[Startup Borealis] Pocket Chameleon

Summary:

Hyperbaric is a good late-game decoder. With Kit it also gains formidable early-game presence. When boosted by Cezve and Egret, one can exert a lot of pressure on a single server, great for Conduit R&D camping to close the game.

Complementing our decoder is a rig with 2 DZMZ Optimizers and a K2CP Turbine, granting a free 5-STR Chameleon darting out of your pocket to deal with barriers and sentries. With Environmental Testing it's a net gain of 1.5 credits to sustain the siege against tall servers.

At the end of the day, this is not as competitive as Endurance, but is arguably more well-rounded than Conduit Tāo.

Try this deck if you like pocket Chameleons, and Egrets (which may not fit in pockets).

How to pilot:

The end game rig would consist of 7-8MU: 1 for Hyperbaric, 2 for Cezve, 1 for Conduit, 1 for Turbine and the rest for Chameleon/Egret/Hush. 8 MU comes from 3 DZMZ and a Pantograph.

But as Andrej from Metropolé Grid puts it, "play the matchup". There are a few situational cards. Against Weyland and NBN Hush is critical, to neuter Funhouse, Stavka, Tollbooth and the likes. It is OK to put them down early as you can move them around afterwards. Paricia and Pinhole Threading are tech cards to help trash important assets/upgrades, while Telework Contract is nice offshore credits.

If the Corp is rushing, so must we. Our minimal setup against 2-tall servers will be 1 Hyperbaric, 1 Chameleon/Egret and some Econ to prevent drying up (e.g. Telework, Into the Depths, or DZMZ for discounted Chameleon, or foregoing Chameleons entirely with Egret on inner ICE). Kick-start Hyperbaric with Overclock or Cezve.

Ideal starting hand finds 1 burst money (Sure Gamble, Telework Contract or Creative Commission), 1 card draw (Diesel or Dr. Nuka Vrolyck) and Hyperbaric. A rule of thumb is to mulligan if you have 3+ cards that DON'T boost your early game, such as utility programs, Pinholes and Environmental Testing, which is around 15 cards (only 20% chance to draw 3/15 in starting hand).

Early game: Events, hardware and resource. No programs (yet)

Focus on building up econ and importantly, facecheck central ICE, as you need them rezzed to plant Egret on them later when they build 2+ tall servers. If you are rich and need aggression, get Hyperbaric down and start breaching. If you are poor/don't have Hyperbaric yet, facecheck ICE.

Hold onto Hyperbaric until you have money to support boosting STR, as it is incredibly expensive to install, boost and break at the same time and will dry your credit pool. Aim to find a Cezve or Overclock once you've identified a vulnerable server to pump its strength for cheap. K2CP Turbine is "literally free" since it's as good as 2 Hyperbaric counters, while supporting Chameleons later.

If you are unlucky your hand could be stuck with utility programs (Egret, Hush, Paricia). Either draw aggressively to find key pieces of the rig and ditch the rest if the Corp is going fast, or click for credit and start Environmental Testing already with these cheap installs, if the Corp is slow.

Mid game: Environmental Testing

Draw cards. In the mid game, float a healthy credit pool (10+ credits) and look to start Environmental Testing. DZMZ Optimizer is essential to our late-game rig while also helping your installs. It is important to keep "digesting" the cards drawn, laying them onto the table and/or turn them into credits.

With a functional Hyperbaric, use Into the Depths even on 1-ICE servers just to find the crucial programs, and Pantograph to get to your full rig even faster.

One neat trick is when you Into the Depths R&D for Conduit, it will immediately get one virus counter when that run ends. Another nice interaction is if you trigger Pantograph with a central run, you can spend remaining Cezve credits on the clickless install. So play Run events as much as your Cezve allows. Yet another trick is that DZMZ resets when it's the Corp's turn, so Pantograph can trigger another discounted install when they score an Agenda.

Late game: Conduit, mostly

In the late game with full Cezve power, lock down their R&D with a coffee-powered Conduit run every turn. With the 1-per-sub efficiency of our breakers, it's fine to spend 1-2 net credits against a 3-4 tall R&D. Our econ will dry up eventually, and we have fewer clicks for credits having to install Chameleon, but hopefully Conduit will end the game before that.

One should also not neglect remotes, especially if Conduit is not an available game plan, either if R&D is too tall or lost to damage. It will be less attractive without Cezve, but important when the Corp is pressured to close the game. One should exploit Pinhole Threading to trash defensive upgrades with Archives runs before assaulting tall remotes. Be frugal.

Critique

There is some identity crisis between early aggression of Kit versus the high cost setting up Hyperbaric, and the versatility of Chameleon itself against the many combo-pieces (DZMZ, Env. Testing and Cezve) required for a strong install economy. In theory this deck is good early to late game, but in practice it may be difficult to draw into the cards you need at the right time.

I have struggled a lot choosing between Hyperbaric and Buzzsaw. The latter is as good as Endurance with Kit and Turbine but costing precious influence, while Hyperbaric is slower and very vulnerable to rig-shooting, which is mostly what I have been playing against, be it tag-based Retribution, Ob, or even just a imported Stavka.

If Brân 1.0 is in the meta then Hyperbaric + Egret will be better, but against Archers neither has hope as you cannot Egret it unrezzed, or worse still you Hushed it.

On the other hand against faster matchups, it is challenging to identify when is a good time to get aggressive with bare-minimal setup without crippling the economy. Sometimes I stopped the corp's early scoring plans only to run out of steam, or eat Public Trails and lose Hyperbaric/die. But that's more on bad piloting than bad deckbuilding.

Hush cannot be praised enough. With so many on-rez and on-encounter effects, Hush really helps dealing with servers you will run over and over again. But more importantly, it saves us from 2 of the 4 ICE going beyond 5 STR in Startup: Stavka and Pharos. While unintuitive, it also blanks Magnet, which could potentially save an Egret or two.