Brain Mass

The Masses are Revolting!

With the release of the Fear the Masses datapack and my desire to find a new runner deck I decided to give Fear the Masses a try.

The deck mostly sort of built itself around it. The first thing that sprung to mind was that to make best of use of Fear the Masses, it would be good to have as many in hand as possible. To do this I wanted to increase my hand size, the obvious options were either Public Sympathy or Origami. I've tried the former before without much success, so decided to give the latter a go. Between that and Fear the Masses itself, it seemed obvious to go with Anarch as the faction. Extra hand size would also hopefully protect against being killed.

The issue with Origami is that it's going to eat up 3 and that I'd need to increase available memory so that I could actually install other programs. There wouldn't be much to fear from the masses if they had no way to access!

Grimoire was tempting, though would still perhaps need other cards if I wanted more than 3 extra programs in play. Either going with standard breakers leaving no room for utilities like Medium or D4v1d, or going with the omnipresent Faust. Again memory would be a bit tight if I wanted Datasucker or protection from swordsman via Mimic. So with the extra hand size in mind that led to Ekomind finding a home in the deck.

Breakers and Programs

Moving onto the actual breaker suite was next and when combining the larger handsize it would seem that Faust would slot in really well. However with the aim to filling up with the masses I didn't want to be discarding them to Faust and it also wouldn't synergise well with Ekomind. Having a look though the cardpool, buried in a dark corner covered in dust I managed to find Overmind. Mimic as mentioned was in for Swordsman protection and others like Turnpike etc. D4v1d was also a no brainer as I would want to avoid the downside of Overmind that is paying to boost strength. With a brain in a jar, the deck is brains over brawn!

Some R&D threat was added via a #Medium. One weakness of both Overmind and D4v1d is the limited amount of counters, so the first influence splash was added with e3 Feedback Implants. With plenty of influence to spare a couple of Scavenge seemed they would come in useful. This would let an early install of Overmind give early threat and then get reinstalled later on for a lot more counters when Origami and Ekomind were online. With the ability to reload counters it also seemed rude not to include an Imp. Got to love a card to negate high trash costs (especially against IG decks) or clearing out some kill operations from HQ and R&D.

At this point I'd not really decided on which Identity to play. I started with Quetzal: Free Spirit and no fracter. Her ability also combos again with e3 Feedback Implants and it meant one less program taking up memory. However I would come unstuck vs stacked barriers and using up lots of D4v1d counters against wraparounds led me to throwing in one Corroder.

Money and Card Draw

It's about now I addresed the issue of money, starting with the obvious inclusion of Sure Gamble. Then with all that extra potential memory and with the paper folding goodness of Origami it seemed rude not to throw in 3 copies of Data Folding. They are a bit pricey to install so a couple of Career Fair made their way in, so some more resource economy in the form of Daily Casts.

The last consideration was card draw. I've Had Worse is helpful vs kill decks and grants me 3 cards for 1. Along the same lines 3 copies of Sports Hopper came in, with perhaps the extra link being useful on occasion as well. Earthrise Hotel was my other option, though being able to burst up in hand size before installing Overmind seemed more useful, even though it's another target for Career Fair. Inject was discounted due to the trashing of programs and the lack of recursion.

Filling in the Gaps

The final slots were filled up with Hunting Grounds which is great against Tollbooth, Komainu, Data Raven, or even Pop Up Window (and other less seen ICE). A couple of Employee Strike cause IG is still a thing and SOL is getting more popular. Then rounding things out with Levy AR Lab Access so I could blast through the deck to get set up and then recycle my money and get all the Masses back for bigger hits the second time through.

You do need to be careful when using Levy AR Lab Access with Ekomind in play, though i've not found it too hard to keep to 5 programs before using it and worst case scenario you can install something and ditch either empty Overminds, D4v1ds or Imp and possibly an Origami or two. The latter really being there so you can install Overmind with lots of counters, though it's not so vital afterwards and they are zero cost to reinstall after you Levy. You're already hopefully paying attention to your memory with Data Folding in play and you'll likely find it gets turned off after you Levy for a turn or two if you can't manage to draw back up. If you are worried about that then you can leave a Sports Hopper installed at pop it at the end of the Corps turn.

Same Old Thing is there for Levy AR Lab Access, recycling Employee Strike or getting extra use out of Fear the Masses. In a pinch some of the other events could also be useful.

After a couple of games I dropped one Career Fair added a Rebirth and made the switch to Valencia Estevez: The Angel of Cayambe. Blackmail got added for extra early pressure and with unrezzed ICE on remotes meant paying less often to boost Overmind. This change also gave another target for Same Old Thing. The Bad Publicity also gives a free credit for trashing and using the breakers.

Rebirth Choices

With the addition of Rebirth some consideration needs to be made with who rebirth into. Anarch's have some great choices. Against IG then Whizzard is obvious and would also be useful against many horizontal decks. Against Weyland then Quetzal will be helpful getting through those big barriers (as long as you have e3 Feedback Implants in play.

I've also used Edward Kim: Humanity's Hammer a couple of times against kill decks, getting rid of operations from HQ slows them getting set up for kill and if you get Imp out as well, then you can dig through R&D on Medium runs to good effect. He also has the potential to get to 4 if you can get all 3 Sports Hopper out.

Noise is clearly not much use with only two viruses and Maxx is going to force you to bin too many cards when you're trying to build them up in hand. While I really like Reina, her ability doesn't really synergise with the deck very well. Null: Whistleblower could be interesting in some match ups when he's released, especially with the fixed cost breakers.

Potential Changes

It might be worth finding space for a decoder, though Overmind and D4v1d have been doing a job so far. Perhaps a Datasucker especially if Yog.0 is added. There are quite a few ST4 sentries seeing play lately. With that in mind perhaps Ice Carver could be useful, though it may also harm D4v1d.

I think Councilman is the biggest ommision at the moment and the most likely card I'm going to try and find space for. It might also be useful to find space for [Kati Jones[(/en/card/02091)

I did look at Bhagat but ultimately if I get kept out of HQ it's another dead card and a waste of 3. Amped Up seems fun if you can set up a situation for a really big turn of using the Masses and taking the brain damage doesn't hurt so much with a larger hand size.

Déjà Vu might be useful, especially if you get your Ekomind trashed. I might try swapping one Same Old Thing out for it. As with most decks both more money and draw could be useful but what to cut. After seeing CommissarFeesh's Grindstone deck last night, the inclusion of Pheromones could be fun. Though the more programs in play the less Overmind counters you get. Parasite is obviously great though I don't think it really fits in here and the same goes for Knifed, Forked and Spooned. I can also see his version of using Eater and Keyhole working too.

Initial playtesting has been positive (very early days), though I'm not convinced that I couldn't spend 6 deck slots on something better than Fear the Masses, but that would defeat the point of the deck and part of me really wants to try out Street Magic...