Friends in Dead Spaces

Mordeqai 1817

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BACK AGAIN

I've been waiting for this new MWL to drop for a while before posting this, since nothing had really changed since Dead Space 2, runner side. Corps got a lot of new tools as far as asset spam is concerned, but runner meta was stagnant and predictable.

But now we have a new meta, and a resurrection of Dead Space. Some alternate win conditions, such as EoI, have been dropped in favor of a more consistent BOOM! wincon, backed with significantly more recursion and economy.

So let's take a look, starting with...

The Core:

  • Wincon: Mumbad City Hall, the holy grail of tutoring. With MCH>Consulting Visit, you're often able to throw out a Hard-Hitting News after almost every runner turn once you've set up an econmy. Using it to toss out Museums to recur Consulting Visits allows you to refresh your tutorable pool quite reliably, and maintain pressure by delivering 2nd and 3rd HHNs when the runner tries to trash a Zealous Judge. Furthermore, even though MCH is only a 1x, any Tech Startup can reliably chain into it, allowing you to set up your threat very consistently.

  • Econ: Indian Union Stock Exchange, Turtlebacks, and NASX combine to form a rapidly accelerating and strong economy when consistently backed up by recurred Friends in High Places. Tech Startups can begin to net you up to 9 credits with each install, and 28 cards in the deck become either free or turn a profit on rez. Commercial Bankers Group is of course included, but I've found in my experience that it's far too easily handled without additional support, which we have in the form of both the ID and Encryption Protocol. The driving force behind an asset based econ is to provide you with a non-capped number of credits, and to tax the runner a greater amount than you invested when they try to stop you. Friends and Encryption serve this function to great effect.

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Tricks and Tech:

  • Sandburg can allow you a pseudo-glacier strategy if tagging fails, and can really help in locking up centrals. Without Sifr, a Tour Guide-Sandburg server creates a major problem that is either unsolvable for the runner (when taking your credit gain into account), or taxes them heavily enough to open tagging windows.

  • Zealous Judge allows you to assuredly tag the runner after an HHN, so should usually be protected by and ICE with the aforementioned Sandburg somewhere on the table. Usually after a run on a Judge, you can Jackson Howard to put Consulting Visit and HHN back in your deck, and tutor it out the following turn.

  • Elizabeth Mills: NACH and Slums exists. Also Valencia I guess.

  • Best Defense allows you to destroy key breakers to lock in Sandburg, or snipes stupid bullshit like DLR.

  • Freelancer allows you to further deal with DLR a bit better, and also has the potential to pay you while you do it. Even Consulting Visit>Freelancer isn't a terrible play when you have Indian Union.


The Common Plays:

  • At it's core, you want to achieve Mumbad City Hall into Consulting Visit-HHN, then follow up with a tutored BOOM!. This combo is strengthened by Zealous Judge and Museum of History, but the second turn can be patched up with a Jackson Howard.

  • NASX can lead to some serious shit. Depending on how many econ pieces you have you, you can wrack upwards of 15 tokens on this before popping it, all in one turn. Additionally, once it's been tutored out, it gives you a consistent profitable target for Friends.

  • Recurring Tech Startups with Turtlebacks and Indian Unions on the board is an aggressive and profitable way to rapidly advance your boardstate. They also give you consistent targets for Friends, similar to NASX.

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Troublesome Runners, and How To Deal:

The MWL kinda did that.

See You All in Prison!

11 comments
14 Apr 2017 scd

This may be a dumb question from a non-prison player, but with a singleton Boom and singleton MCH, both of which are so crucial to the wincon, how do you deal with an early Slums? Lose either from the game and... you're screwed? Should novice prison players slot more?

14 Apr 2017 Mordeqai

@scd I actually end up hiding things in Archives a lot. You can run 1x scorched if you're worried.

14 Apr 2017 Mordeqai

@scd Also, Mills is pretty easy to get out when you need her

14 Apr 2017 scd

Oh yeah, Lizzie's in here. Cool.

14 Apr 2017 rubyvr00m

I'm with @scdon this one, I've played a similar Gagarin prison deck that I actually derived from one of your old Dead Space lists (thanks btw!) and I've had too many important cards slums by my opponents so I always try to build in some redundancy.

Since you've played this version a bit, if you were going to include extra copies of say Zealous Judge, Sandburg, MCH or Boom! which ones would be priority @Mordeqai? I also wonder if it's worth looking at MCA Informant to deal with connections, but I guess that might be overkill.

14 Apr 2017 Mordeqai

@rubyvr00m Definitely a second Zealous. 2 of them is just so much better than 1. However, with MCH on the MWL, Boom! being able to hide in Archives, and Sandburg being a fringe strategy, they should likely all stay 1x. I know I praise MCH a lot, but it's possible to win without it.

15 Apr 2017 rubyvr00m

I sleeved it up today with -1 Paywall Implementation, -1 Freelancer, +1 Zealous Judge, +1 Executive Search Firm. I figure the Search firm just let's you recur Mills a bit more effectively in the event they have multiple Salsette Slums or New Angeles.

First game I tried it I had 140+ credits and the Sandburg actually let me score out before I was able to Boom! my opponent. 10/10 would make bank again. Great work on the deck.

17 Apr 2017 artsel

this go hard.

20 Apr 2017 FightingWalloon

So killing MCH and Mumbad City Hall are the most important priorities vs this deck?

20 Apr 2017 FightingWalloon

I mean Museum and MCH.

13 May 2017 solknar

Thanks for this interesting list (at least to play with, I am not sure that the runner finds what you're trying to do fun :) ).

Would you play illegal arms factory here ? I know the bad pub hurts, but if you can protect it it's a mini sensie in faction :)