The Bionic Policewoman

I prefer 3 Adonis' over 3 Melanges.

Trashing Adonis' takes money away from both the corp and the runner, but can potentially drop the runner below the threshold to nab NAPD Contract.

With Blue/Green Level clearance and hedge fund, I prefer not using entire turns up for economy. Drip economy saves clicks

If things are going poorly, building horizontally with Eve's and Adonis' might provide the opportunity to sneak a naked ABT through as a hail mary. Runners are less likely to inspect remotes if they feel like it could be an Eve or Adonis, since it could be a waste of a click if they aren't in the financial position to trash. Runners usually don't have a reason not to trash Melange.

I prefer 3 Adonis' over 3 Melanges.

But the question is, will I have enough credits to rez all those big pieces, then? I originally ran Adonises instead of Blue levels, but found out that they never really gave me decent value - if you install a facedown card behind ICE and they don't run it, if it's Adonis you didn't get enough money to rez th ICE next turn, where with Melange this is a very real possibility.

Well, you're definitely not wrong, but we're talking about different things. Maybe it's an artifact of a different playing style. It seems like in your scenario, you plop down Melange behind ice. Next turn, melange for creds, and potentially rez ice to defend melange. In this scenario, the runner doesn't run Melange the turn it's installed.

If they did, and could get through, they would trash the Melange most of the time. I think an Adonis at this point saves on clicks, where melange might burst more cash. If they run through unrezzed ice, find an adonis, they are less likely to trash it because its unrezzed, and the balance of creds would sway to the corp.

In terms of which gives you more credits overall, of course it would depend on the actual game conditions, like how soon something gets trashed, what the Adonis player is doing with the clicks the Melange player would be using for cash, etc. I tend to want to get rid of a melange ASAP. You're right that the credits upfront can contribute to big ice rezzing earlier.

TL;DR: Melange bursts creds at the cost of clicks, whereas Adonis gains advantage of clicks at the cost of getting the creds over time (or perhaps never if trashed before completely paid out)

Good analysis. Here's how I see it:

The main reason why I'm playing Stronger Together is that I want to drag runners on unfruitful runs through ICE that is too expensive to break often/on a regular basis (also, because it's hilarious to see people get owned by Viktor 1.0, but that's beside the point now :D).

It seems like in your scenario, you plop down Melange behind ice. Next turn, melange for creds, and potentially rez ice to defend melange. In this scenario, the runner doesn't run Melange the turn it's installed.

Sorry for being unclear - this is not at all the scenario I'm on about! I'm assuming the runner is competent and will run the server - after all, I'm ST, which means that presumably I'm running a setup with a high ICE count, so a scored and triggered ABT could be game-deciding. Also, since I'm ST, presumably all (if not most) ICE will be clickable. So yeah, I'm definitely expecting them to run it.

I won't do the play unless I have enough credits to rez the ICE and have a credit spare for the Melange rez. If they make me lose it, ok - presumably it'll cost them a bunch of credits, a trick (like, an Inside Job, Test-Run Femme, whatever) or practically their entire turn. It cost me 2 actions and some credits, but I got a rezzed ICE out of the deal, so as long as I have a use for the remote, I'm coming out ahead.

The reason why I'm liking Melange over Adonis for this particular play is that the Melange version is actually a faster play when you think about it:

• with Adonis, you need {rez cost of ICE + 4} credits, and even if it works, the runner has one more turn to handle the issue you've created before it gives you a reasonable benefit. This is a problem in a deck where one piece of ICE is always breakable with clicks
• with Melange, on the other hand, you only need {rez cost of ICE + 1} credits for the play to actually make sense: this means both that you can use it sooner in the game, and that you can actually use a more badass piece of ICE for it (I've used Heimdall 2.0 for it on some occasions and it was completely bitchin'!) Also, if they don't trash it, next turn you farm up and are back to being able to rez your other stuff... trashing the Melange on that turn didn't actually win the runner all that much, as it didn't leave you in such a vulnerable position as with the Adonis version.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to get the Adonises back in (to flash my alt art pieces, if nothing else :P), but I don't know what to cut, really. Melange must stay, Blue-level was pretty solid so far as well (great for recovering bad hands and filling up after creating a badass remote).

Maybe Green-levels can go?

Isn't 3x Interns better than 3x Archived Memories? Sure it has to be installable but you can also use them to put Ice all the way at the top of your big fort for free (actually for a credit using your ID passive)

Isn't 3x Interns better than 3x Archived Memories?

It might be a personal preference, but I like the bluffy aspect of AM over Interns' extra econ for installing ICE. If I archive an Adonis and put a card into a beefy remote, it could very well be an agenda. This just doesn't happen with Interns, and I'm liking it more than the possibility of using Interns as a Beanstalk.

(recurring ICE isn't usually an issue, there's enough pieces here to ICE up, so when a piece ends up in archives, it's usually because I don't really need it any more)