AND...ACTION!

Today we'll be exploring another of the main archetypes in Megacorp; action decks. A very different approach to the game than the Corp battlefield-flooding dead drop or Luke Seti's mutation search strategy, action decks are all about tactically out-playing your opponent to get huge chunks of damage into where it matters.

You'll need plenty of ways to produce
  trait resources in an action deck led by
Azrielle, but she's very difficult to kill.

We have noted before that there are two founders suitable as the head of an action based deck; Azrielle, Independent Enforcer and Xu Huang, Gnost Monk. Both founders have potent abilities that massively increase their battlefield lifespan, and decks built with these founders have plenty of cards in common, but a few key differences.

    You can't kill Xu Huang with normal       
  removal cards; he's very hard to get off
   the battlefield as a result, and hits like
   a truck                                             

We'll look at Xu Huang first. This character has a very interesting play style - he never wants to stay in one place for too long. He can move whenever his network space is targeted by an action, whether yours or your opponent's. Defensively, this means he can't be Kidnapped, Assassinated via contract, Bribed or targeted for a Kickback, as he can just move to a different location, cancelling the effect. Offensively, when you target him with a positive action, he can be moved into melee range in your opponent's network, where another of his abilities comes into play - when he challenges an adjacent card, half his MQ trait score is added to his BQ score. Xu Huang isn't a melee card, however; he can stay at range when necessary. His last (or first) ability comes into play after he destroys an adjacent asset and is left all alone, disconnected from your opponent's network. The Independent ability allows him to be moved back to a secure space in your network, or elsewhere in your opponent's, where he can cause more havoc. AND he comes into play with Magellan Cell counters - which at first glance isn't relevant, but allows him to work with a few other powerful cards.

What do we want to put in a deck with Xu Huang in charge? Actions, so we can shift him from one place to another where he'd raise a little more hell, of course! We can take advantage of his adjacent card challenge bonus with a card like Rampage; with each target he takes down, his BQ stat will get higher. Muay Thai is likely a good choice here too, allowing for double damage; Attack of Opportunity to prevent retaliation damage seems also to be a good choice; Acrobatic Takedown works like a dream with Xu Huang, since we can move him into position to take down the target of our choice instead of relying on an adjacent character being in position. All these cards are also great with Azrielle, however; what makes Xu Huang decks different is the inclusion of the exquisite rare Ascendant Palm. Turning the regular attack into a cone pattern that can hit up to nine targets and demolish buildings in its wake is a powerful game plan - and Xu Huang has the precise stats required to make use of the card; a high enough MQ stat, those Magellan Cell tokens we mentioned earlier, and most importantly, the ability to move into the most dangerous place for the opponent when you target him with the action card!

There's no space in the text box to put
"play me in a Xu Huang deck" but trust
me, it's on there. Look harder!             

Similar to the Luke Seti deck we looked at last time, most of the attacking will be done by our founder, so we'll want a fair whack of characters to hold the fort while he does his thing. In an action deck, the Martial Artist cards make for great secondary attackers and defenders, as they can make use of the actions we've already stuffed the deck full of. The other card we'll definitely want to be running is Gnost Paladin; he's the only other character in the Welcome to Aohu core set that meets the requirements for Ascendant Palm - 3 or more MQ and at least two Magellan Cell counters. 

Then we need to ask ourselves "do we want to run Anubian Tracker" and the answer is probably still yes, because dear god is that a good card, but it's not a given, unlike in a Luke Seti or Glass Man deck. Xu Huang doesn't search, so the answer will be determined by how many other cards do. We can look at running the Merc Rapid Response Team, which provides an action-oriented search function at a very low cost; it is likely to be in as a four-of. All the Martial Artist cards have a search function, although it's not a particularly reliable one - it won't trigger every turn - and Dead Drop cards are a bit of a maybe at this point.

Let's consider a preliminary list for Xu Huang

1 Gnost Congregation
1 Xu Huang, Gnost Monk

A great addition to any action-based
deck, allowing tricky instant-speed play
and a searching effect, at a low cost    

4 Gnost Martial Artist
4 Merc Rapid Response Team
4 Gnost Paladin
4 Gnost Layman

3 Acrobatic Takedown
3 Ascendant Palm
2 Attack of Opportunity
3 Muay Thai
2 Rampage
2 Infiltrate
2 Telekinetic Slash
1 Telekinesis

2 Driverless Car Fleet
4 Actor
4 Magellan Cell Migration
7 Selfish Consumers
3 Passionate Consumers

Leaving four empty spaces for modification to your local metagame.

We'll take a look at Azrielle in a moment, but there's something important we need to note about the resource deck cards included here. One of the main problems in running an action based deck is that all the actions are usually financially cheap, but high in trait costs - and they not always the same trait costs. Most of the time we want to fill the resource deck with cheap cards, in order to play expensive ones from the main deck, but that isn't necessarily the case in an action deck. Take note of some of the card costs!

I've been taught a few things about thighs
than seem to have eluded our Actor friend

Attack of Opportunity costs an IQ and a BQ; Rampage costs a BQ and an EQ; Muay Thai also costs an IQ and a BQ; Ascendant Palm is 3MQ - and is the most expensive cash-wise at $1m - the others have no monetary cost attached. Neither founder allows you to play the actions for free, however, so you still need to come up with the trait costs to pay for them. It's a bit less of a limitation with Xu Huang than Azrielle; the Gnost Monk is usually targeted only once or twice per turn, where the Independent Enforcer can reveal five or six actions with her ability. We'll have characters to engage for traits in the main deck, since we'll be limiting the majority of our attacking to just our founder, but in the resource deck, Actor is one of the better choices. Many other resource cards, such as Place of Worship and Forest add both cashflow and traits to the pool, but they are $4m buildings, rather than $3m characters, and they only add a single type of trait each turn; Actor lets you choose a different trait type each turn to match the action you want to play - and he can attack in a pinch, with decent EQ and IQ stats, although typically for actors, and amusingly, he has no moral compass. In particular note that we want to include Magellan Cell Migration in the Xu Huang deck, as it conveniently engages for the trait resources to play Ascendant Palm or Merc Rapid Response Team, but it may not be ideal for Azrielle.

So now, to Azrielle, Independent Enforcer. Straight-up immune to Kickback, Kidnapping, and Rampant Bribery, as well as surviving a Telekinetic Slash or Psionic Scream, Azrielle rivals my favourite founder, Chi, Corp Socialite for toughness; she's one of the hardiest founders in the game, and also packed with keywords on her type line. Here, we're going to take advantage of the #military one and slot her into a military-based action deck. Many of the cards from the previous Xu Huang deck are going to transfer straight across, but we'll be leaving a fair amount behind, partly because Azrielle is a Corp character, partly because their abilities are no longer relevant, and partly because there might not be space, because taking a lesson from our previous article on military decks, we want a fair concentration of #military cards to help fuel the cash generation ability of Barracks, which serves an additional function in this deck; should Azrielle be targeted by one of the few removal cards she isn't straight-up immune to, she can hop into the Barracks for safety. A bonus of running a #military deck is that the cards should provide plenty of IQ to fuel Azrielle's ability

All #slave cards in Megacorp provide a 
good stats to cost ratio, at the minor 
cost of reducing your business's moral 
quotient. It's touches like this that bring
Megacorp to life at Rabblemaster Games

Being an action-based deck, we'll be attacking with our founder where possible, but we have an issue playing Azrielle that Xu Huang doesn't encounter quite as much. Ascendant Palm is essentially unblockable, while Azrielle's attacks are not - so we'll also need a way to ensure those attacks get through to the relevant target, or we'll be fighting an uphill battle. The Tactical Vassal has our back on both of these requirements; he's a low cost #military card with no upkeep cost, and his Dead Drop is the perfect size to grab some Guided Munitions or Armor-Piercing Ammunition from the deck to empower our attacks. Azrielle isn't naturally armed, although most of the rest of our army is, but her BQ of three is the right size to pick up a Railgun Lunasys MK6, or preferably, a Vulcan Cannon. Being a military deck, we'll want to power some equipment like this out as a matter of course, but if we have too much, it will interfere with Azrielle's ability to find those action cards we want. As a result, we'll be upping the amount of searching the deck does, with four Corp Executive, and since we've got twelve main-deck seach cards - we're retaining the Merc Rapid Response Team from the Xu Huang Deck - some Anubian Trackers, and probably a #mech suit or two in order to re-use the dead drop abilities. We probably want Incarnate Donor if we're running mech suits, but I'm predicting this will be a very tight list, with very little room for customisation. There are so many things we want to cram in.

Have at it!


4 Tactical Vassal

One of Azrielle's favourite ranged weapons
especially if she's dealing double damage,
or can't be blocked. Or, preferably, both!

4 Merc Rapid Response Team
2 NSA Member
2 Maxim Glazhov
1 Michael Basa
4 Corp Executive
2 Anubian Tracker

2 Acrobatic Takedown
2 Attack of Opportunity
2 Rampage
2 Muay Thai
1 Critical Hit
2 Superhuman Leap
1 Rampage

1 Armor-Piercing Ammunition
2 Vulcan Cannon
1 Jump Jets
1 Horizon Industries Mariner Suit
1 Horizon Industries Mining Suit
1 Lunasys Battle Tank MK1
1 Lunasys Y-1600 Lancer
1 Guided Munitions

2 Driverless Car Fleet
4 Barracks
4 Savvy Consumers
2 Mangrove
8 Selfish Consumers

Even tighter than I first anticipated, there isn't even any room for Incarnate Donor. But we have plenty of options for tricky plays, including the nasty Superhuman Leap on Michael Basa to knock the opponent's hand straight out, stopping attacks with an Acrobatic Takedown via a quick Merc Rapid Response Team, transporting characters around via Jump Jets-equipped mech suits, or wiping out multiple cards with a sudden flurry of hits from a Rampaging Azrielle.

Both action-based decks have a very tough to kill founder and offer plenty of ways to outplay your opponent; if using combat tricks and having the ability to eliminate the opponent with a sudden combination is your style of play in trading card games, you'll enjoy playing an action deck in Megacorp. Join us for constructed on Monday and draft on Tuesday at Rabblemaster Games, and get ready for #action!