We’re within touching distance of the Chatteris SC now and testing has been bouncing along merrily. Below are presented the two corp lists and a runner list that have constituted the vast majority of our effort since recording the episode on Saturday evening. As expected there are no great surprises here, particularly if you’ve been keeping abreast of the frequent Neurospike chatter in #uk. Of course given the recent influx of new cards and rotation, the meta remains an unpredictable and wild environment. We’re very much taking our best guesses and leaning heavily into our known comfort zones with most of these lists.
Neurospike BTL
3 Hostile Takeover
1 Digital Rights Management
2 Afshar
2 Tithonium
3 Neurospike
1 Archer
3 City Works Project
3 Project Atlas
3 Dedication Ceremony
3 Hortum
3 Rashida Jaheem
3 Mausolus
1 Archived Memories
3 Border Control
1 Vanilla
3 Spin Doctor
3 Hedge Fund
3 Malapert Data Vault
Please direct all grumblings to MikeP for this one. Originally in Jemison this was relatively swiftly moved into BTL solely to take advantage of the 40 card decksize, once it became apparent Jemison rarely fired. For the completely uninitiated here the combo you’re looking to achieve is an un-stealable City Works Project with either two Neurospike in hand, or a single copy and either Malapert in the scoring remote or an Archived Memories in hand. From here it’s a case of score and then Neurospike away until the unfortunate runner keels over with a scrambled brain. The list itself is designed solely to support delivery of this combo in the fastest way possible with Spin Doctor, Rashida and DRM providing some useful draw or tutor options. Dedication Ceremony to setup the CWP and Malapert to tutor for Neurospike. Your ice suite revolves around the threat of an early Tithonium rez off the back of a T1 or T2 Hostile score, just to provide enough breathing room to form the combo.
Needless to say there is definite issues with certain runner tech cards including IHW, Citadel Sanctuary (allowing runner steal of the CWP) and Caldera. This is not counting some ability to potentially disrupt the combo with Class Act drawing the runner up beyond kill range and buying another turn of breathing room. It should be noted that despite some great initial enthusiasm we are cooling on this list now, largely due to problems dealing with the 419 list in this article that slots a copy of Citadel Sanctuary.
Gateway ASA
2 Manegarm Skunkworks
3 Project Vitruvius
2 Slot Machine
3 Gatekeeper
3 Marilyn Campaign
1 Eli 1.0
3 Violet Level Clearance
1 Luminal Transubstantiation
3 Rashida Jaheem
2 Fairchild 3.0
3 Fully Operational
1 Cyberdex Virus Suite
2 Global Food Initiative
3 Hagen
2 Anoetic Void
2 Jeeves Model Bioroids
3 Drafter
3 Spin Doctor
3 Cyberdex Sandbox
1 Biotic Labor
3 Hedge Fund
Kudos to Pat (rotomappliance) and Percomis for supplying the initial lists to which we’ve made some small changes. Although this is in ASA, the decklist itself is a distant cry from the Tablet ASA lists of last year. Carrying a larger ice suite and with the loss of Cybernetics Court the list leans far harder into the rush plan, with the new Void and Skunkworks upgrades providing a solid line for scoring the final few points. Of particular note is the move away from Lakshmi and MCAAP, the former a suffering from the less symmetrical agenda suite now that Luminal makes an appearance. Along with the reduced number of opportunities to obtain counters and the standard 5 hand size, defending agendas in this way proved generally unworkable. MCAAP gets pushed out simply because you can’t afford to spend the time clicking up and defending, when you really should be jamming agendas.
Overall this leaves a deck with a narrower gameplan that loses some of the flexibility from last years Tablet ASA, made up for by proving far more approachable to pilot initially. There is still some debate to be had, particularly over the ice suite, which has shown some fluctuation during testing oscillating between 14 and 15 pieces. Ansel 1.0 and Border Control also made the initial list but were sacrificed to bring in the important 3rd Spin Doctor with the remaining influence going on Slot Machines. At the current time of writing this appears to be the group favourite to play for the Chatteris store champ on Saturday.
Gateway 419
2 Rezeki
2 Miss Bones
3 Sure Gamble
2 Boomerang
3 Deuces Wild
1 Amina
1 Mutual Favor
3 Aumakua
2 The Class Act
3 Diversion of Funds
1 Political Operative
2 Falsified Credentials
3 Bravado
2 Pennyshaver
1 Paperclip
2 Earthrise Hotel
2 The Turning Wheel
3 Dirty Laundry
1 Citadel Sanctuary
1 Bukhgalter
2 Diesel
3 Daily Casts
Little in the way of surprises here, with a Criminal list that is largely unchanged from last year. Originally adapted from Mining Accident 419, the accidents were removed to free up influence for two copies of Diesel. Other additions are the excellent Penny Shaver over Paragon and Mutual Favor for the rotated Special Order. There is little else to debate here other than the selection of tech slots which currently resides at 2 x Bones, 1 x Political Operative and 1 x Citadel Sanctuary. With the likelyhood that Void is going to be seeing a lot of play, some case could be made for finding a 2nd Polop although cuts here are tough to find. The inclusion of Citadel Sanctuary alongside the improved draw from Diesel helped greatly towards making the BTL Neurospike match up workable during testing, and appears to be enough to give you a decent match up here.
the process 