Industrial Genomics, v. 2

Version one of my Industrial Genomics deck was a significant change over version zero. It got rid of a lot of the random cards, and added a second Cerebral Overwriter to add more possibilities for bad things happening if my opponent ran against a double-advanced card. I took it to a tournament, it went 4-1, and I stopped losing with it at work. So clearly those changes were a big improvement: it was going to be my corp deck for Regionals, the only question is what tweaks I wanted to make.

The deck is set up to have the possibility of scoring agendas, with the Caprice + Ash + Red Herrings combo, but in practice: I never win that way. Sometimes I win through a bad R&D access; sometimes, I win through Ronins. So I wanted to increase the chance of that happening.

I swapped my third Caprice for a third Ronin, and I tweaked the ice to be a bit more straightforward: Chum was a threat that never landed, and while I still think Kitsune might have possibility, it doesn’t turn into a kill, so I removed those, added a third Komainu, and decided to experiment with Crick. That helped; after that, I noticed that I was always discarding Subliminal Messaging (and frequently not using it even when I could, because it was more valuable face down in archives), and while Cyberdex Virus Suite is a potential archives trap, I wasn’t getting hurt enough by viruses for it to be effective, and I really want the sorts of traps that can damage people. So I got rid of those and swapped in a Project Junebug (since I often end up with Ronin triple- or even quadruple-advanced), and a Zaibatsu Loyalty to try to protect against exposes.

(Incidentally, one thing I didn’t consider doing is slim the deck down from 59 cards. It works just fine with 59 cards.)

Here are all the changes:

• -1 Caprice Nisei
• -1 Cyberdex Virus Suite
• -1 Subliminal Messaging
• -1 Chum
• -1 Kitsune
• +1 Ronin
• +1 Project Junebug
• +1 Zaibatsu Loyalty
• +1 Crick
• +1 Kitsune

And here’s the full deck:

Industrial Genomics (59 cards)

Industrial Genomics: Growing Solutions

Agenda (10)

• 3 Fetal AI
• 1 Hades Fragment
• 2 NAPD Contract
• 1 Philotic Entanglement
• 3 The Future Perfect

Asset (29)

• 2 Cerebral Overwriter ** **
• 2 Hostile Infrastructure
• 3 Jackson Howard * * *
• 2 Melange Mining Corp
• 3 PAD Campaign
• 1 Project Junebug
• 3 Ronin
• 3 Shi.Kyu
• 3 Shock!
• 3 Snare!
• 3 Sundew
• 1 Zaibatsu Loyalty

Upgrade (8)

• 2 Ash 2X3ZB9CY ** **
• 2 Caprice Nisei
• 2 Hokusai Grid
• 2 Red Herrings ** **

Operation (3)

• 3 Hedge Fund

Barrier (2)

• 1 Wall of Static
• 1 Wall of Thorns

Code Gate (3)

• 1 Crick
• 2 Lotus Field

Sentry (4)

• 1 Cortex Lock
• 3 Komainu

This is the best deck that I’ve ever built, no question. My coworkers haven’t beaten it (I believe) since version 0, it went 4-1 at a casual tournament, 5-2 at Regionals, and those weren’t flukes. Honestly, I don’t understand why Industrial Genomics isn’t a lot more popular: I’m sure that there are counters, but a fairly typical scenario is that, after scaring the runner over their first Archives runs, I get a bit of asset defense to stick, which is enough to keep Melange alive for two or three turns (happily discarding an extra card each turn while I do that), at which point I have enough money to rez whatever I want. So then I have enough ice to make the runner think twice about runs on central servers, I can rez a Hostile Infrastructure to give a second layer of asset protection, and the PAD Campaigns and Sundews start giving me as much money as I want.

And, at this point, I just start double/triple/quadruple advancing assets, because money is no longer an issue. Some are Cerebral Overwriters, some are Ronins. And generally, either people go and kill themselves or I get one Ronin triple-advance and one quadruple-advanced, and win.

This takes a while, but that’s okay: there are only 10 agendas out of 59 cards, and people get nervous making runs. (And the Shi.Kyus may mean that they’ll need to steal four agendas instead of three.) But if my opponent doesn’t run, then it’ll just be harder and harder to trash assets, and I’ll build up more and more money. Which, I think, can in some circumstances be okay for the runner, if they build up lots of money too and just eat the extra trash cost, but it makes runners quite nervous to not have a clear strategy to win. Also, those 59 cards mean that it will be very hard to deck me.

I ran into a surprising number of Astrolabes at Regionals; at first, it made me unhappy, because I create new servers all the time. But, actually, it ended up fine for me: it means that I couldn’t get cheap kills from runners who don’t keep their hand full, but it also meant that runners went through their decks more quickly than they would have otherwise. Of course, I also ran into a decent number of Levys, but I’ve more than one game where runners Levied and then went through their deck a second time: I’m a lot closer to decking them than they are to decking me. (Yes, I know you technically can’t deck the runner, but net damage gets a lot more serious if you can’t draw back up after it!)

Like I said, I don’t understand why Industrial Genomics isn’t a lot more popular. (Other than that, well, most people don’t want to be assholes the way I do!) But probably part of that is that I’m not good enough to see the counters that would make the deck less reliable. (Or that I just don’t appreciate how reliable top-tier decks can be, because I’ve never played them: I should set my sights higher than 5-2.) Exposing is certainly one possible counter; and there have been a lot of cards recently that increase runner hand size. Maybe I should throw a second Zaibatsu Loyalty to help with the exposes? And cards that clear out the runner’s entire hand to help with large hand size? (Fortunately, I’ve already got Komainu.) And I guess I have to maintain the possibility to score, too, just in case I lose two Ronins and can’t resurrect them.

I’m getting better at faking, but I probably should occasionally put out Snares instead of leaving them in my hand. And, for that matter, I should also put out unadvanced 3-cost agendas or double-advanced 5-cost agendas, too, to increase the number of possibilities that unadvanced or double-advanced cards can represent. And maybe another Project Junebug would be good, to increase the chances that bad things happen when running against bad cards. A third Hostile Infrastructure would help, maybe a third Hokusai Grid (I really like having one on R&D; incidentally, I’m also thinking that Red Herrings is useful either in HQ or R&D).

But, if I’m going to add cards, I need to also remove cards (I don’t think I want to go to 64 cards…), and I’m not sure what. Maybe I really should give up on Caprice and Ash. (Which will give me influence for a third Cerebral Overwriter!) Maybe I can lose an ice or even two: Crick is probably not quite pulling its weight, and I could probably lose one of the barriers. Hard to say. Also, I’m considering swapping the Philotic Entanglement with a third NAPD: Philotic has some real potential to do damage, with the assistance of Shi.Kyu, so at times I’ve tried just leaving it around unadvanced for a while, but I’ve never gotten it to land a real killing blow.

Honestly, I’m not sure what I’d do next with this deck. I’m going to move on for the time being: Regionals are over, so it’s time to experiment, and it’s not a pleasant deck to play against. But I may bring it back at some point in the future, to see if I can figure out more improvements.