Iceless Team SportsMoon

CelestialSpark 321

Revision note: Remove 3x Green Level Clearance, 1x Advanced Assembly Lines, and 2x False Lead. Add 1x Archived Memories, 1x Cyberdex Virus Suite, 2x Bifrost Array, and 3x Shipment from MirrorMorph.

This deck is essentially what happens if you put as many of the most broken non-kill-combo cards in the same deck as possible and leave out everything else. You literally just keep installing 1- and 0-point agendas next to Estelle Moon, mixing in your upgrades if you'd like. It doesn't matter if they get trashed; your only goals are to have a Moon with power counters and to force the runner to blindly pick up 4 or 5 agendas.

At this point, simply trigger Estelle Moon, install another if you'd like, play as many Game Changers as possible (will usually be all three; you can discard early ones and use Archived Memories to get them back), then use Fast Break, Restore, Estelle Moon, Team Sponsorship triggers, etc. to create a board state where you have Arella Salvatore and at least two Team Sponsorships down, with two Calibration Testings available to recur every time an agenda is scored. This allows you to score every agenda in HQ in zero clicks (not even allowing paid abilities from the runner once you're set up), and since HQ will likely be 20+ cards, you've won the game immediately.

Research Grant is special in that it scores immediately with 0 advancements if installed with Team Sponsorship after another Research Grant is scored. Use this to help build your board state just that little bit faster.

Mulligan priorities: 1) Avoid Project Vitruvius 2) Avoid having more than one Team Sponsorship (they can be drawn with Moon later but are harder to get out of archives) 3) Good cards are Domestic Sleepers, Estelle Moon, Hyperloop Extension, Calibration Testing, and any operations.

Weird runner matchups:

Clan Vengeance: Trivial to deal with unless they never run and try to score 7 points at once from archives. Aggressively install cards and force runs--you can still go infinite without Game Changer if you get the cards set up, so they have to run, which will make them pick up agendas. Once Game Changer is active, you can pull enough cards with Moon that it doesn't matter what they hit.

Apocalypse: You have zero central protection, but it doesn't matter because you can still score out from a completely blank board in one turn.

The Shadow Net: Auto-loss by decking out if they're smart and use it on Dirty Laundry to keep up with everything you install while never accumulating agendas. Include resource-trashing tech if you're expecting it instead of more than one Breaker Bay Grid/Advanced Assembly Lines (Moon + Sportsmetal triggers can usually get you the money you need to win).

Employee Strike/Hacktivist Meeting/Rumor Mill: Annoying, but should not disrupt your overall gameplan. Rumor Mill is the worst since it makes getting your super turn less consistent; it's important to use your ID to draw a huge hand rather than take credits if you can't get there with Moon.

Clot: Just slot a Cyberdex Virus Suite if you're worried about it. See Clone Chip, hold onto it for the Game Changer turn. It's not too common, though.

Gang Sign: Pray to RNGesus. Hold any cards you can spare that are not agendas or key combo pieces, and score Vitruviuses first. Still a really rough matchup, and hard to slot enough tech to make it work.

Leela Patel: Trained Pragmatist: The game-ending combo requires a third Team Sponsorship and Calibration Testing and very careful click management, as she can bounce your Arella install back into HQ before you can score it when you're trying to go infinite.

17 comments
20 Jul 2018 CommissarFeesh

This is pure glorious unadulterated madness and I love it

20 Jul 2018 Skeletons

Time to slot Marathon I guess. :P

20 Jul 2018 Cpt_nice

vomits

20 Jul 2018 Sutlomatsch

Oh thy Medium, why have you forsaken us?!

20 Jul 2018 CelestialSpark

Honestly, I feel the Green Level Clearances are doing nothing. Either dropping to 45 cards (because you don't care about agenda density, but really need to consistently draw multiple Calibration Testings, Game Changers, and Team Sponsorships) or adding some anti-Shadow Net tech would probably be a big improvement. Not sure if all three Breaker Bays are necessary; if you install another Estelle Moon on your scoring turn, that should give enough credits to use all the Calibration Testings, but it's possible that you'll really be broke and barely be able to afford the Game Changers, in which case one is needed.

20 Jul 2018 eXister

Cool, just started to play around this idea and look what i found :D would love to tweak it better

21 Jul 2018 rvt

I'm probably not reading the cards correctly, but I don't see a way to recur Calibration Testings when an agenda is scored.

21 Jul 2018 rvt

please disregard my last comment for I am an idiot

22 Jul 2018 EnderA

This has been a blast to play, thank you for publishing this!

The current changes I've made are:

-3 GLC, -1 Advanced Assembly Lines

+3 Turing, +1 Shipment from MirrorMorph, +1 Archived Memories.

Often I found myself losing to them just moneying up and taking out the right targets, with them never falling behind on the econ war. I think Turing is the best piece of ice to tax the runner on a remote right now. Aumakua can't break it, Black Orchestra costs 6 to boost/break, etc. The other consideration would be Architect, but MKUltra and Aumakua both break it easily.

I also often found myself stuck with a turn where I really wanted to fast advance a card in my hand without spending Game Changer, or to install Team Sponsorships before a score, and just couldn't. If I installed them, they would run them and trash/steal. Shipment from MirrorMorph lets you install multiple cards on multiple servers in a single click. It also makes an excellent play with Estelle Moon.

22 Jul 2018 coyotemoon722

Unwittingly Film Critic'd the first of the two winning agendas before the corp scored 6 points the next turn XD

22 Jul 2018 CelestialSpark

@EnderAI did make another revision to the deck: currently it has no GLC or AAL, 2 Shipment from MirrorMorph, and 3 Archived Memories. I don't feel like you actually need to protect your upgrades with ice, though; you're either going to draw and install them to same turn, or Archived Memories/Restore them back, then immediately end the game. You need them to look identical to agendas or install them next to agendas so the runner has to blindly pick up agendas; otherwise, they can set up for a big turn where they attempt to reach 7 in one fell swoop.

23 Jul 2018 EnderA

It's not the upgrades that need protecting, it's the Team Sponsorships and Estelle Moons. Trashing them limits the economy and delays the combo significantly. Getting to keep just one Team Sponsorship on the board for random scores, or hold an Estelle Moon for an extra turn's worth of installs, is incredibly valuable. As is costing the runner so many credits/clicks that they're slowed down significantly.

If this were in CI, then we could hide everything in HQ until it was time to strike (but then we don't get insane $$$/draw, obviously) and thus wouldn't have to commit anything to the board after a Fast Break or Estelle Moon. But we can't do that, anything we don't install gets discarded, and we have a finite supply of TS/AM/Restore/Game Changer to threaten with. If they burn through those through some combination of economy/bad pub/vengeance/rebirth into EdKim, we're dead in the water.

As for The Shadow Net tech, I tried Best Defense as the most straightforward solution, but I don't think we can afford to waste a slot on it. I think the best option is to pray we can disrupt them with a Chronos Project at the right time. As a 3/1 agenda it effectively takes no space and can randomly help us in other situations. I also feel False Lead isn't good enough, and Bifrost Array is better (it helps combo in conjunction with half our agendas, especially TFIN/DHPP.) So something like -2 False Lead +1-2 Chronos +0-1 Bifrost is a good swap. Another threat is Salsette Slums, which people may start playing vs the CI Dedication Ceremony + Reconstruction Contract combo deck/CtM/Gagarin. That'll definitely be a problem, particularly in combination with all the other Val goodstuff. There's some amount of playing around it, but at that point we're playing around so many cards it becomes nearly impossible. There are some other matchups that are basically impossible (Counter Surveillance/Deep Data Mining are brutal if timed properly) but there's nothing we can do about that.

Regardless, this has been a very fun deck to play, the surprise factor is off the charts, lol!

24 Jul 2018 Rek

Does Estelle Moon stay unrezzed? Surely the runner runs her immediately once she's rezzed and you only get 2-3 counters on her.

26 Jul 2018 Crowe

I have been playing a very similar list, except I'm running 23 agendas (all 1 pointers + 3 domestic sleepers). I have come to the conclusion that ice is indeed a waste of time, and sticking to 45 cards increases the consistency dramatically. I disagree with cutting False Lead, and would not have any less than 3x in my deck. False Lead is a key card and lets you manage the amount of agendas you're feeding your opponent. At 45 cards you can just straight up win on turn 2 or 3 depending on how foolishly aggressive the runner was.

I only run 2 x Estelle Moon. She's ultimately unnecessary, but strictly better than GLC as it combos well with the deck. A good combo turn is install Moon, rez Moon > Fast Break > pop moon after installs, game changer = you probably have the combo in hand now, and if you don't you can just fast break until you find it.

Ultimately, there's lots of stuff that ruins your deck, but I think worrying about it all is a trap. Just stick to the plan and win as fast possible.

28 Jul 2018 EnderA

Interesting direction to take the deck, I'll have to try it out. I've found Vitruvius counters quite valuable in setting up a combo (making trashing much less relevant), but they are also a liability at 2 points.

The main time I want ice is against a Reg Val/MaxX that can afford to spend 3-4 clicks each turn trashing/checking my stuff/clearing HQ, particularly of Team Sponsorships. I think Turing is the most efficient at slowing them down (Aumakua proof, and 6c to break with Black Orchestra), and it happens to be nice when people assume it's an Architect.

31 Jul 2018 Vortilion

I don't understand this deck. Runners always snipe estelle or team sponsorship..., or econ is bad... Dunno how to score with this...

5 Aug 2018 CelestialSpark

You don't need any TS installed except on the turn you are going to win. Use a Fast Break to power a newly installed Moon if you can (you can install over cards in the same server while resolving the card if you need to, for additional counters). Some of your TS's will spend most of the game tucked in R&D to be drawn or tutored with The Future Is Now on your last turn, unless you have poor luck; it's fine if one or two ends up in archives. You're aiming to have like ten clicks to set up an autowin board state all at once, not trying to outpace the runner over time.