Hi folks,

so perhaps this is just an artifact of my local meta, but I have to ask... How are people keeping their economy assets alive? I've noticed many tournament deck lists with things like Adonis and Eve campaign in them and have never been able to keep those alive in my decks more than a turn or two. Runners here run on those like an exposed agenda. They'll spend down to their last credits to trash any and every economy card out there.

It makes sense really. The runner has all the advantage in credits. They have more economy cards and ones that are far more difficult to trash (need tags). Yes they have to pay for credits more often (using ice breakers) but if it takes an entire turn and wipes out your own credit pool to keep the corp poor you'll recover much faster. It's why cards like vamp are so strong.

So what's the strategy I'm missing here? I've tried a few rounds of protecting the cards heavily but that's a losing battle too. You end up spending the credits you got to rez the ice to protect your econ card and wind up with nothing to show for it but a bunch of ice the runner can now prepare for. Also a hand full of agendas since you didn't have any place safe to put them.

Personally, I welcome any runner trying to hit my Assets, so long as I've already broken even on them. I will gladly trade their four credits to trash my pad campaign for my one credit to rez it (I know it costs two, but you should always rez it at the end of your opponent's turn to get the immediate benefit). I think the same with Adonis and Eve. The only asset I truly find hard to protect is Melange Mining Corp. But, even if I get one turn's use of it, it was worth it. And, if you have any ice in the remote, it makes it even worse for the runner to break. I think the economic tradeoff is fine, even though the runner's ability to economically recover is faster than the corps.

I'll also never run an Asset only economy. They're great to splash in and force runs, but they aren't a replacement for Hedge Fund/Beanstalks in my opinion.

Really? I mean consider vamp:

You have to run on HQ, which is usually iced with something. Then instead of looking at anything you have to spend as many creds as you want them to lose. And when it's all done, you take a tag for your troubles.

I spend 1 Click + whatever is needed to get through HQ ice + X creds + tag

Corp loses X creds

and people consider this a VERY powerful card.

In the opposite direction, running on Pad costs me a click and 4 creds. You spent a click and 1 cred to place it.

I spend 1 Click, + 4 creds + any creds to get through remote ice (can we agree this is usually less protected than hq?)

Corp is out 1 click, 1 cred and 1 cred every turn the game goes on .

Don't get me wrong, I understand that potential credits are far less valuable than credits in hand... but keeping the corp poor is so strong I suppose I don't understand how these kinds of things aren't top priority targets.

If the corp had a card that said, spend 1 credit to force the runner to lose one click and three credits, I would consider running it in every deck. I really think the additional credit/turn of a Pad Campaign is just bonus. I guess its just how you look at it. And, that's also why I don't ever solely rely on drip economy. The credits you get off it are a bonus, not a guarantee.

Vamp isn't really a great comparison in my opinion. Taking a corps future credits isn't in the same ballpark as taking their current credits. Taking current credits not only steals the credits, but also wastes every action used to that point to gain those credits. Additionally, making a corp go broke allows running options you normally wouldn't have in a given turn. That's the power of Vamp.

Most of the times as the Corp, I will throw my PAD Campaign or Adonis Campaign face down in an unprotected remote server.

I will wait to rez till the end of their turn (as stated above), and keep my Agendas in the one protected server.

I find the Runner is less likely to run on something not protected, believing it to be a trap (because I also put unprotected Ambush Assets like Snare face down unprotected. If they don't run on it till you have rezzed. You force them to spend clicks and credits to stop your economic assets, leaving them less of both to run on your protected Agendas (as mentioned above also).

Run more traps and treat them like assets - Keep some assets face down for a while just to mess with the runner's head. You need to hit the runner with a few stinging ambushes every so often to keep them honest and put some inherent risk on running unprotected cards. After you "train" him to think that way, you can sometimes score an agenda with no ice in front of it for a few turns. I get some good power counters on Project Atlas that way quite often, actually.

Throw a cheap piece of ice down in front of your Adonis/Eve just to make them pay more to trash it. If they don't, you never have to res it, no cost to you. If they do, reuse that server for the next one and the cost of trashing your assets over and over is compounded by breaking the ice. I've had 1 popup window protect multiple campaigns in a game.

I wrote an article about this there . It's specifically about Eve Campaign and Adonis Campaign, but you can apply similar logic to other assets: weighting short term and long term profits.

I tend to use a flexible approach when it comes to how I protect assets. I divide assets up into two groups. The first are low priority assets which are things like PAD Campaign and Marked Accounts which are cheap to rez, expencive to trash and provide a slow flow of cash. I tend to leave these unprotected or with a single cheap, cash draining ICE in front of them (Pop-up Window or Pup for example). My opponant can go after these but it's going to cost him more than it costs me and if he's running these then he isn't spending that click and those credits running my HQ, R&D and other remote servers in serch of Agenda.

The second type of assets are the high priority assets. Examples of this are Melange Mining Corp (lots of credits for the corp) or GRNDL Refinery (pretends to be an Agenda) and the runner is going to be straight after these. I place these in my remote server that I'm building to protect Agendas so my opponant should have to spend quite a bit of cash to punch through and might be kept out for a turn or two by ICE (by that point I should have built up a large reserve of credits from them.

I'm usualy looking to play low priority assets out in the early game before my opponant has had chance to set up his economy. He's going to have to choose whether he wants to run and trash my assets or focus on building up his side of the table. I then play my high priority assets out slightly later once I have a decent remote server set up and the credits to rez the ICE. If my opponant has spent time and credits trashing my early game assets then hopefully he won't have the rig to get past the ICE and if he doesn't trash my early game assets then I'll be getting a steady cash flow until my opponant has his rig up to speed and feels he can spare the credits and the clicks to dismantle my asset economy.

The important thing to remember is that there are more ways of getting credits than assets. There are operations like Beanstalk Royalties or Hedge Fund. Identities like Haas Bioroid - Engineering the Future and Weyland - Building a Better World. Agendas like Corperate War or Geothermal Fracking. Not forgetting the old 'click for a credit' so don't put all of your eggs in the assets economy.

I'm currently working on a deck that makes life hard on runners who want to trash assets. I'm running Jinteki - Replicating Perfection along with the new Enhanced Login Protocol. I've dropped Hunter and Data Raven into the deck to hand out tags and Caprice Nisei as a final roadblaock. I'm hoping that this costs the runner plenty of time and effort to get at the remote server before they even get to trash anything.