Inside Baseball

This list is all sorts of weird. The goal is to score out in record time, and it only works because Sportsmetal's ID makes it very hard to be R&D locked.

Here's the gist:

• Rarely ICE HQ. Khumalo, suspected Imp, suspected Burner are the only real reasons to ICE HQ. Believe it or not, you can eat 1-2 early DooFs and keep trucking. Ansel always goes on R&D; it hates Conduit, Bhankar, etc.
• Because you aren't defending HQ, try to get down to 0 agendas in hand and keep it that way. You want a biotic or big deal, some econ, and any Snare! or Nightmare Archives you've drawn. Traps and operations.
• When you score via FA, almost always take the credits. You don't want to draw into agendas. Because you keep HQ empty and never make remotes, the runner can only score from R&D.
• When the runner steals, almost always draw. This can draw you into agendas to score out with the biotic you're holding (you're holding a biotic, right?). The interaction with multi-access is a little complex, but very important: if the runner steals on the first access, you see 2 cards they haven't when you choose to draw. If the runner steals on the second access, you see 1 card they haven't. On the third+ access, you draw cards they've seen. Choose to draw if it'll show you cards the runner hasn't seen - this prevents you from being R&D locked. This is pivotal for beating Conduit, Mercury + Silvia, etc.
• Because of our rule to never draw agendas into hand by spending a click, it's perfectly acceptable to burn a turn clicking for 3 credits.
• Install Spin Doctor as soon as you see them, and use them as clickless draw during the runner's turn (if they run the Spin Doctor) or after your mandatory draw (if you don't draw into an agenda that turn). If they don't run the Spin Doctor after rez, de-rez it with Elivagar Bifurcation for another clickless draw. This is the only real target for Elivagar; it's otherwise just an easily fast advanced point that's cost neutral (2c to score, 2c from Sportsmetal).
• Sprint is pivotal - spend them to cycle Snare! and Nightmare Archive if the runner won't run HQ, use them to fix agenda overdraw, use them to cycle Giordano if you see them before the runner has things in their score area. You want Giordano to fire for 8c+ (and it fairly often will fire for 12-16); before that, it's not really worth installing. Almost always use Sprint to cycle Ontological Dependence and Project Vitruvius if you're not able to score them immediately - the most consistent ways this deck loses is giving away 2 pointers and Deep Dive.
• If you can score 2 points with a Big Deal, do it - you can bounce back from 0c most of the time, and 2 points is a lot for this list. I frequently install Vitruvius, advance, Big Deal, score, take Sportsmetal money; this leaves you with 2 Vitruvius counters and 2 credits, which you can spend to fetch back and play, e.g., Your Digital Life. Having a Big Deal trashed when you could have paid for it and earned 2 points is really bad for this list.
• Don't reflexively activate Snare! It's not included as a tempo card; it's included to kill multi-accessing runners who are desperate or runners using Bhankar to get through Ansel. If you don't have Big Deal in hand, the magic number when you can consider Snare! for tempo is 11c (4 for biotic, 3 to score a vitruvius or megaprix, 4 for Snare!). With Big Deal, aim for 21c (17 for Big Deal, 4 for Snare!).
• Greasing the Palm is tag punishment (usually off last-click Snare! hit or crim/anarchs deciding to float tags), but you'll mostly be playing it to control how many cards are in hand. If you ended up with 2 agendas in hand and are FA'ing one, don't use Greasing; you want a bulkier hand. Alternatively, if your hand has Snare!s or Nightmare Archives, use Greasing while FA'ing to make the traps easier to hit. Because it earns 2c, it can let you FA with biotic or big deal from fewer credits.

Flex slots:

• Giordano could go up to 3x, but since it's a dead draw in the early game and a prime target for Pinhole Threading, I like it at 2x.
• Gatekeeper or the second Ansel could go - most of the time, this list plays Meridian as it draws them, and one Ansel on R&D, and the rest of the ICE is discarded or situational. Keep all 3 Meridian and all 3 Nightmare Archive - this deck only wins because of the asymmetry of having -6 points for the runner and up to +2 points from Megaprix Qualifier for the corp.
• Ontological Dependence are almost never scored - they're included in case the runner takes core damage from Nightmare Archive, but otherwise you just want to keep hiding them with Sprint / Spin Doctor. Big Deal can score them in pinch. The slots could be other 4/2s, but savvy runners might take the core damage off Nightmare and reliably take games that way. Also serves as nice tech against core damage anarchs.
• This list used to run a blend of Your Digital Life, Government Subsidy, and Hansei Review, but I found Hansei's forced discard too painful. Regardless, feel free to flex those operations around. Don't touch Hedge Fund, Biotic Labor, Big Deal, or Sprint.
• Greasing the Palm might be inferior to Red Level Clearance; RLC is better at digging for a win (through draw 2, gain click), but Greasing the Palm earns more consistent value when played strictly for value / hand size control (+2c vs +1c from RLC) and offers tag punishment. RLC will run poorer and faster, and spend fewer turns with 0 agendas in hand clicking for 3c.
• Mavirus might be worth a slot or two - Conduit is a big problem for this list, and so are Imp and Khumalo.
• A singleton Fast Break might be good for breaking out of endgame lock and allowing scoring from low credit counts, but you'd have to cut something for it and expect to Sprint it back into R&D most games.