How it wins
- Your turn-3 board is defensive: Augmented Negotiators or another Blocker, a Gear dropped in through River Ward: Detective on the Hunt, and Eddies held for Reboot Optics. Nine of your cards provide Blocker.
- You take over when MaxTac Suppression Team lands. From then on nothing your rival plays can attack the turn it arrives, and your geared Units start trading on your terms.
- The game ends either with the 8-cost Placide: Voodoo Sentinel or V: Corporate Exile going Solo, or - if one Unit is carrying two or three Gears - with a single Cyberpsychosis swing worth +3 power per Gear and up to three Gigs.
Strengths
- Eight Quick cards plus River Ward's Quick ability, so your rival's combat is never safe.
- Nine Blocker cards (Augmented Negotiators, Lizzy Wizzy: Delicate Weapon, Mandibular Upgrade) make it hard for aggro to find an open Gig area.
- Kerry Eurodyne: Axe, Attitude, Audience gives you a second roll on every Gig you take from the fixer area. Use it to fix a bad value, or to fish for a minimum or maximum, which draws a card (three on the d20).
- The Relic: Experimental Biochip insures your biggest Unit: when the equipped Unit is defeated, another Unit costing 9 or less comes back from your trash for free.
Weaknesses
- Only 16 cards cost 2 or less, so faster decks are usually ahead on Gigs early.
- Draws are uneven because nine cards are single copies, Safety Override and Gorilla Arms among them.
- Your power is concentrated by design, so one bottom-deck or defeat on your best Unit can take its Gear and your Cyberpsychosis turn with it.
Key cards
- River Ward: Detective on the Hunt
- Lets you equip in response, turning a rival attack into a lost fight.
- MaxTac Suppression Team
- Shuts off same-turn attacks - Go Solo Legends included - which is what keeps you alive against faster decks.
- Cyberpsychosis
- Lets a slow, defensive deck win in a single turn from a board that never looked threatening.
- Placide: Voodoo Sentinel
- Removes a rival Unit every time it enters or attacks (one discarded Program each time), so each two-Gig hit also clears the next blocker.
- Zetatech Faceplate
- Makes blocking productive, since every time its Unit is spent you nudge a Gig by up to 1.
- Mandibular Upgrade
- Free through River Ward, so any Unit can become a Blocker at no cost.
First turns
Keep: Keep any hand with MaxTac Suppression Team; without it, something like Augmented Negotiators, Zetatech Faceplate and Reboot Optics.
Mulligan: Mulligan a hand like Placide, Cyberpsychosis, Live with the Aftermath and Chrome Reverie - nothing to cast before turn 3.
- On the draw with Augmented Negotiators, Zetatech Faceplate, Kiroshi Optics, Reboot Optics, MaxTac Suppression Team and Live with the Aftermath: turn 1 sells Live with the Aftermath and Calls a Legend - say River Ward. Your rival sees one Eddie, an empty field and a face-up detective.
- Turn 2 sells Kiroshi Optics, and two Eddies plus a face-down Legend pay for Negotiators. When their first attacker comes in, Negotiators blocks, they discard a card, and River Ward drops the Faceplate on it mid-fight for free - a 4-power defender where they expected 2.
- Turn 3 passes with three Eddies open for Reboot Optics. On turn 4 four Eddies and a face-down Legend pay for MaxTac, and every Unit they cast from then on arrives unable to attack.
Common mistakes
-
Mistake: Cyberpsychosis goes on a Unit with two ordinary Gears, and at the end of the turn you lose three cards.
Better: Build the swing around The Relic: with one more Gear it is already +6, and when the Unit dies at end of turn the Relic plays Placide or MaxTac from your trash for free, if one is there.
-
Mistake: Kerry is face-up and you roll the d10 while the d4 is still in the fixer area.
Better: Take the d4. Two of its four faces draw a card, and with Kerry's reroll you hit one about three times in four.
-
Mistake: Lizzy Wizzy blocks while Augmented Negotiators sits ready beside her.
Better: Redirect with Negotiators: the rival discards a card for the privilege, and Lizzy stays up for the next attacker.
-
Mistake: Lizzy Wizzy enters and her free Program comes from your hand.
Better: Take Chrome Reverie or Live with the Aftermath from the trash instead. You get a card you already used for nothing, and the one in hand stays for later.
Matchups
| Against | Result | How it plays |
|---|---|---|
| Embracing Power (Arasaka) | Favourable | Arasaka wants to win with bigger geared Units and has no Quick cards to stop your Cyberpsychosis turn. MaxTac also blanks Goro Takemura: Hands Unclean's Go Solo attack, and Placide outsizes their whole list. |
| The Heist (Mercs) | Favourable | The Heist wants to chip one Gig at a time with small Units. Yours are bigger, MaxTac stops V on her Go Solo turn, and you should time Cyberpsychosis for when their Floor It Eddies are spent. |
| Johnny / Panam / Viktor | Hard | They want to hit before your defence is up. MaxTac is your lever - even Johnny Silverhand: Rocking Renegade can't make their fresh Units attack - and never block Johnny Silverhand: Never Stop Fighting with a Unit he beats. |
| Smasher / Dum Dum / V | Hard | Bonnie and Clyde kills Augmented Negotiators and Lizzy Wizzy alike, so your wall is thinner here than in any other matchup. Lean on MaxTac and Reboot Optics instead, and cast Live with the Aftermath on a turn when Animals Wrecker is their only Unit. |
| Jackie / Johnny / V | Even | MaxTac blanks the free Unit from their Yorinobu Arasaka: Steel Dragon, which would otherwise fight the turn it lands. Lizzy Wizzy, at cost 5, is out of Corporate Surveillance's reach, so she is the Blocker that reliably stays up to deny Wraith Marauders its first steal. |
| Alt / Judy / V | Even | They want to bottom-deck your best Unit. Maman Brigitte: Spirit of Death can't touch geared Units, but Unlikely Bond and Placide can, so spread your Gear. |
| Hanako / Jackie / Judy | Hard | Bottom-decking ignores Reboot Optics, which only works in fights, and takes Gear along with the Unit - so never let one Unit carry your whole game. |