No Bad Cards Palana

You are insane. I agree with you on most things, but Agroplex is one of the best reasons to play Palana.

palana definitely makes tons of money without the plex. i like this deck, but is 2 swordsman necessary? also do you prefer the 1c tax of WoS over the versatility and hq protection of bako? i suppose WoS taxes an extra card against faust, maybe that's why

Cutting Agroplex is smart, it basically gives you the effects of a pad campaign with slightly better numbers but pretty big downsides. Alot of the time you dont even want to draw that extra card, and triple advancing an agenda and ditching 2 at the end of the turn feels really bad and will start flooding your hand, not to mention against Noise you will go through your deck super quick.

With 3 Caprice and 2 Batties, the Crisium is quite redundant imo. You could switch the influence for another GFI and go to only 2 TFP. 3-pointers still suck, even if they are protected by psi.

Agroplex is good early game to help you set up, but I too install over it quite quick. And I don't install it against Crim anymore.

Also, no Crick?

Crick is not that useful if you don't have a lot of assets to install and if installed off the archives the str 3 makes it easy to bypass with a Yog. I have a similar deck and removed it for this reason.

Yog isn't exactly a commonly played card these days, but I can see Crick being excluded here because of the lack of things to install. It's definitely worth a try having Marcus Batty in the deck though

I've been on the runner side of the Agroplex a few times now and I have to say it's great from a runners point of view free card draw basically saving you a click and if you can do it right you can actually deny the corp the credit on your turn.

Sadly that to me seals it as a bad card. If as a runner I don't want to trash a corp card because it's benefiting me 2 much then why is it even in your deck.

In trurth the card helps both sides but really it helps whoever is in the worst position more since you need the card draw more when your behind, that to me isn't worth the slot. can't say much about the rest of the deck but I do like the lack of Pālanā Agroplex and Harvester which imo are both bad cards. I also feel that this ID doesn't actually need any support it can do plenty of different things without needing support cards just like HB:ETF

@clercqieMy meta has quite a bit of stealth Andy right now. I can't caprice HQ forever against her or I can never score. Eventually I want to stick the Crisium there so I can rez caprice in my remote. No Crick because these decks can be a bit weak in the opening turns against aggressive decks if you don't draw the early game ICE and I want to minimize the ICE that is useless in my opening hand. I already have 2 Ichis and 2 swords so I can't afford any more.

@podoboyz99You're insane ;) Agroplex basically gives the runner wyldcakes for free (they only get 1/turn, but saved 6 credits, 2 cards and 2 clicks setting it up). When I cut Agroplex I noticed runners attacking me way less and drawing way more, which is what I want.

@moistloafI hate Bako. 1 more credit for twice the tax against Corroder and Faust is worth it to me. With 19 ICE the Bako ability is way less useful. I would actually just let it die to Parasite a lot of the time anyway. 2 Swordsman is a meta call. I do play at the store of the Guy who invented Dumblefork ;)

"This is the only corp deck that is any good right now vs the field (honorable mention to CI Shutdown)" - @TheBigBoy

I really disagree. I've had great success with PE recently. I think Tagstorm Sol works very well also.

This decklist feels like it's trying to play Foodcoats out of red. 14 of your influence are spent on Foodcoats staple cards. There are a lot of very strong glacier cards that have historically been balanced by being red instead of purple, Caprice Nisei, Nisei MK II, and arguably Marcus Batty that you are leveraging here.

It seems to me that you are teching against your own 2-Armed ICE Feast (which is a fantastic deck, and rightfully seeing play everywhere) with the focus on operation econ to protect your economy and centrals from trashing. Normally playing 19 pieces of ICE would seem excessive, but ICE destruction is common in today's meta.

I also don't like Celebrity Gift without traps to back it up. It gives away information about how vulnerable HQ is, how you will be able to score agendas (it won't be never-advance), and what damage face-checking ICE is likely to incur. I use it a lot in PE, but I have to build up the right hand for it, and I don't see those cards in this list. Mediocre players (and that includes me) won't be able to leverage much out of this information, but good players will. I feel like this is a parallel to the Pālanā Agroplex; good players will use the extra draw to win before they get decked by it, while mediocre players will eventually exhaust their heap to it.

In the end I can't argue that you have any 'bad' cards in here. It is probably true that solid ICE, strong backstops, and indestructible economy are all it takes for a corp deck to be top-tier in this meta. It is certainly an interesting look at the glacier archetype from a slightly different direction.

I like this deck. My only criticism is that it should be called "All Good Cards Palana". I'm a glass half full kinda guy.

Looks very cool. Any thought to trying 1 or 2 subliminal messaging? It looks like the kind of deck that can shut down profitable runs, especially with 19 ice, so you could double up on clickless econ with that plus ID ability for long games.

BIGBOY DECKS Inc: Puting the F into "efficiency" since 2016.

Everything about this deck is great. I maintain that IG is relevant in the current field though.

My biggest problem with Palana in testing is Atman 4. Splashing Ichi makes that even worse for you. Do you just rely on Batty-ing Swordsmans to kill Atman?

You can also Batty ichi to kill Atman. Where I play I haven't seen atman played much for a while, but if it's a huge problem you can always tweak the ice makeup - swap an ichi for a Vikram etc

RIP Palana you lived for 1 pack.

Political Operative

I am kind of curious, if you took the Batty over to foodcoats, dropping Caprice and getting two more influence, if it might not be slightly better than this.

I mean, it is still pretty weak to whizzard's ability, but you could recur those Batty's with architect, archived memories and virtuvius. But it would also enable triple architect, which is delicious protection from forked if played correctly.

Anyway, I do like the set up quite a bit. I agree, I don't think aggroplex is good in a glacier jinteki style. To me it seems far more of a fast advance card, since you want to make both of the benefits (the cred and the draw) work for you to offset its downside.

@hi_impact Isn't crisium the best thing you can do?

@yog-sothothryThat is a totally reasonable replacement for the 1x Snare. The first time someone hits the snare without me wanting to fire it I'll try sublim in that slot ;)

@podoboyz99Yes, atman 4 is the best breaker vs this deck, but you can still stack ichi eli eli on your remote. 7 credit tax with caprice is often enough. The Batty option is always there as well (or swordsman if they are too eager with it)

@MyriadHaving BOTH Caprice and Batty is what makes this so strong. If you didn't know, you can fire batty on an EtR AFTER you lose the Caprice game (same window that you use the Mk 2 counter to do this). This means that if they don't apply pressure you can create a 1/9 remote, which is basically not even worth running more than once (barring stimhack etc). If they do apply pressure then your ICE suite can do the work to open traditional scoring windows. The fact that you have a solid plan against both fast and slow play is what makes this archetype so strong.

have you considered a scorch package?

I have been playing around with a 3 GFI 1 TFP split, as it increases the chances that the runner needs to score 4 to win. It is a lower variance option (and also a lot better vs Film Critic). What are your thoughts on this, and crucially is it worth dropping an Eli for an enigma for?

@rogedavi I thought about this too, but that fact that I would still have 1 3-pointer makes it less appealing. I feel like if I'm going to have 1 TFP I may as well have 3, since if they get the 1 then I would MUCH rather have 2 more TFPs in my deck than 2 GFIs.

Basically, I think it's close but saving the 2 inf is a nice tiebreaker for me.

I posted a more thorough analysis on the stimhack Palana thread (rojazu), the 3 GFI split offers significantly less variance, but there are additional factors to take into consideration as you rightly mention. take a look to see if it changes your mind...

p.s. this week you have posted almost card for card the two decks I have been brewing for this weekends SC. all of my secret tech is blown, but its good to know independently we are arriving at similar conclusions. keep up the good work!

Haha. Laughed so hard when i read this. Alot of the people ive played who has used aggroplex have ended up decking them selves, and as a criminal player i really enjoy the extra card every turn.

I think mostly its because they dont consider how much the are actually drawing so they use clicks/jackson to draw too, and then 49 cards are gone pretty fast :)

What podoboyz99 said. I played this deck, slightly tweaked at a GNK in Manchester UK this weekend and then won my first three games ever with it, and then my friend installed 4tman against me and it ruined me.

I've since tweaked it to move the influence around and spread the ice strength around (there's a lot of Hayleyforks in my meta), and it seems good. I disagree that Agroplex is a bad card, IMHO it's like Palana's Sundew. You're essentially making 2c by the time your turn rolls around and the extra draw means you can just install, install, gain a cred. If you're against Crim, don't rez it if you feel it'll speed them up, but frankly I find it does more for you than it does them. Agro just speeds up your game, and with a certain amount of redundancy in the ice, you can chuck whatever you don't need away.

With it, this deck just prints money. I was apocalypsed in that tournament and I was back on my feet two turns later with 15c in the bank.