Precision Targeting with Azrielle's Assassins

One of the most despised tactics in real-time strategy gaming is "turtling" which is the term for surrounding your base with six or so layers of towers in an effort to avoid being crushed by the opponent's regular units. Megacorp's use of the Surround Rule allows for a similar strategy of putting your business and founder inside a shell of other cards, for example Desert (followed by a second desert off the trigger) effectively blocking off two sides of the card in question with a 6BQ wall can make it difficult to attack; if the business is on the third side, and you're playing a deck that attacks mainly using EQ or MQ, there's only one place to get through.

Megacorp is also a game where a lot of the action happens at event (instant) speed, and what looks like a lethal attack can be avoided simply by playing Blue Chip Shares in response to a challenge and using it to block. This can be a source of frustration to players wanting to Critically Hit, for example, and founders like Luke Seti and Raamaa, who are difficult to kill at the best of times, become virtually impossible to deal with.

Certain decks are quite capable of flooding the board with seven or eight cards in the first turn or two, other decks can set up a difficult to breach perimeter without too much difficulty, and accurate play with events can prevent a lot of damage to critical cards.

So, how about we ignore all of that?

Theft and destruction

Azrielle's Assassins

1 Azrielle, Independent Enforcer
1 Corp Enterprise

4 Corp Executive
4 Tactical Vassal
2 Anubian Tracker
2 Maxim Glazhov, Cyborg Commando
1 Battle Angel
2 Michael Basa, Data Obfuscator
4 Corp Advisor

Sabotage and hacking

1 Economic Hitman

3 Guided Munitions
1 Railgun Lunasys MK6
2 Lunasys Y-1600 Lancer
2 Vulcan Cannon
2 Horizon Industries Mining SUit
1 Battle Angel Carapace
2 Railgun Strike
1 Assassination Contract
1 Armor-Piercing Ammunition
2 Misdirection
2 Timely Interception
1 Tobias Maschinekraft E5 Grenadier

4 Barracks
2 Driverless Car Fleet
2 Mangrove
9 Selfish Consumers
3 Savvy Consumers

This deck is designed, in essence, to ignore any and all defences set up by the opponent. Three Guided Munitions and the Armor-Piercing Ammunition provide any of the characters with #gun the ability to either ignore blockers with a Precision shot, or Penetrate a surrounded target - and several of the characters are naturally armed, including the high-powered Maxim Glazhov and the hand-devastating Michael Basa, Data Obfuscator. Cards like Railgun Strike, the Tobias Maschinekraft E5 Grenadier and Vulcan Cannon ignore targeting restrictions and camouflage.  Maximum numbers of Corp Executive and Tactical Vassal, supplemented by the above mentioned Maxim Glazhov and the damage triggers of Anubian Tracker, provide easy access to ammunition and weaponry - and there are no shortage of powerful weapons available for use here. Some of their tactical uses include:

2 Vulcan Cannon - for wiping out entire columns of cards; devastating when equipped to one of the Horizon Industries Mining Suits

1 Railgun Lunasys MK6 - grants Penetrator and allows for cheap deployment of Railgun Strike, wiping out entire rows (or columns) of cards and sometimes picking off a few million with the bonus Disruptor effect

1 Tobias Maschinekraft E5 Grenadier - splash damage to get around Camouflaged cards; great in the hands of Michael Basa if he can't target the business directly or gaining control of multiple cards with Economic Hitman


2 Lunasys Y-1600 Lancer - this is the tactical (and sometimes opportunistic) endgame; combined with Guided Munitions, $4m can be wiped straight off the opponent's bank balance

1 Battle Angel Carapace - which is not restricted to use by its namesake card, as the addition of Flying and Initiative is fantastic for any any card. However, it is best used in a Battle Angel's hands as it boosts the power of her scatter shot by a thousand percent - and functions as a Lunasys Y-1600 Lancer when wielded by the Angel, providing a $4m disruptor shot without having to discard a card

High risk and high reward, Barracks has
many functions and is well worth its   
exorbitant price tag, as long as you can
defend it; very low stats for a building  

While not a seriously #military deck, we do have a total of ten characters with that keyword, so Barracks is our financial engine of choice here. We don't need to draw a huge amount of cash resources from it - just enough to pay for the upkeep of the more expensive and highly effective military characters, because while it is quite capable of doing so, we aren't really playing the long game with this deck. Our goal is to make surgical strikes more than anything else; cutting cards off from connections to the business, line or scatter-shot attacks against rows or columns of weaker cards, Disruptor attacks against the opposing business when they're a little low on cash - or hit it with Michael Basa and force them to discard the last two cards they have been sand-bagging. Barracks has the additional benefit of boosting our characters' stats and providing a hiding place when they are targeted for removal, but it's not a tough building and requires a little defence. See our previous article on #military decks for tips on how to play with the card. Note that characters only need to be bonded to it during the A phase for the cash flow; they can jump out afterwards

One of the harder cards in the game to
remove - and even more than usual in
this deck - plus the correct trait scores
for wielding the deck's weapons.         

I considered a couple of different founders when creating this decklist, but Azrielle, Independent Enforcer turned out to be the ideal choice, despite the inability to make use of her main action-finding ability; we're more concerned with her ability to be a total brick wall. Azrielle, like much of the deck, has the #military keyword, so an early Barracks can begin generating cash flow for you immediately, regardless of the contents of your hand, and having that keyword means she can hide inside when targeted by removal, attacks, or abilities. Azrielle is damn near impossible to destroy at the best of times, thanks to her inability to be targeted by #unethical cards and her 3IQ stat preventing death from the likes of Telekinetic Slash and Psionic Scream, but certain cards still take her out - ironically, Assassination Contract; there is a reason why that card is the core set's best removal - so a way to remove her from being targeted will make her essentially invincible. Barracks also has the ability to redeploy Azrielle to any location when you unbond her, meaning that 2BQ can shift her from one location in your network to another very quickly, fast enough to block attacks against important cards.

Azrielle's BQ trait score of 3 also makes her tough enough to wield the Vulcan Cannon or Railgun Lunasys MK6, two core components of the deck's strategy, making her the choice over the game's other powerful cash-making founder Chi, Corp Socialite. In this deck, Chi suffers from the problem that you always want to be attacking with her to take advantage of her money-making ability. Chi is a poor defender of the Barracks, while Azrielle passively generates money while guarding it; the Vulcan Cannon and and Railgun attacks do not require use of the challenge phase.

As discussed above, our strategy in playing the deck is that of an assassin, like Azrielle herself. We'll be spending our early turns, most games, by establishing a little cash flow, finding weapons and ammunition while playing defensively. One we are properly equipped for it, we'll be making surgical strikes and targeting the opponent's weaknesses, keeping an eye out for things like the below

(Prime target here)

We want to be going after these targets, in order where possible:

1) Poor business connections in their network - we can destroy several cards for free by cutting off their connection from the business; row or column damage is ideal for this. Note that this is almost always the play that removes the most value from the opponent's network, which should be our goal in most cases.

2) Essential cash flow producers - the Automated Toll System in an #infrastructure deck, the Restaurant in a farming deck, a Barracks in the #military deck; all of these cards demand a high initial investment in return for their awesome cash flow, and destroying the core piece can cripple your opponent's entire game plan

3) Buildings such as Residential Apartments or Hotel which have other cards bonded to them, or characters with multiple mutations or holding multiple equipment. We want to obtain full value out of our strikes, hitting multiple cards where possible

 4) The opposing business. When they have low cash at the bank is the time to strike with Disruptor, wiping out the last of their reserves and (hopefully) winning the game. If you can make this play without risk then you can make it earlier in the game, but accurate risk assessment is the key here.

Essential to the deck's function; we are
playing defensively and countering the
opponent's plays; rather than going in
straight for the throat, we are patiently
waiting for an opening to rip them apart

Now this is by no means a cheap or budget deck; aside from playing a non-starter-deck founder, it's packed with rare (twelve) and exquisite (seven!) cards, pricey uncommons like Anubian Tracker and Driverless Car Fleet, and the set's most expensive uncommon, Misdirection, is an essential part of the deck alongside the Timely Interceptions. Firstly, because we are playing defensively and setting up equipment in the early turns, we can't afford someone to be taking out our Vulcan Cannons or Railguns - we need to point those attacks someplace else. Second is because of our main win condition; a single, precise shot to the heart of the business. The last thing we want to see when making that shot is an opposing Misdirection turning our lethal attack back towards our own business, especially after activating the Guided Munitions! One-shot kills in trading card games need to either be too fast to react to, or you need to have some kind of protection available; we are taking the second route here.

So if you're sick of players turtling up, flooding the board and making it impossible to attack the important targets, or sneaking in blockers at the last minute, give Azrielle's Assassins a try. It's fun being able to ignore your opponent's board state and sneaky tricks!