A friend of mine has built a HB deck, using Wotan to protect HQ and then Off the Grid in a remote server, forcing me to tackle HQ first.

My only barrier breaker in my Shaper deck is Morning Star which can't be pumped. So I had to use Femme Fatale and nominate Wotan. Is this the most efficient/economical thing I can do with the current card pool?

How are others dealing with Wotan and/or Off the Grid? Sneakdoor Beta?

Thanks.

If you're using a fixed Fracter, why aren't you supporting it with Personal Touch/Dinosaurus, or better yet, Datasucker?

There are other barriers which are (or can) get over Str 5 and will lock you out hard without support. If you're using fixed breakers, you need to support them. Save Femme for something like Tollbooth.

I have Dinosaurus, but that's only going to get Morning Star up to 7. I may have to try to work Data Sucker in I suppose. Yawn. Ha!

Cheers.

Corroder + Datasucker x2 for the same influence as your Morning Star.

Corroder + Datasucker x2 for the same influence as your Morning Star.

Three times the card slots though.

I really like Morning Star, assuming you don't pay full price for it, but it absolutely needs to be supported.

OTG hates Sneakdoor Beta, but that's not really viable out of faction unless you run The Professor. The other option is to run R&D and trash the OTGs before they get installed.

Also, Wotan and OTG together comprise a $20 outlay from the corp--make sure you're putting enough pressure on remotes and assets to prevent them from getting that big of a bucket of money. Are you paying retail cost for that Morningstar? If so, you may be giving yourself enough of a tempo hit that you're letting the corp ramp up higher than is safe.

All that said, Wotan is a beast, and it's not meant to be run through very much, since it's as cripplingly expensive to break as it is to rez. Femme is your most economical choice, $4 per run is not great but it's a bargain under the circumstances:

Inti: 22 (again, wtf is Inti even for?)

Aurora: 14

Snowball: 13

Corroder: 12

Battering Ram: 11

Morningstar: N/A (1 if supported by 2-3 other cards which you also had to draw, click to install, and pay for and god help you if the corp ices up R&D/Archives and then purges datasucker tokens)

But remember, if they rezzed it with Bioroid Efficiency Research or Oversight AI, then if you Femme past it or pay the toll on any of its subroutines, then it does not trip the conditional to derez/trash it.

Inti: 22 (again, wtf is Inti even for?)

Wraparound

And Paper Wall? Sure.

actually...I kid. Inti is looking better for those early game facechecks, when corps hide behind Ice Walls, Paper Walls, and (soon) Wraparound. You can even get past Wall of Static or Bastion in a pinch. I could see running it with a late-game Fracter and feeding the first one and any others to Aesop's. It's not that bad. Maybe I'll try it in my CT "Deckless" speed build.

Thanks to you all for the help with this.

I’ve only had a couple of games against this deck, but he managed to get Wotan on HQ in both – once by having a lucrative turn (a Hedge Fund and a couple of Successfully Demonstrations) and the other using Oversight AI and as you rightly point out, with Femme Fatale (my only option), I couldn’t trash it.

I still like Morning Star, but may have to switch and add Personal Touch and Datasucker as suggested. I wasn’t paying full price for Morning Star if I could help it. A combination of Test Runs and Scavenging between Morning Star and Femme was my usual trick till I hit this Wotan-shaped brick wall.

I’ll just try to put enough pressure on early so he struggles for credits.

Thanks again.

Corroder + Datasucker x2 for the same influence as your Morning Star.

Three times the card slots though.

I really like Morning Star, assuming you don't pay full price for it, but it absolutely needs to be supported.

As you say, Morning Star should have Datasuckers anyway.

Alternately, f you really really have to get though to HQ to trash an Off the Grid, just pay Wotan what he asks.

There is that. Battered and bruised when you come out the other side, but it's still an option.

Amen.

Paying the cost of all the subroutines isn't the end of the world either.

Or...... sneak door, and laugh at his irrelevant Wotan?

I don't get it ... what's the big deal? Are Wotan's Hosted Agenda counters unlimited?

I don't get it ... what's the big deal? Are Wotan's Hosted Agenda counters unlimited?

He's talking about Wotan the ice not project Wotan

Emergency Shutdown is the best solution to Wotan. Crescentus can work, but means you actually have to break it.

Forged Activation Orders can help as well if you know it's coming.

Emergency Shutdown is the best solution to Wotan. Crescentus can work, but means you actually have to break it.

Forged Activation Orders can help as well if you know it's coming.

Given that the combo is Wotan+Off the Grid, I'm wagering that Wotan is on HQ.

Emergency Shutdown is the best solution to Wotan. Crescentus can work, but means you actually have to break it.

Forged Activation Orders can help as well if you know it's coming.

Given that the combo is Wotan+Off the Grid, I'm wagering that Wotan is on HQ.

If I were holding an ESD, I'd consider making the sacrifices to the Allfather if that meant getting into HQ.

That's the thing about bioroids--they're very rarely a *hard* end the run. It's always a tradeoff as to whether the runner will accept the tempo hit and get in. Tempo hits to the runner, whether they're in time, money, or card advantage, create windows for the corporation to score agendas while the runner is ramping back up.

In other words, the smart play for Wotan+OTG is not to keep the runner out, but force the runner into a decision to either pay to beat a very beefy Barrier (look at the board state and do the math on how many turns it will take for the runner to do that) or else give up almost an entire turn, a program, some money, and a Brain Damage in order to trash the OTG.

OTG turns Wotan into a must-break, particularly if it was rezzed by Oversight AI or Bioroid Efficiency Research. So, you know the runner is looking at that tempo hit. As the OP says, he can Femme it and get through for $4, then Emergency Shutdown it. That's 13 credits from the runner and 3 clicks. Now, what do you have in front of your advancement server that he *can't* get through *if* he spends that 13 credits? Again, look at the board state, and ask yourself how many turns it would take you in his position.

But wait, you say, if he Femme's on one turn, then runs and Shutdowns on another turn, he can spread out the work. Well that, dear reader, is the trick of it. Seize the opportunity on turn A that he can't both Install and Run, or play so that he has to try and get it all done in one turn.

Emergency Shutdown is the best solution to Wotan. Crescentus can work, but means you actually have to break it.

Forged Activation Orders can help as well if you know it's coming.

Given that the combo is Wotan+Off the Grid, I'm wagering that Wotan is on HQ.

If I were holding an ESD, I'd consider making the sacrifices to the Allfather if that meant getting into HQ.

And lose the ESD to brain damage?

Emergency Shutdown is the best solution to Wotan. Crescentus can work, but means you actually have to break it.

Forged Activation Orders can help as well if you know it's coming.

Given that the combo is Wotan+Off the Grid, I'm wagering that Wotan is on HQ.

If I were holding an ESD, I'd consider making the sacrifices to the Allfather if that meant getting into HQ.

And lose the ESD to brain damage?

Depending on my hand size. I said I'd consider it, I didn't say it was a great plan. The one and only time I've done it was when I was playing a goofy monolith deck and I had a Net Shield that came preinstalled with it, so I had at least one prog I didn't care about.

if you really have to, you can consider suffering all 4 of wotan's challenges to get pass and grab that 3 point agenda, especially if you would win the game because of it

if you really have to, you can consider suffering all 4 of wotan's challenges to get pass and grab that 3 point agenda, especially if you would win the game because of it

Several other people already mentioned that last month.