HM: Welcome to the clinic

Oneiro 260

So i tried to built a solid Medtech-Deck since H&P hit the stores and with this deck i finally had a huge amount of success.

Although i like the high risk, high reward play of a two-pointer Medtech build i feel, that it is just too inconsistent and barely wins against strong players. This 3-point agenda build though, seems really really solid.

I had the idea to build a medtech-glacier deck after fiddling around with my replicating perfection deck, which is still unbeaten. Instead of relying on traps and mushin no shin shenaningans i built this deck as a classic scoring-server deck and playtesting so far has shown, that this idea is indeed not too bad. (7-2 stats)

So what do we have in here? First of all the agenda mix: As you see there is nothing too fancy about it. Future Perfects are your agenda buffer, to make stealing one as hard as possible. You mainly want to score those priority requistions, which have the nice side effect of letting you rez an expensive ice for free - and we have lots of expensive ice in here!

Assets: As soon as your scoring server has at least one big ice in front of it you can start using GRNDL refineries to either let the runner waste his credits on a tollbooth and afterwards only trash the refinery or to get a huge amount of credits on your next turn.

Jackson helps to get everything you need and can also support you on getting rid of a hand full of agendas.

The mining corps are another way to effectively use your scoring server for protection and get lots of money the next turn.

Shock is in there to give a possible kill on reckless runners who don't want to jack out after a komainu. Also, because of the taxing nature of this deck, there will appear situations, in which the runner isn't even able to trash it from rnd or hq.

Caprice Nisei: Yeah, Jintekis most beloved clone detective... nothing else to say here ;)

Operations: All operations are mainly eco-based and help you to recover from paying for exp. ice or an account siphon. Closed Accounts gives siphon + tag me-runners a bad time and fast track is just there to get your second prio req, if you can't seem to find it.

ICE: The ice mixture is mainly about taxing (yagura, pup, komainu, inazuma, snowflake in front of rnd) and keeping the runner out (tollbooth, tsurugi, inazuma, wall of thorns, snowflake either on hq or on your remote). I would also recommend to get one really expensive ice in front of your archives against most runners, because of stuff like security testing, data sucker, sneakdoor beta and so on).

If you draw it, guard can be used as the outermost piece of ice on your remote, so the runner can't inside job anymore. Also a swordsman can help out on the remote, especially against runners using the central breaker-suite with a back up crypsis/ overmind/ knight (which is fairly common in the meta right now).

Yeah, i am pretty happy with this deck right now. Let me know what you think :)

18 comments
27 May 2014 KidFist0

did you consider shi-kyu over shock?

27 May 2014 Oneiro

Yeah, i used them in an earlier build and am still considering to put them back in. The problem is, that my local meta likes to play at least one data-dealeler right now, which is not only negating shik.kyu but turning it into profit for the runner.

I am also still unsure about the ruling made by lucas litzinger via Twitter - if it is possible to just not activate shi.kyus power if you face a runner with data dealer i might put it back in, but if the runner can always choose to take it as an agenda, shi.kyu is a tough card to sacrifice a deckslot for (espacially if you consider how expensive it can get)

27 May 2014 KidFist0

fair enough, i think ive seen data dealer once in about 20 odd games while running a similar deck so that hadnt occurred to me.

27 May 2014 Jashay

How expensive it gets is up to you, though; 1 is an overpriced shock, 3 is an underpriced Snare, etc. I tend to go for two. Although, if Data Dealer is prevalent, then perhaps not.

Given that you have to hard-score the agendas, your ice seems too fragile to keep a runner out reliably. That said, you went 7-2, so it must do the job!

Did you get much use out of closed accounts? Relying on the runner to trigger seems odd.

27 May 2014 Oneiro

Until now i haven't had any problems with keeping the runner out, because my scoring server and hq are protect by tollbooth, wall of thorns and so on. Although the runner can get through R&D whenever he wants, it will cost him so much, that he doesn't want to run it too often (e.g. if there's one komainu, one pup, a yagura and a inazuma in front of it, it gets really taxing). I played some criminals with the central breakers on OCTGN (andy, sillhouette and Tenma) and got an agenda stolen from R&D only once, so i am not too afraid of them finding one.

I put closed accounts in this deck, because i had a spare influence point on the one hand and i wanted to have some kind of anti-tag me play on the other. If needed i can recur it with jackson. It is so hilarious if the runner siphons you, but you have enough credits left to play two fundraisers and a closed accounts the next turn. Closed Acc goes in line with the taxing scheme as well.

At the moment the only thing i am not too sure of are those two snowflakes.

27 May 2014 Oneiro

I think the key with this deck is to see when there is a scoring window and to always have an eye on the board state. It is important to be able to rezz every ice you have in play if needed. So if your centrals are barely protected i would not overcommit on scoring an agenda, if you would have only a few credits left afterwards. Sometimes you can even just use a melange several turns in a row.

27 May 2014 Torf

One,two, three Questions :D Why Closed Accounts? Did i miss something? How will the runner get tagged?

27 May 2014 Oneiro

I splash Closed Accounts mainly as a meta-call, because lots of people in my local meta like to go "tag-me". I still consider switching out the shocks for snares though, because i actually don't need real archive protection.

I switched out the snowflakes for bastions in my last octgn matches and it worked quite well, so i might stick with those. Also my winrate is currently 9-2.

28 May 2014 slevin38

No room for Ash 2X3ZB9CY?

28 May 2014 Oneiro

Yeah, Ash would probably shine in this kind of deck, but i can't afford the influence. GRNDL is too important for my economy and i don't want to drop tollbooth and jackson either.

28 May 2014 slevin38

I have been running it with Ash instead of GRNDL and running Mental Health Clinics, but I will definitely try this version out

28 May 2014 Oneiro

Ash can be very good. I also tried to play health clinics, but the problem is, that you don't want to install these into your scoring server, because otherwise you need to trash them so early, that they don't net you enough credits. But you don't want to ice up another remote and so they get trashed way too fast. GRNDL on the other hand can force the runner to make an expensive run on your scoring server or otherwise it nets you at least 10 credits the next turn, so you can get from poor to rich very very fast (which is scary for the runner, considering the strong ice we play).

The same thing goes for the melanges. Classic drip eco is def. not what you want to play with this kind of deck.

28 May 2014 slevin38

Fair enough. I was actually not protecting them though. At worst, for anyone other than Whizzard it is lose 3 creds

28 May 2014 Oneiro

Yeah, but to trash an installed grndl inside of the scoring server they would've to pay even more, because there should be some taxing ice in front of it (and after you scored first agenda they have to run it anyway).

And as you said Whizzard pretty much kills health clinics ;)

28 May 2014 rzimodnar

I'd consider Susanoo-No-Mikoto over Wall of Thorns or Tsurugi. It is more expensive than both of those and it is vulnerable to Knight. But it is less prone to Parasite, attracts Femme tokens away from Tollbooth, and harder for Atman to deal with (Inazuma, Tollbooth, and Wall of Thorns all sit at str 5).

28 May 2014 Oneiro

Nice suggestion. Switching out one wall of thorns for a susanoo might definitely be a good choice. I will try that out in one of my future games :)

28 May 2014 slevin38

I have run both and prefer Susanoo. I also run Shi Kyu and it can force the runner into one. Then usually the runner needs to steal 3 agenda instead of 2

8 Jun 2014 Oneiro

Ok, i think i've finally found my arch enemy with this deck - every big rig shaper with Magnum Opus really gets me into trouble (if i am not able to burn through my first agenda fast)

I am still trying to figure out, how i could make this deck work against strong Opus-Decks. I didn't have had too much trouble against all other opponents, so i still think, that a medtech build like this is viable. (one or two junebugs, might be worth a deckslot...)