want To Nexus With The Best?

BTrain 2971

Spoiler alert. Temüjin Contract makes a lot of things good.

This is a powerhouse Nexus deck that can set itself up quickly and cheaply, while still being able to threaten regularly thanks to standard criminal tricks and a robust breaker suite that can work even without Nexus. You'll need to focus on early card draw and early money to make sure you get your engine online quickly.

The Bread & Butter:

Career Fair, The Supplier, and Earthrise Hotel. Clickless economy in a set-up deck is critical, and your Career Fairs are there to save you money while you get the pieces in place. One of the most important decisions you'll need to make with this deck is when to save money with the Supplier, and when to lay on the pressure with direct installs. Depending on how well set-up the corporation is, or on how quickly you need to find pieces, it's often better to put Earthrise on the board directly instead of getting it into play off the Supplier (remembering that start of turn effects don't trigger on the same turn a card is installed via Supplier). The same is true for Kati Jones. Sometimes it's better to get her on the board and immediately start loading her with credits than it is to wait for a 2 discount. A lot of your drip pieces though like Underworld Contact or The Turning Wheel are perfect for the Supplier, especially in the case of UC if you have yet to hit 2.

The Workhorses:

Obviously Security Nexus is the primary driver here, but now Temüjin Contract can provide this card the it needs to really kick things into overdrive. Play Temüjin on an undefended server and you make ridiculous amounts of money that same turn, while accessing cards, and that will either force the corporation to defend or let you print 16. It's good. Enough said.

The Not-So-Obvious:

I made a couple choices with this deck that are a little "off-meta" so I'll explain those really quickly. Easy Mark was a card I didn't make room for until later rounds of testing. It's in to smooth out your early money because the deck would occasionally struggle with the up-front install costs of a lot of things. The card slots used to be later game money in the form of 3x Power Tap, but I freed up room for the 3x Easy Mark and everything flows much easier. Power Tap is in as a one-of, because as real as we all want the PT/Nexus dream to be, it often ends up being a win-more card. I still think it absolutely earns its one-of slot, especially when it comes in off Supplier, because you'll be surprised at how quickly it earns you money. HQ Interface is in instead of Legwork because I cut Same Old Thing for my third Easy Mark, and I still think it's the right choice. No Sneakdoor Beta to combo with, but that's okay - the corp still has to respect the possibility of Sneakdoor, and in this deck, it's a card that's a bit unwieldy anyway.

The What-Comes-Next:

In considering changes moving forward, I'm mostly focusing on the breaker suite. Corroder will likely be out in favor of Paperclip, which means Gordian Blade will be cut for Zu to free up influence. The good news is there will be one extra card slot since Paperclip would eliminate the need for Breach. That would mean maybe one extra Power Tap, or maybe even the Sneakdoor I cut earlier.

2 comments
19 Aug 2016 Smattc

Hi. I have been working on something similar. How have you found matchups against ctm and sync. Do you lose key pieces like supplier to breaking news etc?

19 Aug 2016 BTrain

@Smattc: Breaking news into The All-Seeing I can straight up wipe this deck. If you come across a CTM that is spamming assets, that means that you're going to have to do your due diligence and check remotes, especially once you get set up and you have resources to protect. But on the other hand, if you're well set up with all those resources to lose, that means you're in a good spot to stay ahead of CTM's game plan. Trash their resources and keep them poor (or if nothing else, keep the money lead on them), and then essentially you to try to wait them out and stop them from establishing a scoring plan.