HB - "It's a trap!"

herod1204 394

So this is an updated version of my first HB trap deck, which is designed to win either by flatlining or advancing agendas, both are perfectly viable options depending on how the runner reacts.

Agendas: Vitruvius and Sentinel Defence program are both in for the flatlining potential. An overclocked Vitruvius (I tend to overadvance it by two, in my mind treating it like a 5/3 agenda) enables me to potentially neural emp the runner three times, or to pull back econ cards or snares just before the runner access HQ, whilst Sentinel Defence Program makes all the brain damage my deck can put out just that little bit scarier. Project Wotan is only in there to reduce agenda density by virtue of it being a 5/3. Sometimes those extra end the run subs are useful, and I do take them into account, but irritatingly they can also screw up any ambushes I am playing, so it's a bit swings and roundabouts.

Economy: Pretty standard I feel, ETF helps out a little, and I will quite happily click Melange four turns in a row whilst slowly refilling my hand. The extra money is a killer, especially if an Adonis is ticking down at the same time, and I don't mind giving the runner all that breathing space, for reasons that hopefully will become apparent.

Ice: All my ice is designed to be taxing as hell, and to encourage the runner to occasionally take the odd bit of brain damage to enable them to get into a server at what they perceive to be a crucial moment (i.e. a moment with a Cerebral sitting at the end of said server). It is an expensive set up, but I have the money for it, and I don't tend to run that many remotes, one or two on average, one of those being my "main" remote server which I score agendas or ambushes out of. The inazuma are both in there to assist with sticking brain damage to a runner, and tend to go on centrals. It's nice to put them in front of Heimdalls, but that is not always possible. However, if I have installed a Victor in front of HQ turn one, and then install TWO inazuma directly in front of it, I will almost certainly guarantee some brain damage the first time round, and then after that, have created a monstrously taxing server (the average break cost of an inazuma is 6 credits, the third most costly ice) at the low low price of just 3 credits per piece of ice. It pretty much locks the runner out of one of my centrals. Otherwise, obviously, pile the bioroids up as high as possible to stack their effects and prevent click throughs. Sherlock 1.0 is a rather useful tempo controller, again being a very expensive piece of ice to break, difficult to click through due to the subs, and if they let the subs fire, enabling me to slow them down even further. Viktor 2.0 also deserves a mention, as if I can get that hosted power counter condition to fire, it enables me to kill the runner in one turn with a single neural emp, an overclocked Vitruvius if they only have three cards in hand, I can do it with four cards with either a sentinel defence program score or a second counter.

Ambushes: With 6 ambushes to 9 agendas in my deck, I can guarantee a relatively consistent draw of them, and I treat them exactly the same way I treat almost any agenda. Obviously, the problem with them is working out precisely when to put them down and when to score an agenda, but I can normally time them relatively well. Snares stay in my hand as a defence against HQ runs, and get pulled back by Vitruvius' if they get trashed out. Two snares can really ruin an overconfident runners day when they just ran legwork on your three card hand.

In terms of playing it, ice up the centrals, and ice up a single, very taxing scoring server. That server is where traps and agendas go, and should be as punishing as possible for the runner. I sometimes end up icing that server 5 deep, which means that runner can only make a single run on it before bankruptcy, and I can use that to my advantage. The traps tend to work more in the mid-game, when I don't have a server that impregnable, but if I've hit them with a cerebral in the mid game and given them a couple of brain damage, it really makes their job a whole lot harder in the late game. Adonis' and Melange tend to go into single ice remotes where they can be left to their own devices and fuel the horrifically expensive ice that protects the important bits.

My only problems with the deck, are that bar neural emp I have no real way to actually get the runner myself (unless they float tags from a snare), and that occasionally my economy just doesn't get going, but that is just luck of the draw. I am toying with putting the eve campaign in, but I'm not sure what I would get rid of, as there aren't any cards that I really wouldn't want to come up.

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