The World Would Swing If I Were King! Frisco Del Rosario 6x World Domination 4x Data Wall 2.0 4x Quandary 3x Shock.r 2x Vacuum Link 2x Euromarket Consortium 1x Braindance Campaign 5x Accounts Receivable 2x Credit Consolidation 3x Silver Lining Recovery Protocol 1x Overtime Incentives 2x Edgerunner Inc. Temps 3x Project Consultants ?x Rio De Janeiro City Grid ?x Chester Mix ?x Lesley Major ?x Bizarre Encryption Scheme ?x Red Herrings Warning: 2,200 words about World Domination follow. :) A Plan for World Domination To rule the world is a dream of cartoon mice and the 21st century corporations which inhabit the NetRunner multiverse. World Domination, a corporate agenda from the Proteus expansion, aims for just that -- a one-card win. No muss, no fuss. Advance and score one agenda, and the world is yours. The World Domination agenda is most difficult to accomplish -- the corporation has to add 12 advancement counters to the card in order to gain three agenda points, plus the card-text bonus which awards the corporation four additional agenda points. In contrast, the second-hardest agenda to complete is Political Overthrow, which awards six agenda points for nine difficulty. The first bit of arithmetic that favors a World Dominating corporation is that the runner opposing a 45-card, tournament-legal deck containing six World Dominations has to steal three of them to win, whereas the corporation has only to score one. Part of World Domination's charm lies in its "B"-movie grandiose -- in one fell swoop, rule the world and win the game! The card is also intriguing for its impracticality. No one I know includes it in even a whimsical deck -- the obvious question "how do you score it?" deflates many ambitious players. I suggest a deck makeup which gives a World Domination plan a serious chance for success. Be the first Napoleon on your NetRunner block to conquer the world. The deck construction described here won the SiliCon NetRunner tournament in Sunnyvale, Calif., in December. * The Tortoise and the Hare There are two methods of agenda advancement. One is pay one bit to add one advancement counter to the card. The other is to pay 5, 10, or 12 bits to play operations (Systematic Layoffs, Management Shakeup, Project Consultants) which permit multiple advancements. The first method is cost-efficient (one bit per advancement counter) but very slow. The longer the agenda remains on the tableau, the more likely it is that the runner will steal it. The second method is expensive, but often results in scoring agenda directly from HQ. It's inordinately difficult to advance an agenda 12 times. To install and advance the card once per action would take at least four turns, all the while keeping the fort safe from the runner, not to mention the other forts. To score World Domination directly from Headquarters -- a safer route, since the agenda is less vulnerable in HQ -- would cost 38 bits. That is, two bits to play Corporate Guard Temps, which gives the corporation an extra action on his next turn, then installing World Domination and playing three Project Consultants. Yes, that's a five-card combination which costs 38 bits -- no one said conquering the world is easy. It is slightly more expensive -- 40 bits -- and more efficient to play one Overtime Incentives and three Project Consultants in the same turn, but the inclusion of Corporate Guard Temps will be discussed below. A crafty corporate player will advance World Domination with both methods, often in combination. * The Preemptive Strike In the earliest stages of the game, the runner is searching for his icebreaking programs, and striving to earn the bits necessary to install and run them. By installing Filter and Data Wall (the least-expensive ice with "end the run" subroutines), and Shock.r (the least-expensive "stun" sentry), the corporation can halt the runner while saving bits to pay for agenda advancement. As the runner develops his breaker suite, the corporation should improve the subsidiary fort with Rio de Janeiro City Grid and more ice. Riddler and Sandstorm from the Proteus set are stronger pieces of ice which might be considered for inclusion, since they allow the corporation to pay for a different number of "end the run" subroutines during each encounter with the runner. A wealthy corporation might just pay to protect his agenda. The other upgrades to the subsidiary fort are Lesley Major, Bizarre Encryption Scheme, and Red Herrings. Lesley Major from the Proteus expansion ("pay 3 to add two advancement counters to this card only after the last piece of ice on this fort has been passed") seems designed to add venom to an advanceable ambush node, but in unison with Red Herrings ("runner must pay 5 in addition to other costs to steal agenda from this fort") or Bizarre Encryption Scheme ("runner doesn't steal agenda from this fort upon accessing; return it to the fort and the runner steals it at the start of his next turn unless the corporation scores it by then"), Lesley Major is the only card in NetRunner which allows the corporation to advance an agenda during the runner's turn. Red Herrings intends to frustrate the runner before the corporation is able to score the World Domination. When the corporation has the agenda in its sights, Bizarre Encryption Scheme slaps a much stronger lock on the fort. Chester Mix reduces the cost of installing ice on the crtical subsidiary fort. * Plan B Should the runner install all of his icebreakers (a generic icebreaker like Bartmoss Memorial or Krash is a definite bane for this deck), the World Dominating corporation must move quickly. Edgerunner, Inc. Temps will serve to install an upgrade, as well as another piece of ice or two. (Beware! Runners are adapting to the "many pieces of cheap ice over Rio" strategy by employing Startup Immolator.) Remember, eight advancement counters already played plus one Project Consultants wins the game, and more cleverly, an action gained by Corporate Guard Temps can also be used for a single advancement. If the runner steals a partially-advanced World Domination, cash in a Silver Lining Recovery Protocol for three bits per advancement counter. If World Domination was advanced seven times before the runner broke through the Shock-enhanced and Rio-bolstered Filters and Data Walls, two Silver Linings could be redeemed for 42 bits, enough to play the forementioned 38-bit combination. After the Silver Lining windfall, the corporation would like to play Corporate Guard Temps. There are then three distinct tactics: 1) The corporation has 38 bits and three Project Consultants in hand: Play Corporate Guard Temps and pay two bits, which gives the corporation one extra action on his next turn. At the next turn, install World Domination, and Project Consult three times to win. 2) The corporation has 32 bits and two Project Consultants in hand: Play Corporate Guard Temps and pay four bits. The corporation will need seven actions over two turns to install a World Domination, Project Consult twice, and advance the agenda singly four times. This is a slight improvement over installing the World Domination in the same turn you play Silver Lining, because the agenda is installed (i.e., vulnerable) for one fewer turn. 3) If the corporation has more than 18 bits but no Project Consultants in hand: Pay six bits for Corporate Guard Temps, and conduct four actions per turn for three turns. Perhaps advancing World Domination singly over three turns rather than four will find the luck of Rio de Janeiro on the corporation's side. * Nose to the Grindstone A plan to dominate the world requires focus. Bits should be gained through operations rather than nodes, since they pay more per action. Prefer Accounts Receivable to Credit Consolidation because Accounts Receivable is playable from the initial draw, and time is of the essence -- soon the runner, if not some masked superhero, will come calling. Silver Lining Recovery Protocol should result in one or sometimes two large bit influxes per game. Also, the fewer nodes the corporation has in his deck, the fewer useful cards the runner can trash. Rustbelt HQ Branch is perhaps the most useful node, for hand size is crucial to any corporate headquarters which houses three Project Consultants and a Corporate Guard Temps, along with any surfaced agenda. Euromarket Consortium costs two to rez, but has a higher trash cost, and confers the additional ability of drawing two cards with an action. Late in a game where the corporation is trying to score World Domination with Project Consultants, the power to draw that Project Consultants, or an Accounts Receivable to pay for it, is a plus. "Yeah, the world would swing if I were king."--Tom Petty I wrote the above about six weeks ago. Since then, the deck makeup described above has gone through a few minor changes -- it still wins more often than it loses, but *always* in great style, and that's what makes the deck so much fun to play. Minor changes: * Filter and Data Wall have been upgraded to Quandary/Sleeper and Data Wall 2.0, so the Codecracking and Jackhammering runner has to pay a bit or two on the way through. Vacuum Link was added for the purpose of installing on top of Rio de Janeiro (a 3-cost, 5-strength sentry is a lot of bang for the buck), and Neural Blade might replace Shock.R soon, with the hope that a runner might die someday on a Vacuum Linked Blade. The ice breakdown at the moment is: 4 Data Wall 2.0, 4 Quandary, 3 Shock.R, 2 Vacuum Link. * A bit node, Braindance Campaign, was added. Ideally, Braindance Campaign will be installed with an Edgerunner, and it's neatly convenient to take two Braindance bits, draw, and advance World Domination three times. Nodes: 2 Euromarket Consortium, 1 Braindance Campaign * Two Credit Consolidations took the place of two Accounts Receivable. Just once or twice have I been unlucky to have a Credit Consolidation in hand with the initial draw, and been unable to play it. * The biggest change -- Overtime Incentives replaced Corporate Guard Temps. All the neat planning that went into the inclusion of Corporate Guard Temps flew out the window for two reasons. 1) It proved impractical in practice to know exactly when to play Corporate Guard Temps and for how long. 2) If the runner steals an advanced WD, and the corporation has no Silver Lining Recovery Protocol in hand, then he has to draw one. If the mandatory draw doesn't pull a Silver Lining, and the first Euromarket draw doesn't pull one, what if the second Euromarket draw pulls two? Then the corp should play Overtime, and two Silver Linings. This makes it impossible to pull off the fabulous 40-bit nirvana coup of Overtime/install World Domination/Project Consult/Project Consult/Project Consult, but maybe a laboratory mouse brainier than I will include an Off-Site Backups in his deck. Operations: 5 Accounts Receivable, 2 Credit Consolidation, 3 Silver Lining Recovery Protocol, 1 Overtime Incentives, 2 Edgerunner, Inc. Temps, 3 Project Consultants General observations: * A World Domination deck is not well-suited for tournament play, for one scores zero agenda points in a loss. (However, I will continue to play it just to amuse my opponents.) * The best runner counterattack against the "World Would Swing" is to ignore the subsidiary fort until the last possible moment, and concentrate on stealing agenda and trashing upgrades from the central forts (virus decks are more effective against "World Would Swing" than any other kind of runner deck). "The last possible moment" is often sooner than the runner thinks, though -- for instance, a World Domination advanced five times is in range when the corporation has 19 bits (Overtime Incentives, advance, advance, advance, Project Consultants). * Promises, Promises and Hot Tip for WNS easily swing the game in the runner's favor, for he needs to liberate two World Dominations rather than one. * Do not play one or more Project Consultants until it wins. Keep your powder dry. * Play economically. Given a choice between installing one card, or drawing a fifth or 10th bit (for the purposes of Accounts Receivable or Credit Consolidation), draw the bit, and hope to Edgerunner the installed card later. (That's good advice for any deck, I tell myself with a smack to my head.) * I have never been coy about the card being advanced in the subsidiary fort -- Jim McCoy has called the deck, "All World Domination, All the Time." Still, runners are always wary about rushing into a huge ambush node -- would you like to be remembered as the runner who hit a Vacant Soulkiller with 10 counters? That wariness could possibly be played upon by including an ambush node in a World Domination deck, but not installing it. By never installing it, the corporation will not lose time by advancing it, and if the runner accesses the ambush node from a central fort, the uncertainty about the advanced card in the subsidiary fort will grow. An obvious question is, "can World Domination co-exist peacefully in a Namatoki/ambush node fort?" I believe the answer is no -- there's no time. It takes time and money to dominate the world, and a World Domination deck must be in constant motion. Install it, and advance it -- the plan described here works because it is a homogenous system. That is, if you advance and score the first WD out of hand, great -- but sometimes you have to cash in a Silver Lining or two in order to fast advance the next one. The deck works as a whole. :)