I’ve been playing with this deck for a while now (since Off-Campus Apartment came out, I guess) and it’s always been a FUN deck to play, but it was never really GOOD. That changed when Film Critic dropped. Since adding her, a whole new world opened up with New Angeles City Hall, bringing Rachel Beckman into play, taking Account Siphon and Vamp to the next level, and not forcing me to rely on Decoy any more. And of course, The Source actually became playable once I wasn't trashing her myself.

Most people think Iain looks like a stick in the mud. A boring old professor, nose to the grindstone, digging through that deck till he can get his decrepit rig up and ready to score, then trying to take the lead back in the endgame just as time runs out; an inevitable metaphor for the pointlessness of life. Man, toss that idea right out the window.

[RECORD SCRATCH]

You’re gonna win this game by throwing the biggest party any weird old man ever threw.

[James Brown's "I FEEL GOOD" starts to play in the background]

The Party Place
Strip down to your underwear, throw on some shades, and start dialing numbers. Your Off-Campus Apartment is where the magic happens. You have 18 friends coming over, and every time one of them rings the bell, they invite someone else. This card is gonna draw half your deck for you! If only you could afford the third copy. But FFG wisely cramped Iain’s style at 10 influence. Oh well.

The Party People
Dude, we don’t have TIME to go over everyone you’re inviting! But let’s point out a couple of the real high-end attendees, the people who are gonna put this party on the MAP.

First off, The Supplier. You need to get in touch with this guy as soon as possible. He’ll basically be handling your invites for you, letting people into the Apartment every turn for $2 off the cover charge. Mulligan your starting hand if you don’t have either him, the Apartment, or a Hostage to grab him with. You simply will not believe how fast this combination burns through your deck.

The Helpful AI and his Underworld Contacts. Once you have a couple of these guys show up, the dough really starts to trickle in. Don't be afraid to Hostage for the other half once you get one into your hand (assuming you have The Supplier in play, natch). This is half of your economy. Ideally, once this stuff is out (and it will happen virtually every game, believe me), you’re making $5/turn, saving $2/turn on a free install, and getting a free draw off that install. And that's all before you wake up and take a shower for your first click.

But don’t stop there, broaden that social circle.

Film Critic. Yeah, everybody loves her, and for good reason. But in this deck, she doesn't just help you avoid Corporate troubles, she keeps your own friends feeling good. If you invite her, you don’t have to worry about playing by The Source's rules any more (but the Corp still does). She also means that your deal with the NAPD won’t go south, and that opens up some possibilities...

The Party Problem
So everyone’s having a great time till there’s a knock at the door, and it turns out they’re NOT strippers, they’re real cops. What to do? Pay em, that’s what. Get a deal going with the New Angeles City Hall. That way when you Account Siphon or Vamp, you can just make a quick donation and be on your way. Breaking News got you down? Not anymore, have the NAPD put a lock on that footage for ya. And don’t worry, as long as your Film Critic’s just “adding those agendas to your scoring area” rather than actually scoring them, City Hall doesn’t seem to care. Legal loopholes, huh?

And hell, now that we’re not worried about tags, I think we can invite Rachel Beckman. Give her a call once the NACH deal is in place if you need a fifth click to recover from all that early-morning partying you're doing.

And of course, just in case something unexpected happens, invite a few Fall Guys. You can always kick them out if somebody important down at the station gets their panties in a twist.

The Party Pooper
So everything seems like magic, right? I mean, you can’t be tagged, you’re making $7 a turn without any effort, you have 5 clicks, it takes the Corp an extra advancement to score anything, and half the time when you play a card you get to draw for free. What’s the downside?

Well, the honest truth is, the deck’s only weakness so far has been real life. Since Film Critic’s release, I’ve gone 51-2 with this deck at the time of this writing (losing once to a misplay which cost me my Aurora - making barriers impassable, and once to Haarpsichord, described in more detail below).

The problem is, none of those games were timed, and every tournament match is.

As much as I’ve played this deck now, a game still takes at least 45 minutes. I’d put my Iain up against ANYTHING out there right now and bet on it to win, but it just won’t make hay in a tournament format. So I’ve posted it here for people to enjoy casually, and I guess in hopes that someone will have the balls to try it in timed, and let me know how it does. Maybe someone else with lightning-fast judgement will be able to get it down to a playable time-frame. I just don’t think that, even if I took the fastest-playing Corp possible, I’d be able to get both sides in. (And this deck is ALWAYS playing at a point deficit, so timeout is not your friend.)

General Strategy
Obviously, you can’t lose resources or programs that are necessary, because you don’t have any way to get them back. Even when you know this, you can make mistakes. I drew on click 4 vs PE and then took a net damage, losing Aurora. Once my Overmind counters were gone, that was it. My other loss (Haarpsichord) was due to having a Breaking News go off while NACH was on my Supplier. Bye-bye tag protection, and all because I wanted to save a buck on installing NACH. Don’t be greedy. Draw on your first (and second if need be) click, then install anything that you can’t afford to lose (your programs, your NACH, your Film Critic, your Source, and to some degree, your Helpful AI).

Second, you have a lot of silver bullets in here. Luckily you can tutor for most of them with Hostage. Logos will let you find the rest. Prioritizing what you tutor for will make or break your play. Know what the correct “answer” to the deck type you are playing is, and get it out as soon as you can. It stands to reason that in some games you just won’t find what you need, but in my 53 recorded plays, it hasn’t been the reason I’ve lost yet. Iain always has a trick up his sleeve.

Once you have played cards to the table, get your redundant systems in place to protect them (Fall Guy, and to a lesser extent, Decoy). Sometimes you simply HAVE to steal two agendas in a turn (the horror!)

Biotic or Astro rush decks, wait until one agenda is scored, then get the Source and a Fall Guy out as fast as you can. Don’t be afraid of rush, really. It’s not a hard matchup. Source hurts the Corp WAY more than you think she does as long as you can keep her in play (versus a rush deck, you will probably want to save ALL THREE Fall guys to protect her if at all possible). Rush decks are usually woefully unprepared to protect against a sustained economy on this scale. You will have far more money than you need to get into servers, and you can trash SanSans (and other assets) where you find them with abandon. Don’t freak, keep your cool, be ready to run earlier than you’d like. Your apartment won't be as full as it gets most games, but you’ll win without too much trouble.

Butchershop and Haarpsichord are a different story. NACH is the all-star here, but you can’t tutor for it until they score (Logos), so be careful what is installed. Remember that Breaking News can hurt you really bad if you have an Apartment with 10 connections on it and no Fall Guy. Play it safe, let them score, get NACH. Once you do, you should always have enough money on hand to avoid any tags they can put on you, and Breaking News stops being scary. Film Critic makes Midseasons a non-issue.

Tag-and-Bag / Argus tend to be easy, since Film Critic hard counters Argus and Punative Counterstrike. You should usually win credit contests (Vamp and Siphon to swing the balance) if they are neccessary. NACH will protect you against a SEA Source or Posted Bounty, but again, you have to get it into play. Fall Guys and Decoys fill in the gap until you see it.

RP is a boring-ass slog of a matchup. You both want the game to last forever and will each be playing solitaire for a long time. Fortunately, you can make a LOT more money than RP can, so you will completely ignore his remote server till late game, and apply pressure on his HQ (dont waste Overmind counters though). When he makes a late-game move on what seems like a scoring window, take an assload of Kati money (or Call in some Favors for 15 credits) and Vamp the motherfucker. Ash and Caprice won't do anything if they don't see a paycheck. Same Old Thing him when he tries it again. You can sometimes suck the coffers dry a third time with a Siphon or two if you’ve had really bad luck with the centrals.

PE is a surprisingly stressful matchup, because the course of regular play means you will be taking damage at unexpected times, and that can ruin you if you don't watch out. NEVER LEAVE ANYTHING IN YOUR HAND THAT WILL WRECK YOU PERMANENTLY IF YOU LOSE IT. You can't get it back. That means your programs must be played the instant you find them in your hand. Yes, this will lead to inefficiency and a loss of surprise, and it really sucks for Femme but it’s virtually mandatory. If you lose NACH, it’s not the end of the world here, just don’t plan to play Rachel this game, and leave yourself enough clicks to work off the Siphon and Vamp tags. Remember that Film Critic protects you when you steal, and hoard those hit points for the thousand cuts you can't avoid. Iain wants to play most of his deck, so there will definitely be hard choices to make about what to play and what to hold.

Glacier is probably the worst matchup, because if they can get enough big ICE in front of their servers, you will deplete even Iain's astounding cash reserves running every turn. Try to keep them as poor as possible (Vamp or Siphon at opportune times) early game so their options are limited. They may just turtle up and earn as much money as they can, so don't waste your credits on runs that won't end in points. Remember that they're the one on a timer; you can wait until kingdom come for them to put something out that you can steal. You may end up just having to let them mill themselves to death, rather than getting into a position where you have no money and they have a scoring window.

Possible Changes? I just finished testing Pheromones in what had been the Lemuria Codecracker slot. They're both reasonable choices (surprisingly), but Sneakdoor Beta is currently testing in that slot, and so far I find it to be superior. Play it on click one late-game, after Overmind is useless. Then run for 12 HQ accesses. Nobody expects this kindly old gentleman to try the backdoor.

I'm also thinking a second NACH might be a reasonable slot, just for consistency. I would be happy to hear other suggestions.

Final Note: Always perform your best Drunk Ian McKellan impression while piloting this deck.