Freegan Mutation Engine

trustworthym 1382

I've never been a huge fan of HB, and it's really for one reason: with all that amazing ice, I just want to build ice fortresses, but I never have the money to rez it against any runner worth their salt.

Cue the Freegan Mutation Engine.

This deck is built around getting the big ice you want for as cheap as possible, or ideally free. Put down your cheap ice in the early game - Eli 1.0, Wall of Static, Quandary, Viktor 1.0, and make them go fetch a breaker. While they're doing it, use that window to either score an Accelerated Beta Test or Precognition -> Mutate your ice fortresses into something far beyond what they're able to scale that early in the game.

I regularly overadvance Vitruvius in this deck to allow me to pull back Mutate and Precog or errant agendas from using ABT without Jackson Howard. Jackson also helps load the deck up with ice which I've discarded (which you'll be doing a lot of - no point keeping that Wotan around normally because you're unlike to rez it straight up) prior to an ABT or a blind Mutate fire. I fairly regularly fire Mutate without using Precognition first, which considering the amount of ice in here has a higher than usual chance of working; plus, since this isn't a deck predicated on surprise ice, it's no real disadvantage to reveal a bunch of your deck to the runner considering you shuffle afterwards.

A real priority is getting the necessary ice rezzed so you can Mutate it. If they use Inside Job or Feint or other tricks, rez the ice anyway, and if they look Parasite happy then you've got to act fast. On the other hand, this deck is the best response to Femme Fatale / Knight shenanigans; shaking the token off your Heimdall 1.0 by turning it into a Janus is beautiful.

Adonis Campaign and Melange Mining Corp. serve as back up cash to get ice rezzed outside of the shenanigans, and they both pull their weight well. Runners also often trash my Adonis, not realising it's actually sort of a back-up strat in this deck rather than a necessary piece of the puzzle.

Really fun deck, would recommend playing it!

5 comments
3 Jul 2014 x3r0h0ur

I would like to see archived memories and efficiency committee. With a scored EC you can AM a MMC and install it, and use it all in one turn, forcing the runner to run. AM gives you flexibility on mutate and, less frequently, precog. Consider that!

3 Jul 2014 Brislock

Bioroid Efficiency Research is a good add for this...

3 Jul 2014 trustworthym

I like both the ideas, but then I'd invariably have to cut down the ice and that makes blind firing the ABT or Mutate much less reliable. Keeping the ice high makes it a lot more straightforward and efficient I think, although you're probably right if I wanted to make it a little more competitive and a little less goofy, heh. I might do it though after fooling around in testing a little more!

3 Jul 2014 esutter479

If only NEXT Design supported this idea! Too few influence though, heh.

3 Jul 2014 trustworthym

@esutter479 Exactly my first thought, it'd be perfect. Oh well!