As I set out to play Terminal Directive, I knew I would need to run a new kind of deck. My old advanceable ICE deck was doing ok, but it relied heavily on its identity to make it work, so with a new identity comes a new kind of deck. This one I call Skorpios: Toybreaker, as it really wants to break apart the Runner’s rig… …And then remove it from the game.

For the Agendas in this deck, Underway Renovation is definitely the workhorse.  It allows me to trash their stack a fair bit and was easy to get scored.  I managed to score an armored servers and evidence collection which was nice (armored servers is a nice threat on an iced up scoring remote), but the only place I saw Government Contracts was in the Runner’s score area.

The Assets here did a lot of work for me.  Marilyn Campaign was nice to keep the drip econ flowing, and I never had any problems with it.  Kala Ghoda and Clyde Van Rite both were able to keep pressure on the Runner’s stack, with Kala Ghoda being the stand-out card for this deck.  Of course, Jackson Howard allowed me to keep getting the cards I wanted and provided this deck’s recursion.

I went with a pretty basic econ package, but also wanted to try out IPO and Restructure for some high-end bursts.  Overall, I didn’t feel like this gained me a lot, so I will probably drop them for an extra Hedge Fund and Beanstalk Royalties.  My other Operations were split – Housekeeping was pretty solid, making it harder for the Runner to replace what I was breaking, and Friends in High Places let me get back Kala Ghoda again should the need arise.  On the other hand, Punitive Counterstrike and Hunter Seeker didn’t do as much as I really wanted – I think this is primarily due to their conditional; having them in-hand, the credits to use them, and not having something better to do the turn after the Runner scored an agenda was rough.

The ICE seemed to work okay, with Rototurret and Quicksand being the MVPs here.  I knew the Runner would want to make a lot of runs against R&D, and throwing Quicksand in front made that an increasingly costly endeavor.  Also, having him faceplant into the Rototurret the first time, made it all worth it.  I feel like Taurus was maybe a misplay, as the Runner wasn’t using much in the way of Hardware, so it never really posed a threat (blank ICE anyone?)  I’ll likely swap out Guard and Sapper as well – Guard was a bit overcosted against what was coming at me, as the cannot be bypassed ability never really came in to play, while Sapper hung out in HQ all game and the Runner never pulled it (though, to be fair, he also never pulled an Agenda from HQ.)

Overall, I was pretty happy with how this deck played.  Skorpios’s remove from the game ability forced the Runner to think about the possibility of not seeing his cards again once they were trashed, which gave me good tempo.  While the Runner did get a lot of runs in, and did do a good number on my R&D, it eventually became enough of a problem that I had good scoring windows, though, admittedly, that last one…  …was really close.