I.T. : A METAL GEAR AC!D 2 DECK PRIMER
by Mister Vader

Bear with me, this is my first game FAQ.

Now, since I'm a Magic: The Gathering player, I'll do an actual primer
to REALLY show how the Infinite Turn deck works, and even demonstrate 
first hand the way the deck achieves these Infinite Turns. There're a
lot of flexible slots for customization here and there, but for now, 
just follow the decklist I will outline.

This is the I.T. deck. For lack of a better name, and I'm sure I'll 
change it to something once I find a better one, it's called I.T. 
because it's an Infinite Turn deck that relies on key card 
interactions that keep it going indefinitely.

The I.T. deck, furthermore, is named in honor of one of my favorite
Magic decks: Intuition Tendrils, which is a combo deck, just like 
this one.

Take note that unless specified, the I.T. deck is mainly a Snake deck.
I have yet to playtest the effectiveness of the same take on Venus.

I. SNAKE'S DECK: 

CARD DRAW:
2 Briefing
2 Briefing +
2 Johnny Sasaki
2 Johnny Sasaki+
2 Olga
2 Olga+

THE ENGINE:
2 Extra Turn
2 Extra Turn+

THE ENABLERS:
4 Action++
3 Cost+Rest x2
1 Rest x2

THE KILL CONDITIONS:
2 Super Dragons

TOOLBOX:
2 Action + Linkage +
1 Spin Kick
1 Big Boss

TOTAL: 30 cards

II. VENUS' DECK

There are two ways to do Venus' deck. One is an attempt to duplicate 
Snake's deck by taking most of the same cards Snake himself uses. The
other approach is to purely be a support character, meant to do nothing
but decrease costs for Snake in the event that Snake's initial hand or 
action chain fizzles.

II. A. VENUS' DECK, VERSION 1 (I.T. Lite, an attempt to mimic Snake's 
build.)

CARD DRAW:
2 Briefing
2 Briefing +
2 Johnny Sasaki
2 Johnny Sasaki+
2 Olga
2 Olga+

THE ENGINE:
2 Extra Turn
2 Extra Turn+

THE ENABLERS:
3 Cost+Rest x2
3 Rest x2

THE KILL CONDITIONS:
2 Super Dragons

TOOLBOX:
2 Action + Linkage +
2 Action + Linkage
1 Spin Kick
1 Genola

Total: 30 cards

II. B. VENUS' DECK, VERSION 2 (Pure Support to Snake.)

CARD DRAW:
2 Johnny Sasaki+
2 Briefing+
2 Briefing
2 Olga+
1 Funds+

COST REDUCERS:
2 Johnathan Ingram
2 Johnathan Ingram+
2 Cost -12
2 Cost -10
2 Cost -8
2 Ally Cost -12
2 Ally Cost -10
2 Ally Cost -8
1 Meryl Silverburg

EXTRA ACTIONS:
2 Action Linkage+
2 Action Linkage

III. DECK OBJECTIVE:

Given the engine of the deck, the idea is to simply chain infinite
turns to do any of the following:

1. Kill bosses, assuming they are NOT immune to explosions. If they
are, replace the Dragons with your most powerful weapons of choice, 
preferrably one that hits 100% of the time. That being said, this is
my deck of choice in the Arena. This deck is MADE for the Arena. Try
it yourself. All those people complaining about Teliko or Venus or 
The Boss? Pshaw. :P

I have yet to test if the infinite turn engine can host Liquid Snake,
but it may very well be possible because AFTER your mission, the 
Total Cost report is 0. Don't quote me on this yet, but I think THIS
is potentially the best Liquid Snake deck around, if my hypothesis
is correct.

I'll test the Liquid Snake theory after I finish this primer.

2. Eliminate all opponents in one run through, all with Snake and 
ONLY Snake being the  one guy to ever take a turn. This is the deck I
use when I feel lazy during the point farming bit I do at the Train 
stage in Story mode.

3. Do stealth missions, assuming you don't mind killing the guys who
could catch you. The Super Drags will do the work for you. 

NOTE: Unless you build Venus' deck similarly, you can't do any 
mission that requires both of you to step on a specific spot on the 
map. This is because you will take infinite turns while Venus is 
standing there, doing absolutely nothing. Until I get a full set of
Action+ Linkage cards, I can't playtest a Venus version of this deck,
since she has a glaring shortcoming Snake doesn't have: she doesn't 
have Action++ cards. In theory, though, she can get away with it 
since she has a natural 3 actions a turn.

IV. HOW TO PLAY THE DECK:

This is mainly a combo deck, so of course, while you can do Stealth 
because of the way the deck flows, the main thing we have to talk 
about for you to understand this deck is the combo. 

The combo consists of chaining actions together by drawing, moving, 
landing some Action+ Linkages, and of course, getting additional 
actions per turn, whether via Double Action cards or Action ++. Among
the actions you take, one of them MUST be Extra Turn or Extra Turn+, 
so that the moment you end your turn, it's still your turn, 
regardless.

Your Cost will naturally get higher and higher the more actions you 
take, but you will continue taking extra turns thanks to the Extra 
Turn/Extra Turn+ cards, all the while moving closer to your targets 
by using the Move option on redundant cards in your hand, like 
Draw-6's (Briefing, Johnny Sasaki, etc.). You only need one Draw-6 
in your hand at any given time, after all. 

As you take turns and increase your Cost (To a maximum of 999.), you
can then shoot at your targets with your Super Dragons, which don't 
miss, and deal damage equal to your total Cost x15. Because you've 
been doing nothing but up that Cost, you will deal MASSIVE damage to 
your opponent, which can result in up to 9999 damage, total!

What makes this deck amazing is that the redundancy allows me to have
one-ofs that I will DEFINITELY find while I go infinite. This is why 
I included a singleton Spin Kick+ to deal with Equipment, and then 
Big Boss to maximize the points I gain from completing any given 
mission.

The strategy is to learn how to allocate your remaining actions and 
chain them optimally so that you can maximize your cost, while never 
relinquishing your consecutive turns, effectively yielding you I.T.:
Infinite Turns.

Do not hesitate to end your turn even if you haven't used all your 
actions in a turn. For example, if you already used Double Action and
you have one more in hand, if you feel you might not find another one, 
don't waste it on movement and instead end your turn so you can 
ideally draw two new cards you can abuse with your Double Action turn. 

This idea is very sound in the event that you only have one action 
left, and are left with a Draw card and Double Action, or Extra Turn, 
and you already played Extra Turn and Double Action.

Lastly, don't forget to replay Action++ every now and then. You lose 
Action++ in ten turns, after all.

V. DETAILED SAMPLE GAME:

I playtested this deck on Extreme Mode in the Arena, going through 
around 20 stages, including the Teliko/Venus tandem. Not ONCE did I 
ever stall out.

Furthermore, while tweaking this deck, I also playtested this deck in 
Arena for Easy, Normal, and Hard, for at least six games each. The 
same result happened: there wasn't a single time I fizzled out on the
loop. 

This fact held true even in the point farming Train stage in Story 
Mode, which I did fifteen run-throughs of to gain points for packs.

My findings were astounding. The deck's redundancy is so high that you 
WILL find whatever you need with almost ANY opening hand.

Let's run a sample game right now. I am playing in the Arena on my PSP 
as I write this, just to give you an idea how it would look like.

FURTHERMORE, since I am using my actual game, this means that I am NOT 
running the optimal list I outlined above. I only have ONE Action + 
Linkage. I replaced that with a second Double Action card, upping my 
Double Action cards, both upgraded and non-upgraded versions, to five.


V.A. TURN ONE

I am in the laboratory-like stage, and my opponents are Revolver 
Ocelot and the Sniper guy.

My opening hand:
Action++
Extra Turn+
Spin Kick
Olga+
Briefing
Johnny Sasaki

Now, looking at this hand, you have to agree it's a good one. It has 
the stuff I need to get started: a way to increase my Action output 
(Action++), an Extra Turn card, and some card draw. I don't need a 
kill condition for a good while anyways, until I rack my cost up to a 
high number.

So, let's start by playing Action++, followed by Extra Turn+. I have 2
actions left, my next turn is guaranteed, and now I have a chance to 
maximize my draw-3 with Olga+.

Olga nets me:

Action++
Action++
Double Action

Not bad, but could be better. At least I'm guaranteed 8 actions next 
turn. I use my last Action for this turn by moving with an extra 
Action++ to walk a bit towards my opponents, then end my first turn.


TURN TWO

I draw one card. Guess what? It's Extra Turn! Talk about a lucky 
topdeck. But let's pretend I didn't get that card, and instead got
something else. The burning question is: would I find a SECOND Extra
Turn to prove my point that I can find ANY card I want from my deck, 
and search for it ad infinitum?

Let's see.

I open with Double Action, so I'd have 7 Actions left. Then, I use 
three cards, Briefing, Action++,and Spin Kick to walk towards my 
enemies. I am now facing both of them, and I am left with 4 actions,
Extra Turn, and Johnny Sasaki.

Let's pretend I don't have Extra Turn in my hand. I'll use Johnny 
Sasaki now. My new grip reveals:

Olga
Olga
Double Action: Cost x2
Big Boss
EXTRA TURN+
Johnny Sasaki+

Now, from what we can see, with three actions to go, I can simply 
play Sasaki again and look for Extra Turn in that volley, but I 
found it here already. I know that I have a couple of Briefings 
still in my deck, and with only 14 cards left in my deck, you can be
sure that with two Actions I have left to find the card I need 
(Remember that I still have 2 Extra Turns in the deck prior to 
casting Sasaki.), a new grip would mean that I had 4 Draw-6 cards, 1
Olga card, and 2 Extra Turn cards to look for. That's 7 cards out of
14, and when you draw a new hand with Sasaki, the odds of you not 
finding any of those 6 in the new hand are VERY low. 

But all that is moot. I found Extra Turn. Let's play that to be sure, 
then play Big Boss. I have one action left, and let's use Olga for 
that. Olga gets me:

Briefing+
Briefing
Action+ Linkage, which fizzles, since I already had 8 actions that 
turn.

TURN THREE

My draw nets me Double Action: Cost x2, and Extra Turn+. Surprise, 
surprise. What did I say about chaining infinite turns? ;)

I cast Double Action: Cost x2 first, then cast Extra Turn+. I then
waste the rest of my hand by using Move on the other cards and just 
staying where I am. This is to up my accumulated Cost. Afterwards, 
I use Johnny Sasaki+ to draw a new hand. I get:

Olga+
Johnny Sasaki
Action++
Briefing+
Super Dragon
Super Dragon

Wow. I now have a chance to win it. I currently have a grand total of
117 cost, which means my Super Drags would do around 2106 damage, 
since I'm attacking my opponents from the flank. That�s not yet 
enough, as the guys have 2500 hit points each. Let's build up that 
Cost some more, by burning up Briefing+ and Action++. Remember to 
recast Action ++ from time to time because you are still taking 
turns, despite never giving your opponents their own. This means that
after 10 of your own turns, you go back to 2 actions a turn.

TURN FOUR

Now, it's winning time. I have 138 cost, and I draw two new cards, 
giving me this hand:

Action++
Double Action: Cost x2
Olga+
Super Dragon
Super Dragon
Johnny Sasaki

Wow. Let's start with Double Action: Cost x2, then follow it by using
Action++.

Then, let's draw three cards from Olga. We get:

Briefing
Johnny Sasaki+
Double Action

I have 167 cost now, and I can burn through the deck some more and 
search for a new Extra Turn card, or just forget that and shoot the
Super Drags in my hand. 

So let�s shoot some Super Dragons.

The rocket connects and deals 3006 damage, and since in this stage, 
Revolver Ocelot and the Sniper guy are standing beside each other, 
they both take 3006 damage.

One shot. Both dead. I net 20,000 points for my effort, Rank S.

Cost 0
Found 0
Kills 2
Total Damage 00

It took me four turns total, but neither my opponents nor Venus ever 
moved even once.

VI. CONCLUSION

This is my pride and joy, as I came up with the deck in a vacuum, 
just by looking at the cards while I was playing one day. If you 
have any great ideas to make this deck even better, I'm all ears. 
For now, this is the most consistent, most blatantly overpowered 
deck I've ever come up with in Metal Gear Acid, whether 1 or 2. 

I hope you liked it. If you have any ideas to improve the deck, feel
free to e-mail me at [email protected]. 

VII. LEGAL JARGON

This FAQ is copyrighted by Marcelle Fabie, a.k.a. Mister Vader. This 
FAQ is for private and personal use only. If you wish to post this 
FAQ on your website, kindly ask the author at [email protected] 
for permission, as he is most likely to grant you that anyways, 
provided you give him due credit. This FAQ cannot be reprinted, 
copied, or reproduced in whole or in part in any medium. This FAQ is
intended to be free, and as such, should not be profited from for 
any purposes, nor should it be modified or referenced by any 
individual, corporation, group, website, and so forth without the 
author�s express permission. This FAQ is protected under 
International Copyright Law.

VIII. CREDITS

Konami for making a great game for the PSP.
GameFAQs for hosting this FAQ.