40 Card Boom!!

LSK 4674

Here's a fun kill deck!

We've all seen Power Shutdown tag-and-bag decks before, but they've always been hampered by the need to have more credits than the runner. Not anymore! With 24/7 News Cycle, you can kill a runner from 5 credits, as soon as turn 3. You don't even need to score a second agenda, because that's an additional cost, and Accelerated Diagnostics ignores that additional cost.

Also: this deck's just 40 cards. That gets you to the combo faster! Cutting out nine cards relative to traditional Shutdown decks is almost a 20% decrease, which means we get to see our Power Shutdown and Diagnostics that much faster. That does mean there's an agenda density that's a bit higher than most decks, but it's not a problem because you can end most games quickly and we have Global Food Initiative doing a bit of work here.

Btw, you'll want to score a Breaking News as fast as possible, and you should strongly consider doing it on your first turn if possible. You'll need it to kill the runner.

The basic kill is:

Click 1 -> Install Jackson Howard

Click 2 -> Power Shutdown your entire deck (1 credit spent)

Click 3 -> Accelerated Diagnostics into 24/7 News Cycle (copying Breaking News), Traffic Accident, Scorched Earth (5 credits spent)

The deck can also kill through a Plascrete or I've Had Worse if you have two Diagnostics in your hand and a Jackson in play. And you can still do it for less than 10 credits:

Click 1 -> Power Shutdown (1 credit spent)

Click 2 -> Diagnostics into 24/7 News Cycle, Scorched Earth, Interns a Jackson (5 credits spent)

Click 3 -> Diagnostics into Subliminal Messaging, Scorched Earth, Traffic Accident (8 credits spent)

The 2 Cyberdex might be overkill right now, but you really really really need to score a Breaking News.

Potential changes:

  • Add a Shipment from SanSan to be able to score Breaking News off a Power Shutdown. This also requires the addition of a second Interns, so you can pull Cyberdex (if the kill's in hand) or another Jackson. My concern is that this might not lead to any plays that are more meaningful than the ones this deck already has.

  • Change a Shutdown to a Reclamation Order: This gives the deck a bit more flexibility in its Diagnostics packages. It makes it harder to get the combo started, though; you only need 1 Shutdown but it's a really important card

  • Switch the ice up: The ice here is a first-try effort. I'm not sure what I'd change, but Data Raven probably stays.

  • MORE CARDS? I'm not in love with this option. Maybe someone else should consider this.

8 comments
30 Sep 2015 Phoenix

In order to pop the combo, you need 2 agendas scored, one of which is a Breaking News. That's a big ask by turn 3 isn't it?

30 Sep 2015 LSK

Accelerated Diagnostics ignores additional costs, so you only need one Breaking News scored. I'll edit that into the description.

30 Sep 2015 Greasythumb

Noise?

30 Sep 2015 LSK

This deck's not really optimized for the Noise matchup :)

Against Noise you've got to go super fast and try to go off before they get a Clone Chip or Street Peddler down. Alternatively, you can try to get your meat damage in hand and just kill them like a Butcher Shop deck.

30 Sep 2015 EnderA

You could try to fit in Cerebral Static to take care of Noise: Hacker Extraordinaire.

Thankfully, running the combo out of NBN makes it much easier to trash Shards that might be in play. Still, I'm wondering what SYNC: Everything, Everywhere really adds to the deck other than having 5 fewer cards. Near-Earth Hub: Broadcast Center would give you 2 more influence to work with.

30 Sep 2015 LSK

The reason to play SYNC is mostly as an exercise in min-maxing - the deck can kill faster if it draws its combo pieces faster. NEH is certainly the more resilient ID for a Power Shutdown kill combo.

That said, it makes Gutenberg and Data Raven that much more annoying :)

30 Sep 2015 EnderA

Another card you could consider is Lily Lockwell. It combos with Breaking News quite well if you score it with at least one click left. Note that you'll need to draw a card in-between uses or you'll just shuffle the previous one away.

5 Oct 2015 jakodrako

Man, somebody beat me to it! :P I've been playing this deck in NEH for the past month or so and it is silly fast. Other stupid options with ignoring the forfeit on 24/7 include pumping up AstroScript and scoring the last agenda or two from deck.

One thing I've been wanting to try but haven't yet is putting Invasion of Privacy and/or Snoop in there to get rid of the I've Had Worse problem. That's pretty much the only problem card I've experienced in testing so far.