[startup] Turbo Tao

A Tao deck with speedy set up and powerful late game.

This deck is using Endurance with a fairly standard breaker rig for shaper right now:

• 1x Buzzsaw
• 1x Echelon
• 1x Cleaver
• 2x K2CP Turbine
• 1x Conduit

It's well understood that this rig will let you break most ice in startup for pennies, and for the massive, triple-advanced Pharos, Endurance will get you the rest of the way.

This set up is very popular with Captain Padma Isbister: Intrepid Explorer decks right now, where you try to get as much value out of Endurance as possible and use Padma counters to charge things like Dr. Nuka Vrolyck and Earthrise Hotel.

The first main place we deviate is the use of Spark of Inspiration.

• To use Spark of Inspiration effectively, we have to make sure there is no breaker redundancy in our deck. (This is okay in startup format where cards like Ark Lockdown don't exist.) This means we usually get a new piece that we need.
• You might think that it's bad not to be able to choose exactly what breaker you get like you can with Mutual Favor, but it's not that much of a disadvantage. Whatever you get, it is installed and pulled out of your deck so you don't have to worry about drawing a duplicate later. Usually any 2/3 breakers is sufficient to win the game, as Endurance can break the remaining ice.
• To recur our breakers if they get rigshot (looking at you Nanisivik Grid), we do it the Shaper way -- we play Test Run.
• To help pay for the costs of Spark of Inspiration and Test Run, we have 2x Prepaid VoicePAD.

Between our 6 programs, 3 sparks, 2 into the depths, and 2 test runs, we have 13 cards that are either a piece of a rig or can help us find the next piece. If you've drawn 5 of these cards you can probably have a full rig (if you need it). This is why you can expect to be fully set up, or close to it, after drawing only <40% of your deck.

Spark also helps you overcome the hard-start problem when you primarily rely on Into the Depths to tutor programs. If the corp ices up too quickly, you might have a hard time ensuring a successful run.

Prepaid VoicePAD does a ton of work in a deck like this -- it both helps find and install your programs, and recur them, and play the normal shaper econ events.

The second thing we do differently is, we place higher value on Tāo Salonga: Telepresence Magician's ability than Padma's extra counters.

Padma allows you to build up to crazy numbers of counters on Endurance, and become the unstoppable Juggernaut. However, these counters do not directly win the game for you. Even if you have ten counters on the boat, you can still lose by flatline, or your boat can be trashed by Retribution, or by Nanisivik Grid.

Tao's boat may have fewer counters, but Tao's ability reshapes the landscape such that he doesn't need so many counters.

• If the corp doesn't ice archives, we can get boat counters by running there, and also benefit from Info Bounty and Dirty Laundry there, getting a lot of value for a single click.
• If the corp does ice archives, then we can move the corps nastiest ice there to clear the way for HQ, R&D, and the remote.

Tao's ability is extremely disruptive to the corp's plans and you usually want to use it to cause as much chaos as possible.

• If the corp only commits one ice to R&D, then a major threat of yours is, if they ever score an agenda, you respond by swapping a tiny ice to R&D, then installing conduit and running 3 times. (Bonus points if you run click 1 using Into the Depths to tutor Conduit just in time for the first access.) Usually you can win with conduit faster than the corp can score out, even if the scoring remote is pretty secure.
• If the corp overcommits to R&D, then usually you want to abandon R&D, swap all the nastiest ice there (and archives), and win by remote lock and frequent runs to HQ.

As of Parhelion, corps cannot be on all 3 pointers, they have to have 2 pointers to make a legal deck. This makes Tao better than he was in the Ashes cycle -- you can expect to get more swap opportunities in the course of the game. Often you can start by hammering e.g. HQ and moving big ice to R&D, and by the end of the game, move big ice from R&D to archives and HQ and open up R&D for a big dig.

One thing to note is, you should usually use Tao's ability even if none of the ice is rezzed. You can always seek to cause chaos by moving ice between remotes and centrals. Often the remote ice is ETR and the central ice is taxing ice that doesn't end the run. If you move porous ice to the remote, it may delay the corps game plan immensely. Also, a lot of ice is highly positional -- putting ice in a place different from where the corp put it is usually to your benefit. Moving ice like Anvil or Mestnichestvo away from where the corp wants it to be, for instance, is some of the most value I've gotten from Tao's ability, and it's certainly more than 3 or 4 boat counters.

The other thing I would say is that, a lot of Captain Padma Isbister: Intrepid Explorer decks effectively use Padma's ability for Dr. Nuka Vrolyck or Earthrise Hotel counters, to get more draw. (Rather than always powering up the boat.) With Spark of Inspiration, you basically don't need as much draw. So that's another reason supporting the choice of Tao here over Captain Padma Isbister: Intrepid Explorer.

In order to win, our two multi-access cards are Conduit and Docklands Pass.

We choose not to use the popular WAKE Implant v2A-JRJ or The Twinning.

• In decks without Cezve, the The Twinning cannot reliably be charged every turn. In this deck, the only card that can charge The Twinning is Prepaid VoicePAD, so Twinning is a dead card until we've drawn PPVP. Docklands Pass can be effective earlier.
• Using WAKE Implant v2A-JRJ effectively requires you to be able to run HQ successfully again and again, and then occasionally make R&D runs. However, this is not really how Tao games work. Often you can't make both servers easy to access at the same time, so going back and forth frequently isn't really going to be possible.

You should try to aggressively contest the corps econ. Use credits from Info Bounty to pay for trashing things like Regolith Mining License and Marilyn Campaign, don't let the corp just have those things for free. Tao's ability is even more devastating when the corp can't afford to rez all their ice.

It's unfortnuate we had to cut Paricia to make Spark of Inspiration. In most decks I would say Paricia is a lot more valuable than Spark of Inspiration, but not in this deck.

If your meta is Near-Earth Hub: Broadcast Center heavy, I would consider trying to fit in a Scrubber or something, it might do more work for you than Docklands Pass.

Thanks to Meryu and others for helpful discussions. I'm sure the deck can be made even speedier if you cut some cards, but I don't think you really want to go below 45, or you are probably going to lose to PE.