Financial Advice for Megacorp Business Owners

In a world where business is war, having the ability to fund your ongoing business activities is essential, because, just like in the real world - as I can personally attest to - corporations go bankrupt or survive based entirely on cash flow. Those who have drafted Megacorp know of the struggle that comes from only being able to access one basic consumer per turn. In constructed, if your opponent is any kind of a deck builder,that's not going to be anywhere near enough to deal with the nonsense they will be churning out. Your constructed deck will either need a financial engine of some sort, to ensure you can deal with the problems created by your opponent's business, or it will need to play in a style where cash doesn't matter. Luke Seti decks tend to be of the second type, saving a heap of money by using the free search ability, but most decks have a few expensive cards and need to have a way to make a few dollars in order to play them.

If you're running a financial engine, it will need to be increasing your cash flow by more than the $1m/turn you would get from playing 100% basic consumers, or there is no point in doing so. Now, there are more than a few options for creating wealth in Megacorp, so we'll go over a few of these, and what you can do to build your deck around them.

Pollution is no real concern; the game   
should have ended well before it matters

Making use of the "Industrial Complex" is one of the more straightforward ways of building a resource base. Factory provides steady cash flow with bursts of cash when required, provided you've got some terrain free to deploy it on - which is a minimum of four in a twenty card deck - but of course you can't go too heavy on terrain, or your resource reveal in buy phase is terrain => terrain far too often. Now, eventually Factory's pollution destroys the terrain it is deployed on, but the majority of games will end well before that terrain is exhausted. If, however, you're worried about the potential environmental consequences, deploy your factory in the middle of the Sea! It has the ability to remove a pollution counter from a deployed card every turn, making the Factory last forever, or at least until the opponent annihilates it. The cost of Factory can be deceptive; it might state $3m on the card, but it can be $1m when you need it to be - you can recover $2m by engaging it immediately. Note that a Factory that begins a turn disengaged can produce $3m in cashflow on that turn, and one that begins engaged can only make $2m. Factory is weaker than the terrain surrounding it, with a BQ half that of Sea, so it needs a little defense. Otherwise it is a reliable income source that can fit into many different decks. The choice of terrain can vary, depending on the remainder of the deck, as the Factory can be deployed on any terrain. For example, if Horizon Industries Mariner Suit is part of your decklist, Sea, Lake or Mangrove become the terrain of choice.

Common. Sometimes rarity is not always
indicative of power level

Driverless Car Fleet finds a home in many decks that want to increase the rate at which resources are purchased from the resource deck, usually in conjunction with a lot of low-cost basic consumers. Because it's an equipment card, not a character, it is easily found via Dead Drop abilities, so the fleet can get to work for you in the early game, when it matters. The #vehicle, #civilian and #infrastructure tags allow it to interact with a variety of different cards and decks, e.g. you can bond a Vulcan Cannon to a Driverless Car Fleet; the ability to unbond and redeploy a bonded character can allow for tricky tactical plays, and it allows you to purchase from the resource deck at the end of your opponent's turn, to avoid exposing your consumers to enemy attacks. It is one of the game's most powerful cards, and shouldn't be overlooked. The ability is similar to that of Incarnate Donor, which has the advantage of being a character for attack and defense after doing its job of expanding your board state, but Driverless Car Fleet is both reusable and easily searchable, and has no trait cost, so it can be played in any deck, while Incarnate Donor is a little more restrictive, and requires a #mech suit in order to be reusable. At Rabblemaster Games we have found it to be one of the most in-demand cards, and we can't keep them in stock longer than a day or two. Something to always keep in mind is that versatility in trading card games is essential; the best cards are usable on both attack and defense, and cards that are only good when you are winning, or only good when you are losing, are not "good cards"

Let's compare Lightning Bolt - a spell in Magic: the Gathering that deals 3 damage to any target at the cost of one mana, and Blazing Hope - same game, same single mana cost, but which has the effect "exile target creature with power greater than your life total"
Lightning Bolt is good at any stage of the game. Blazing Hope is a highly situational card that only functions properly when you're actively losing the game, either with average creatures having 3-4 power and you having 2-3 life, or you've got a reasonable life total and they have some giant 15 power creature threatening to crunch you in one hit. It may be efficient, but when you're winning, you can't use it to remove an opponent's average blocking creature, then rack up the points for the match. It's only good when you are losing, and losing badly. It is not a good card!

Now, back to our regular scheduled programming...

Buk buk buk - farming for cash is viable!

One of the oldest professions on Gaia, or any other planet, is the food production for sale to consumers; after all, everything that doesn't photosynthesise must eat to survive. Farming in Megacorp is certainly a viable option for making a few million, and is best combined with a founder that actively attacks - Luke Seti, Raamaa or one of the action-based founders - in order to keep your opponent's attention away from your chicken flocks and cow herds. The principle is simplicity itself; make use of the self-propagating Desert to expand your available terrain, deploy flocks and herds there, and divest them in a turn or two after their valuation increases from the small amount you paid for them to a reasonable amount. Alternatively, cards like Restaurant and Cafe allow you to remove food counters from your chicken and cow cards to convert into money directly - but they take up valuable space in your resource deck which is likely to already be filled with farm animals, terrain, and Driverless Car Fleets for the automated transport of animals from that deck into the network. One of the advantages of making money from the sale of livestock in Megacorp is that not all decks run terrain, so that after selling off your stock, your opponent may not be in a position to purchase them from your open market, meaning you can purchase them again with no competition at the low price. This, of course, doesn't apply if you're in the Restaurant trade, when you want your animals to stay where they are and continue producing turn after turn.

Refer to our earlier article on building military decks in Megacorp to hear about the financial advantages that come with running Barracks, and the restrictions it places on your deck; Barracks requires a full commitment to a military strategy, including a minimum of 12-15 characters with the #military keyword, and locks in various other aspects of the deck's construction - the article goes into this in detail, but suffice it to say, there isn't going to be much room to customise your deck. In exchange for this, you obtain the ability to have cash of $6m per turn flowing into the coffers, an advantage to all those compulsory #military characters in the form of a morale boost, and a place to hide them away when targeted by an opponent's cards or effects. Barracks is a poor card when you are behind on the board and can't produce the full amount of cash from it, however, and the card is physically weak for a location with only 3 BQ, plus vulnerable in two other stats. Note that Barracks is a high risk, high reward card that needs your protection and attention, so remember: your military characters only need to begin the turn inside the Barracks; they can be left in a relevant position in the network to defend where necessary and bonded to it at the end of turn, just in time for a few dollars to be made in the next turn's cash flow step. Beware of engaging Barracks for trait resources, as it won't provide cash flow during the next accounting phase!

Making money with your founder is an   
attractive proposition, as it requires no
additional up-front financial investment  

Some founders can be a financial engine all by themselves; The Glass Man and Chi, Corp Socialite are the two best examples of this. Requiring little to nothing in the way of investment, either in additional cards or financially, making money with your founder can be an incredibly attractive proposition, as it leaves your other deck space free for your main deck ideas for winning the game. Chi's method is pure brute force and she requires no help to do this; simply declare a challenge, and the money rolls in slowly but steadily, increasing her EQ stat as it does - provided you are attacking using that stat. Several cards interact nicely with Chi's "when she declares a challenge" ability; notably Rampage, which allows her to make multiple challenges in one attack step; and Siren, which is normally used to force two opponent's characters to hit each other, but can also be used to make Chi declare a second challenge - even if she is already engaged from making an earlier one. Chi's ability to replace other traits with her EQ trait score means she can make a challenge in BQ, then switch to an IQ challenge next time if her BQ stat was reduced too low in the previous challenge. I've ranted several times in previous articles about how much I love the Corp Socialite as a founder, but we discussed earlier how important versatile cards are in trading card games, and Chi is a very flexible founder, able to turn from a rock-solid defender to a cash machine, then into a serious threat at a moment's notice. The Glass Man is a very different kind of financial engine, requiring the card Glass Man's Gambit to get the ball rolling. Fortunately, it's a #moral #assault card, and can easily be found by his own search ability. He isn't normally used for attacking; his low BQ stat leaves him vulnerable and his search and re-use abilities normally take priority - particularly when he's at the head of a controlling deck - but things change in a hurry when he's in a gambling mood. Using his base stats, The Glass Man obtains $3m per challenge while his Gambit is on the field, as long as you aren't challenging using that pathetic BQ trait of one. Rampage is again a fantastic card to use with this strategy, knocking out multiple assets with each challenge at $3m profit per hit; dealing double damage via Muay Thai or Critical Hit gainst you twice the profit - or if challenges are not viable because of a strong defensive set-up by your opponent, you can simply divest The Glass Man for $10 million straight up thanks to the increase in his valuation. 

This is the decklist I'm currently running for our constructed tournaments at Rabblemaster Games, which combines several of these ideas into one deck, along with several attacking options to devastate the opposing board state or disrupt the opposing business, and plenty of defensive options to tactically outplay the opponent. 

One of the core set's most powerful gun
cards, Vulcan Cannon grants an activated
ability to the bonded card that directly
deals damage, rather than just replacing
the card's next attack. This ability can be
used at any time and can eliminate entire
columns of cards at the very low cost of
simply discarding an unwanted card. The
equipped card can do it while engaged,
and this deck puts the card to great use
by equipping it to mech suits, or even
the versatile Driverless Car Fleet, in an
emergency, can be turned into an engine
of mass destruction

Main Deck
4 Corp Executive
1 Corp Consultant
4 Corp Advisor
4 Incarnate Donor
1 Maxim Glazhov
1 Michael Basa
2 Horizon Industries Mining Suit
2 Horizon Industries Mariner Suit
1 Jump Jets
2 Vulcan Cannon
1 Railgun Lunasys MK6
1 Railgun Strike
3 Kidnapping
1 Rampant Bribery
2 Political Corruption
2 Mech Pilot Training
3 Blue Chip Shares
2 Misdirection
2 Timely Interception
1 Guided Munitions
Resource Deck
2 Driverless Car Fleet
4 Sea
1 Mangrove
4 Factory
3 Compulsive Consumers
6 Selfish Consumers

Ways to make money in this deck include the following:

1) Challenging with the founder Chi, Corp Socialiate
2) The permanent cash generation of Factory and Sea
3) Purchasing additional resources via Driverless Car Fleet and repeated use of Incarnate Donor's "on deploy" effect via the Horizon Industries mech suits, massively increasing the number of resource cards on the battlefield
4) Selling the cards that have been Dead Dropped onto the battlefield during the divest phase of the turn; not ideal, but a great way out of a tight spot
5) Reducing the opponent's amount of cash reserves via Disruptor effects. This isn't quite the same as making money, but leaving yourself with more resources compared to the opponent is a similar effect
6) Main deck cashflow via Blue Chip Shares when the resource deck doesn't provide enough of its own.

It's particularly difficult to score an "economic victory" against this deck, due to the sheer amount of resources it can add to the battlefield in a turn - a single Corp Executive in the opening hand can find a Horizon Industries Mariner Suit, Jump Jets, and two Driverless Car Fleets by spending a total of $5m, 3MQ and 1BQ, and $4m of this can be recovered by divesting the Corp Executive during that phase. The Driverless Car Fleets then take over the role of bringing multiple resource cards out on each turn, hopefully including some terrain and a Factory, further accelerating the deck's cash flow. The deck makes heavy use of the bond and redeploy ability of the mech suits in order to re-use the Dead Drop and on-deploy effects of Corp Executive and Incarnate Donor. This helps to build an advantageous and flooded board state, which protects - via the surround rule - important characters like the powerful financial engine Chi, Corp Socialite, and can be difficult to break via conventional means. It's simple math; if you have ten cards in play to your opponent's four, barring some silly effect like a Rampage, they simply aren't going to be able to attack everything in play!

Owing to its tendency to flood the board, the deck is a little weak to sweeping effects like Tidal Wave and Telekinetic Slash, but these aren't always cheap effects, and the deck is poised to take advantage of that resource expenditure by #unethical means, like Kidnapping the opposing founder and/or strong attackers while the opponent cannot afford to pay the ransom, or laying a Political Corruption at the foot of the opposing business

Other uses of some of the cards in this deck are discussed in an earlier article, "Building around the Corp/Donor Core" but several cards that are part of that core are missing due to card availability - we haven't seen enough Assassination Contracts opened at Rabblemaster Games, because we only have a core of 6-7 players. Come and join us at a few more events, pick up a few packs during a draft, and perhaps you'll open a Battle Angel or Economic Hitman to build a new Megacorp deck around, and win some prizes.

Get into Megacorp at Rabblemaster Games today - Monday and Tuesday nights - but remember to pack a money-making engine into your deck, or you'll be facing financial ruin before you know it!