Xhairs

Handsome Jack 1631

I thought I didn't play asset based builds. I thought I was pure of heart. I thought I was safe with my jank. Then I made this. Pure, simple, tag beatdown. This deck is brutal. You have plenty of tricks to dismantle the runner, slow them down, and outright kill them. Additionally, tagme decks fold hard to this. Wonder how? The secret lies in two crucial cards.

Whampoa Reclamation + Shannon Claire.

With both on the board, you can indefinitely recur any card you want. I've BOOM!ed the runner 3 times in a row. I've Played All-Seeing I twice in one turn. The Best Defense is a great offense, and that is what the deck is all about.

Agendas: Agendas is a weird grab bag. i wanted to include as few as possible but you can add more here and cut a few assets, for example. Its really up to the pilot.

Operations: Money and Tag-Punishment. That's it. Threat Level Alpha is a flex spot. You can make that a Closed Accounts, or an Observe and Destroy, or a Keegan Lane or something.

ICE: Selected for taxation ability. All of these ICE are good on their own but even better with tags (minus Authenticator). Possibly add Data Loop.

Assets: There are 3 main components to the asset suite.

Draw: Daily Business Show

Cash: Campaigns, Bankers

Combo: Shannon, Whampoa, and Lily Lockwell

Lily is really fun to find the tag punisher one ofs, but she also shuffles R&D, so use her wisely.

And that's basically it to this deck! Have fun!

6 comments
22 Aug 2017 rubyvr00m

Thanks for sharing the list! I hadn't considered the synergy between Whampoa and Shannon Claire before.

I just tried playing the same list save for the agenda suite and maybe 2 operations on Jinteki net and it worked really well.

I was testing 3 Beale, 1 GFI, 3 Reeducation, 1 15 Minutes, and 1 Quantum Predictive Model.

I was thinking that by running Beale you have a bit more game with Psychographics and the QPM/15 Minutes both can turn on Exchange of Information which seems important when you're rocking actual 3 pointers.

22 Aug 2017 Handsome Jack

@rubyvr00m This is supposed to be a post rotation deck, so Project Beale is unfeasible in the long run, but I'm glad you are having success with that suite.

23 Aug 2017 rubyvr00m

Ah, I hadn't put together that it was all post rotation, but that explains the omission of Sweeps Week. I think your agenda suite is probably close to ideal in a post rotation environment. Do you find yourself able to score AR-Enhanced security often? The effect is amazing for the deck, but I was worried about including a 3/1 that I wouldn't be able to score (as opposed to Kitty or 15 Minutes).

The other thing I noticed in testing was that runners really hate the Whampoa and it's pretty much trash on sight. It's got me wondering if the 2nd bankers should be the 3rd Whampoa or maybe 2 copies of FiHP just to recur it a bit easier.

7 Sep 2017 krystman

I tried this at our meetup. I played this twice. Both were catastrophic losses.

Game 1 was against a tagme Maxx. Which seemed like it would be a good match-up. It was an interesting game. But in the end, the Runner was in control. Account Siphons and and a smooth win with deep R&D digs. Jarogniew Mercs kept runner alive. I was able to score Reeducation with a Psychographics. It didn't do much. Every time the board state got to a level where it might be doing something, the runner just trashed everything. No recursion. Agendas piling on HQ. Ice and ability basically plays into the runner's game plan.

Game 2 was against Smoke. Smoke was rich because Temüjin. Never got even close to their credit level or landing any tag. Got the recursion engine going so I could recur some Hedge Funds I guess? Runner was easily able to control the board state anyway. Didn't trash the combo out of sheer curiosity, I think. No way to score agendas. Easy win on R&D with multi-access through like 3 ice.

The Shanon + Whampoa combo is cute but it has a lot moving parts, is extremely fragile and the payoff is rather tepid. Recurring Hedge Fund costs two clicks and a card and gains 4 credits? And that doesn't even take into account the clicks you invested in drawing, installing and rezzing those cards.

Here some things I noticed:

  • The agenda suite is super vulnerable, requiring only 3 scores to win the game and doesn't really contribute to the game plan. There is even nothing good to swap with Exchange of Information

  • There is no card draw - DBS is not card draw. You don't actually get more cards. This is asset spam and you can't really spam without drawing efficiently.

  • Whampoa is your only way to deal with Agendas piling up on HQ. And that is expensive, vulnerable and there is only 2 of those. I think the deck would be better off running things like Special Report or Preemptive Action.

  • Needs a way to land a tag if you're economically behind. Or a killer economy engine so you don't fall behind.

On the other hand, we had a lot of fun reading all of the new cards! Keep it up. Looking forward to the next iteration of this. :)

8 Sep 2017 Handsome Jack

@krystman Your experience is interesting, and I'm glad you tried you tried yo use it in the wild, even if it wasn't successful. Some things to note:

DBS should be your draw filter. It doesn't necessary draw you more cards, but it does ensure you always have the best card. Use it to bottom agendas you don't need, or operations that aren't useful right now. If you want actual,hard card draw, try Anonymous Tip or if you really, really want to, Sensie Actors Union.

Theoretically, Shannon Whampoa shouldn't be used to recur random Hedge Funds. The combo is best used when the runner is already tagged or drowning in tags to end the game or set them back even more. ususally if I draw into excess Shannons or Whampoas, I try to keep at least one on the board unrezzed,if your first set is already rest and vulnerable. Regarding Tagme and in General.O've found Scarcity of Resources to be very, very helpful. Threat Level Alpha is bad, it is only in that version because it is new. Scarcity of Resources can slow them down enough to get a reasonable engine up and running, possibly even score an agenda or two. If Shannon and Whampoa are on the board and the runner is set up, recur Biased Reporting. Tagme decks Ar usually resource heavy, and the economic boost from playing a Biased can help you bounce up from an Account Siphon, for example. Temüjin Contract is a welp, which is unfortunate. Possibly exchanging around some of the operations to add in Prisec could be a solid choice, offering a tag for 2 creds while also having the ability to protect your assets. Special Report might be a good one of, but it shuffles R&D, adding agendas you bottomed back into the game.

Ultimately I'm sorry this deck did not perform for you, but this is only the first version. any number of the changes above could help you into the future. Also worth noting is that this is a post rotation build, so Whizzard: Master Gamer and Scrubber will no longer be a problem.

Cheers!

9 Sep 2017 krystman

DBS is good in decks where there is a specific combo or linchpin you're trying to draw into. Like Astro Biotic back in the days. Or maybe a 24/7 Breaking News combo. Perhaps one way to improve the deck would be to define what that linchpin is in this case.

Just curious: you speak of "swimming in tags". How do you land those tags in your games? Hard Hitting News?