Handshake

Strategy

This a control deck focusing on putting pressure on the corp's hand size. Pile on bad pub with Investigative Journalism and keep Itinerant Protesters on the board to keep the corp at a small hand size. Fast advance decks are going to be our worst enemy, so we absolutely must force the corp to leave agendas in a remote for a turn. That means getting The Source down in a hurry. Hostage helps in that regard.

Card Choices

The Source

Absolutely critical to this deck. We must force the corp to leave an agenda in a remote during our turn. We can tutor for it with Hostage and recur it Déjà Vu. The additional cost to steal an agenda may seem like a detriment, but it can actually work for you. Let's say you hit a Government Takeover and you suspect the corp has a Punitive in hand. You can refuse to steal the agenda based on the additional cost.

Itinerant Protesters

The goal of the deck is to squeeze the corp's hand. The more bad pub they carry, the fewer cards they get to hold. This puts some very hard decisions on the corp when they find their hand stuffed with agendas. Fast advance combos become very difficult to hold on to. Do they keep that Trick of Light or Biotic Labor in hand while trashing an agenda, or do they keep the agenda but lose the ability to score from hand?

Raymond Flint

We're going to be doling out quite a lot of bad pub, so why not take advantage by accessing a card each time we do it? Even if we get the corp into a zero hand size situation, we can still find some use in Flint by trashing him to see what they put in a remote.

Investigative Journalism

This is how we layer on bad pub. The goal is to get the corp to five bad pub, and that shouldn't be a problem with three of these in the deck, plus plenty of recursion.

Professional Contacts

Valencia decks are large, which means we need to draw a lot of cards. Professional Contacts fits well here because we can tutor for it with Hostage and it compresses our clicks by giving us a credit on each card draw.

Tallie Perrault

Speaking of card draw, Tallie is surprisingly useful. She can be a surprise source of meat damage protection. Say you have five cards in hand and the corp fires off a Punitive for three damage. Not only do you get to apply another bad pub (and access a card from HQ thanks to Mr. Flint) but you can then immediately trash her to refill your hand. Of course, you have to be able to survive that initial round of damage, and you'll have to consider whether or not applying that additional bad pub is worth the risk that carrying a tag creates, but it can be an out in a desperate situation.

Pilot Guidance

Run centrals! Even without a breaker, run centrals and force the corp to rez them. It will force the corp to spend credits and there is very little they can rez that will hurt you in any meaningful way.

Run naked remotes! Bad pub makes it so much easier to pay trash costs. Although you'll need to be wary of traps, be bold. You have an enormous deck to help absorb any damage you might encounter.