The Money Pit

OVERVIEW

The goal of this deck is to begin building an unstoppable train of ICE and economy. At the start your only responsibility is to get ICE installed and build up credits, forcing the runner to start digging for their rig early game. Normally this is a scoring window, but unless your opponent is playing a big rig deck, you keep going. Keep placing ICE, econ assets, and playing econ operations. Most importantly, watch the runner’s moves to determine their desired win condition. If you are playing against a big rig deck, you can dance between dropping more ICE, building econ, and scoring useful early agendas while they dig for their rig. You have to do this because late-game they’ll be able to get in anywhere at least once every turn or three. Scoring agendas early while they dig for breakers lets you minimize how many windows they’ll have late-game.

By mid-game you should have at least 25 credits sitting on HQ or ~7-12 and most of your ICE rezzed. At that point you can start dropping agendas in your single remote server.

When late-game arrives you should be set, and your upswing should extend so far out only sheer luck will allow a runner to win. Most of your ICE is rezzed or you have the money to rez it.

ICE

ICE placement is key in this deck, and it's where much of the modularity comes in. You have four servers: your centrals and one advancement server. As a rule of thumb you should always install a tollbooth on the central server the runner wants in the most, with the second tollbooth going on the second most profitable server, because runners frequently try to bait and switch on you. These will often be HQ and R&D, but occasionally archives. Continue building to your opponent's tactics. If they get into a server, plug the hole with some strong ICE sitting in your hand. If you start getting a lot of ICE, try to predict where the best placement would be and start installing 1 a turn to get that sweet sweet ETF credit. Also, don’t allow the runner free access to Archives, regardless of tactics. If they haven’t exploited it yet, they probably will, so take your first free ICE and cover Archives. If they want something, make them pay for it.

When rezzing ICE, keep in mind that you need to balance your income. Sometimes it's worth dropping 14 credits to Wotan up Archives because Gabe just dropped a Sneakdoor Beta. Other times you can roll the dice and hope odds will cover you so you can pop a mess of econ cards next round and prevent future accesses while still maintaining your economic state.

The end-game for ICE is to have 4 servers, usually 3 ICE deep, that the runner can't get into without expending huge amounts of credits. If server doesn't cost more than 10 credits to get in, or 15 for key servers, you may have to reconsider your placement options in future games (bypass effects aside... you can't help that). Use those cheap ICE to help protect against Inside Job too. That’s why I’ve neglected using Curtain Wall.

Finally, Tenma Line has been splashed to adjust for poor ICE placement in the early game. This helps mostly when a Shaper has had an amazing early game and you need to optimize your ICE placement, or when you got unlucky with early ICE and absolutely must eliminate a vulnerability.

ECONOMY

What's to say? You have a ton, and half of your econ represents the other half of the modular aspects in this deck. Force the runner to decide make themselves poor or let your be rich. EVE Campaigns should almost always go unprotected due to its high trash cost. Adonis Campaigns are a great placeholder in your protected remote before you begin scoring, or throwing them out unprotected when the runner is broke. Either they spend the entire turn trying to trash it (3x creds, 1x run/trash), or you make 2 credits and then they spend 3 credits to trash it, OR you make 8 credits. In a pinch, or against a Whizzard deck, I try to protect most of my econ assets with some sort of ICE. Costing the runner 1 click and maybe 2 credits is not enough of a tempo hit; I’d rather have the money in that event. Also, I prefer to wipe viruses the second an Imp comes out if I can afford it, for the same reason.

Burst Econ is there if the runner decides they want to be poor. It also does a lot to help you keep up economically to threaten rezzing some truly devastating ICE. Reclamation Order is in the deck for a late game option of throwing 3 restructures back in your hand after the runner made an attempt to drain you of credits by forcing you to rez ICE. I've had several runners threaten a table flip, and one concede from that move alone. Multiple early hits aside (which really hurts anyone), I don't fear Account Siphon.

I add in this last part because it doesn't fit elsewhere. Psychic Field is a great early and late game card. You can toss it out in a remote along with the asset agendas. This works pretty well when you look like you're struggling economically because the runner's first instinct is to trash your econ assets. However, most folks will run cards installed in open remotes. Regardless, it opens a possible scoring window and trashes whatever they've been holding in hand waiting for an opportunity.

I haven't hit the golden first round Andromeda Psychic Field yet (not a lot of Andy in my meta, it's all Gabe/Tenma atm), but I will continue to chase the dream.

AGENDAS

Mandatory Upgrades is the star of this deck. With the brutal ICE glaciers this deck can put up mixed with Ash, it's not difficult to wedge open a scoring window even for a 6 cost agenda. It takes experience to see it when the window opens, but you have to keep vigilant. Once you score it, everything you do is now more valuable. Gila gives you 6 credits a turn. You can gain 4 credits and install a card in a single turn. You can fast advance any 3c cost agendas, or install a 4c cost agenda and let the runner sweat over it and decide it wasn't worth wasting 15-20 credits on finding an Ash when the corp isn't at match point yet. The extra click isn't just FA feed, it makes every turn 25% better. Whatever you need to do to get closer to win, you can do it even quicker now.

Gila is a beautiful thing here. An early Gila with an ICE install means you can gain 4 credits (3 if you install in position 2) every turn. With an MU scored, it’s your own personal Melange. Do it enough and even the most aggressive economic control deck will throw their hands up in frustration; there's just no keeping you down! It’s also FA bait if you've scored an MU already.

ABT is there to be used. I try and hedge my bets by counting the ICE I've seen against how much ICE is left in R&D, and how many cards I have left in R&D. If it's a halfway decent ratio, I give it a whirl. Several times I've ABT'ed into a Wotan, Janus, or Ichi 2.0... it's a great feeling to say to the runner, "yeah, that server you're getting into? Nope." Nothing is better than taking your upswing and extending it for the rest of the game. If the runner has scored 4 points and my archives isn't scary as hell to access, I usually don't use ABT's ability unless I have a Jackson Howard I'm willing to spend, if the remaining R&D is less than 40% ICE, or if I’m doing so well that I have the time and money to draw/install anything without damaging my game state. It’s also great because it’s an out-of-hand score if you’ve scored an MU.

NAPD Contracts is great because it follows the same lines as my asset econ. Obviously people will always score it if they can, but I'm happy to charge them 4c if it means slowing their game state down, or providing me with a scoring window. If you've scored MU, you can drop it in your remote and leave it alone for a turn, then score it the following turn. Sometimes you can drop it unprotected if the runner is poor enough and you have an econ asset clicking away in your remote.

CONCLUSION

I’ve got a 16/20 wins-to-games-played ratio so far, with losses due to terrible draw (No ICE or ways to find ICE) I have only lost one game when I drew even a mediocre hand. You have to be careful when judging the runner, because if you don’t have spare ICE and the credits to rez it when they switch tactics and target another server, you can potentially allow a runner the ability to win. This is true of any corp game, but it represents one of the larger potential gaps in this decks ability to win.

The two Jinteki cards are meta-based and while they could work in many games, I think that, if anything, they could be switched out for more meta-specific choices.