"Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?"

If we assume that a human reprogrammed Adam, to turn him from ambulatory chattel to compulsive hacker, we as a species have a responsibility for our creation. We have a responsibility for his actions but also a responsibility to respect who he is, as all parents do.

“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel...”

A lot of the discussion of Adam up to this point has been focused on working around the drawbacks of his directives. Some decks have gone so far as to spend influence on Aesop's Pawnshop to turn them into modest economic gain. Let's think about that for a moment. We, the Netrunner Community as stand-in proxies for Adam's creators, would sell the fundamental building blocks of his sentience to some shady lunar scrap dealer as one would a burnt out console. And we call the megacorps heartless profiteers.

Who really deserves bad publicity?

After playing Adam for a just few days - so feel free to disregard all of this shallowly tested supposition - here's my guide to letting Adam be Adam and win doing it.

“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”

With the recent swing of the meta towards runners, one of the stronger corporation strategies has been to outpace the runner with swift early scoring. Always Be Running forces bohemian bioroid to exert pressure on the corporation, draining the resources they'd like to spend on scoring defending their central servers and, as a bonus, allows us to breeze past single ICEd servers in the early game.

25 influence may seem like a lot but, as many have found in building mini-faction decks, it really struggles to cover everything you need in terms of multi-access and breakers. While draw and economy can be, to an extent, covered by neutral events and resources, Adam has no R&D pressure or breakers in-faction.

The inclusion of E3 Feedback Implants turns Always Be Running's break ability into a solution for even the most fearsome ICE, meaning that the influence costing breaker suite is free to focus on lower strength ICE. Corroder is the most cost effective barrier solution available within influence limitations. Mimic and Yog.0 supported by Datasucker remain as strong as they ever were. Zu.13 is there in case of Lotus Fields. Multithreader is there to support the pumpable breakers. In combination with Datasuckers, runs can become very cost effective very quickly.

Finally, there’s a single Overmind for emergencies when you can’t find a breaker piece or only have the clicks to install a single breaker before running on a crucial server. With the support of Multithreader and E3 it does reasonable work.

We can only squeeze in one Special Order to find our breakers. Clearly less than ideal, but not as much of a problem as it might first appear. Always Be Running allow breaking when it’s really needed and the deck gets some pretty serious draw on the go. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Of course, it’s not all upside. Sometimes you won’t want to run on your first click, you’ll want to money up first. Sometimes you’ll want to install a breaker before you do or just not run at all this turn. When you get to this point in the game, Dr. Lovegood should be very much ready to cure what ails you.

It’s a small price to pay to break any ICE in the game for two clicks and a credit for each subroutine after the first.

“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”

Neutralize All Threats compliments Always Be Running beautifully. The corporation is left unable to score out of a remote early and can't afford to leave HQ single-ICE'd without the agendas building up there being brutally pillaged. It also eases some of the pressure on influence as we don’t need to import additional HQ pressure.

While other runners dig for their Legwork or pay credits or MU for HQ Interface or Nerve Agent, Adam wields this threat from turn one and on every subsequent turn. The corporation’s hand is never safe.

When the corporation finally manages to secure both HQ and a reasonable remote, it’s time to drop the R&D Interfaces and punish them there instead.

But what of the downside? Trashing corporation cards is a good thing, but being forced to do so can be troublesome. Especially if it’s on the first turn and doing so prevents you playing that lovely Sure Gamble you were so pleased to have in your opening hand.

That’s why we have Dirty Laundry. This not only allows you to bounce back from low credits but also drops the number of credits you’re floating until after your access. Daily Casts and Kati also store credits where they can’t be touched by assets demanding to be trashed, and Career Fair and Armitage allow us to recover when expensive trashing is unavoidable.

Once again, Dr. Lovegood is there to support these more organic solutions.

“I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.”

We come now to the directive that attracts the most criticism but is actually the reason to play Adam. MaxX is strong because she gets a free draw every turn (as well as additional value from heap recursion). One install, either Brainchip or a single Public Sympathy, turns this supposedly crippling weakness into a ready installed Drug Dealer who never troubles you for a fee.

Scoring an early agenda should be child’s play with the twin benefits of Always Be Running and Neutralize All Threats. With even two points scored, Brainchip becomes fantastically strong. If you get unlucky and don’t snag a couple of early points, Public Sympathy is there for you.

It’s not about making up for the limitation Safety First imposes upon you (although the added handsize is nice). It’s about unlocking its benefit. The cards in your deck should be good. That’s why you’ve included them. Safety First rewards you for playing these cards from your hand and gets more of them into your hand at the same time. Every turn.

Career Fair is there to help clear your hand so that sweet drip-draw can keep flowing and to install Earthrise Hotel to top up your hand once you’re up to a limit of ten or more cards.

“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!”

Here’s why you should play Adam. He has the strongest early game potential of any runner. Very few pieces of early game ICE can stop him. With an E3 Feedback Implants installed no single piece of ICE can.

Scoring through a remote becomes difficult and HQ becomes a killing ground due to his in-built multi-access. All the while, his natural draw, supported by the low base-cost economy options selected, ensure that he maintains this crushing momentum right through the mid and late game.

Have FFG created a monster? An invincible amalgamation of separate strengths unstoppable in the face of even the strongest mob with their torches and pitchforks? No, not really.

I don’t think Adam is anywhere near a tier one runner (whatever that phrase even means). I’ve yet to see a build for any of the mini-factions that can compete with the strongest builds from the game’s main runner factions. This build certainly can’t. It’s pretty weak against fast advance and if there are no agendas to be seen early, all of his opening pressure is for nought.

However, I hope I’ve at least shown that we don’t have to strip Adam of his identity to explore his strengths.

In the monster’s own words: “Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.”