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A brief intro: I’ve been thinking about how crap I was building for runner lately, and that
led me to thinking about offense and defense, which,
led me to thinking about the mix of offense and defense, which,
led me to thinking about synergy between offense and defense…
Confused yet? Let’s get started and see if helps.
On both sides of Netrunner: there are concepts that fit broadly with offense and defense. The concept of offense is broadly "how you’re going to win", and defense is broadly "how are you going to not lose". Even though the concepts of offense and defense are very much intertwined in Netrunner in general, let's just indulge this train of thought for a bit:
What are corp/runner offense/defense
On corp side, offense, or win condition, can be strategies like: fast advance, economic denial (which includes one or a junction of things like so-called taxing ice, tagging and closing, heavy trash cost asset spam, etc), flatlining, which obviously come in net damage and meat damage flavours, and even more kinds of each between the two. Program destruction is also offensive when employed aggressively.
Corp side defense, or, how not to lose, takes into consideration the meta more than the offense. Playing ice at all, Ice subtype variety, ice strength variety, so-called siphon defense, bad pub removal, snares, Jesus Howard, etc. Defense considers how best to mitigate the runner's offensive to prevent them from winning.
Runner side strategy can be similarly considered: runner win conditions include things like siphon, R&D lock, blackmail, parasite recursion, noise mill, or indeed any milling, Keyhole, multi-access of any central, particular breaker strategies like atman/sucker, fixed strength suite + sucker, shaper big rig, kit paintbrush, opus economy, run economy (desperado, data sucker & their run-benefit buddies) etc etc. Runner side offense is about how to get through corp side defense.
Runner defense is similarly the art of not losing, or not getting into a losing state from corp strategies. Such as plascrete, any tag-dodge tech, killers (decoders are becoming more defensive as cards like Inazuma punish with code gates), the source, damage prevention tech of both varieties, preventative recursion (when not for recurring one-shot programs), and link, etc.
Interchangeability
Again, the concept of offense and defense are very interchangeable, but I’m defining offense as a strategy that can be defended against (E.g. Scorched Earth can be defended against by Plascrete, tag dodging, etc), and defense as strategies that react to an offense. Netrunner is basically a game of runner offensive and corp defenses, so all ICE are defensive by nature, but when we talk about strategies it becomes more of a mixed bag.
[size=24The mix[/size]
Thus any deck can be defined and considered by its mix of offense and defense - some decks are all out offense with very little regard for defense (E.g. Dedicated Bag n Tag, full-out Account Siphon decks), while others are more defensive (E.g. HB Glacier, Shaper Big Rig). Other than the polar extremes, most decks fall in between with a balanced offense and defense.
Offensive mix
Heavy offense decks rely on overloading one channel of threat so much that it either becomes impossible for the opponent to deal with, or becomes easy for the opponent to make a mistake and let through attack/s in that channel. They disregard defense and hope that their opponents’ offense progresses slower than their own win condition. Defense-light Bag n Tag decks don’t really ICE R&D, and rushes economy and damage cards, assembling the Flatline, pretty much disregarding the runners’ stealing of agendas most of the time. Full out Account Siphon decks want to do nothing but Account Siphon (some are super dedicated with Hormones) until the corp is low on resources and then steal all the agendas that are around with the resource they gain.
If an offensive-heavy deck cannot pull off its primary offensive strategy, it’s often dead in the water: If a Bag n Tag deck faces two early Plascretes or got their Scorched Earths trashed (and means of recycling them trashed too) they can’t do much. If a Siphon deck is locked out of HQ through overdefending their econ dries up and withers.
Defensive mix
Conversely, a defense-heavy mix builds up a position against which offensives are difficult. Consider a HB glacier deck that first denies the runner access, then costs the runner access, through ETR ice that are costly to get through repeatedly, and looks for windows either when the runner is low on credits running through things, or when the runner lack the appropriate means to get through, to score.
A Shaper big rig is a form of defensive mix. By having all the right resources that they can go anywhere at all times, they disable the corp’s de facto offensive of scoring points.
Balancing the mix
There are different ways to balance the mix of offense and defense - but here are some points to consider:
Diversified Defense
On the corp side, I always suggest diversifying your defense, because corp side defense isn’t necessarily cumulative - i.e. you can’t always pile more and more of the same defense to stop an offensive. For example, if you run tons of trace ICE, you’ll totally kick ass against those without any way to deal with it. Though if you come up against just 2 link, your army of trace ICE just got blanked. The same with cheap codegates vs Yog. Or Barriers against Battering Ram/Morning Star. The same with cheap 4-strength ICE vs Atman, or relying on Chimera then getting flattened by AI breakers.
The same can’t really be said for the runner, as they’re fundamentally the aggressor. Consider this: If a runner packs two of each: Plascrete against Scorch, Scrubber against assets, E3 against Bioroids, The Source against Fast Advance, Blackmail against bad pub decks (without tools to enable Blackmail by themselves), what room would they have to execute their regular strategy? And how much of their deck would be blanked by facing a corp without the strategy they’re hosing?
Focussed Offensive
On the offensive front, it is usually better to find a focus and build around it, instead of being just average at everything. Even if this philosophy doesn’t always hold true, it usually is, and now more than ever, as offensive capabilities are getting more and more able to focus: Plascretes used to spell the end of a Scorch strategy, but now with recursion and Punitive Counterstrike, it’s entirely possible to burn through multiple Plascretes. If three siphons were bad back in the day, nowadays, a single deck can max out at siphoning about 36 times (3 Siphons, 3 Same Old Things, 3 Deja Vus, Levy AR Access x 3), even if it’s entirely not possible for that to actually happen.
Offensive focusing is important because offensive capabilities are built up card by card, and it’s very difficult for one or two cards to encapsulate an entire strategy, and expanding in multiple directions means you are hard-pressed to attack faster than they can defend.
That said, decks should always have a secondary offensive - a second win condition in case the first one gets hosed. That’s why Weyland Scorch/Score Atlas tutor decks are so good - they can attack on two fronts and switch almost on a whim. On the runner side, dedicated R&D lockdown decks just flip over and die when the corp manages to shut down that route of attack. A good deck would also include, say, Nerve Agent, to stage a second attack.
Promote Syngergy!
Now, all of Netrunner would be rather bland if it came down to how much attack and defense a deck has. Thus, the emergent interaction between different strategies, creating synergies and anti-synergies, makes the difference between a good deck and a honed deck.
For example, I’m running an NBN deck, with a focus on Destroyers and Fast Advance (FA). Is that a good idea? Well, we know FA is a great strategy, and Destroyers are also very popular, so it should be awesome. So let’s put together the deck: Put in some Program Destruction - Grim. Neutral, high strength prog kill. Ichi, cool. Even Burke’s Bugs is ok with NBN’s trace credits. OK cool. Now on the FA front, all of NBN’s stuff, San San, Astroscript, etc etc. Add in Profiteering to pay for everything, San Sans ain’t cheap!
So throwing all those together, we go and we playtest, and we discover:
1. Grim and profiteering’s bad pub makes it cheap to trash San San, as well as power any Killers to plough through sentries. Even Burke’s bugs are useless because trace 2 that becomes 4 once a turn is almost free with bad pub.
2. All the Destroyers and very little ETR meant that the prog killers become blanks when the runner doesn’t need any programs to get through. A R&D Interface or two dismantles the deck.
3. A single Sentry breaker eats everything, with or without bad pub.
So that was an example of something great on paper but has anti-synergy in itself.
There are many less obvious examples out there. I recently made a deck that I thought was super synergy: Jinteki RP, with heavy ICE, Destroyers including Grim, and Clone Retirement to take care of Grim’s BP. Caprise Nisei is sure to tax the hell out of runs AND clicks. Unfortunately all of this means if even one of my Clone Retirements got stolen (and they often did), it wasn’t just me not being able to get rid of one bad pub - it usually meant I either have to give up my Grim or live with giving them 2 creds per run, which completely defeated the point of taxing the runner’s runs. Due to this, I might just have to drop it to two Clone Retirements or drop them completely.
Here’s an example of good synergy: Again Jinteki, but this time PE. I played all the bad publicity and Destroyers with Profiteering, Grim, Archer, Rototurret, and a bunch of other cheap ETR ICE. The plan was to rush and score behind cheap things while the big guns and random net damage should blow away any non Killer breakers, leaving the runner with lots of bad publicity money and nowhere to spend them, so they’d have to dig for replacements. Also I avoided ALL assets/upgrades with trash costs (I was going to power San Sans with this setup), but then I found bad publicities really hurt assets as I was continually seeing San Sans getting trashed for next to free, from every server. So I switched to Biotic Labours and Trick of Lights. Every part of the deck considered the other parts, and it all worked together very well, unless the runner could quickly get out a pumpable sentry breaker, at which point all my stuff just turned to jelly. That was an intrinsic weakness of that particular all-in offensive. Did this deck have an alternate win condition? Barely. The Fast Advance wasn’t enough to carry the deck all the way to the end and was only really a finisher, which doesn’t work when the runner gets set up early.
The Synergy Chart
So this brings me to an ambitious project: I've started to map out as many strategies as possible, both from corp and runner side, and create a comparison chart to see which strategies synergise with one another, and which ones didn’t, and which ones were anti-synergistic. I’ve started the spreadsheet on a publically shared Google Drive file, so check it out, it's publically editable, I hope I'm not going to regret making it so
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BckmEmuy-ZDj8CtoMeLe...:strip_icc()/pic1990833.png)
Enjoy deckbuilding and discovering strategies! Promote Synergy!
Android: Netrunner
Exploratory Rompism
My blog and philosophy on Android: Netrunner, to boldly explore Runny and Corpy things that haven't been spammed to death elsewhere yet.
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If you ask anyone who is remotely interested in studying the Netrunner metagame, you'll see that a large part of it is the question of "which identity is stronger/strongest". There are many schools of thought in this, but the most generally accepted consensus at the moment is:
Andromeda for Runner side.
HB: Engineering the Future for Corp side.
Why is that? And is that true? What makes it so?
In my opinion, an analysis of identity strength consists of these parts:
1. Cardpool
2. Meta
3. Identity power's counterability
4. Identity power's self-reliance
5. Identity's numberic power
6. Predictability
1. Cardpool
An identity's main consideration is actually not mainly its power - but its cardpool. The factional divide, as it were, and also included in this is the influence count. A deck is generally going to rely on in-faction cards more than out-of-faction cards, but of course exceptions may arise. Playing to the originating factions' strengths is best, though trying to surprise with out-of-faction imports is also a strong strategy.
2. Meta
The meta is an important consideration for determining its power. A great example is Noise - everyone's crying that he's being nerfed too hard - and it's not without good reason. Whereas before a milled agenda is basically points to the runner without recourse, now Noise can no longer rely on that to score points, with Jackson Howard and a multitude of cards that gets agendas out of the archive. Even Shock! is a big boon against Noise (as well as any Datasucker runners). So if everyone's running Shock! and Jesus Howard, Noise's power is effectively less than it was originally. But a Noise prepared for that and not rely on it can still do well. How? Dunno yet, we shall see, probably
3. Identity power's counterability
And that segways well into the third point, what I think the most important thing when considering an identity's power. How counterable is that power? HB: ETF is virtually uncounterable, as the power triggers off an install. The opponent can't restrict the corp from installing things, so it's pretty much a given that it'll fire throughout the game.
In the very same vein, Andy's power cannot be suppressed, and there's only been one card that can interact with it - Sweeps Week. Sometimes corps can get clever and sneak a naked agenda on the table, but generally, Andy's power is untouchable.
And that's probably the strongest indicator right now of identity powers - if they can be played around or be countered specifically. In a field of many players, where there is a variety of playstyles, decks, strategies, a power that won't run into a hose offers the simple truth of consistency. It's like in a field of rock paper scissors, you go into the competition with different rules - if you can spell a word, you win (for a silly example, the point is that it's skill-based).
Also there's an element of surprise and flexibility that is part and parcel of this counterability - playing against Gabe, you know his game plan consists of getting into HQ - that makes him predictable. Noise will drop Viruses, Kate will be installing more than not, Weyland:BABW will be playing Transactions, HB:ETF will be installing a lot (though that's like saying cars will drive), NBN: Making News will be running traces, etc.
Less pointed abilities afford the deck a measure of flexibility and mystery that pointed abilities don't have, or won't have, if they were to try maximise their power.
4. Identity power's self-reliance
In a similar vein, some powers are self-reliant, and some are opponent-reliant. Uncounterable powers are self-reliant, counterable powers are opponent-reliant. For example, Whizzard's power gets hosed by a deck without trashable assets/upgrades.
5. Identity's numeric power
Some identities are numerically more powerful - for example, Gabe's power may mean 2 credits a turn the entire game. Whizzard's may mean 3 credits per turn the entire game. While these may SOUND powerful, I think this is the weakest indicator of how good an identity is - at least, in the current meta.
Andromeda, for example, has a numerical equivalent of 4 clicks (draw 4 cards) to her power, the entire game. Does that mean that Gabe with two runs to HQ (or 4, if you count 2 creds per click, as some people do) already beats Andy out? No, it's not that simple.
6. Predictability
Due to FFG's design balance, most of the numerically powerful powers can be directly countered - and that's simply how games work - if your opponent can perceive where your strength is, then they will try to block that, if able. It's simple nature. You could try and brute force past the opponent's defence, but it'll simply be harder than if the opponent weren't aware of where you're going.
One size does not fit all
So there are many things to think of when deciding if an identity is powerful or not. But at the end of the day, it's not about "power" - it's about many more things than that - suitability, counterability, predictability, the meta, your own playstyle... And many things. If you were hoping this blog told you straight and fast rankings of the "best" identities, sorry, you won't get that here
Go fourth and think about it!
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So a while ago I said the Exile + Scheherazade + Double Pawn combo isn't anything major.
Well, I was wrong! Corping against it was the most strange and different experience corping I've had in a long, long time, and that's saying something! So this is a post to talk about how it works, plays, and how to play against it, because in retrospect, I made TONS of mistakes
All credits to Yademael (for R4G as far as I'm aware) whom I ran into on Octgn. I was playing an HB Upgrades deck, and he pulls out Exile. With a slow start (on my own part, due to meh draws, I mean what's an upgrades deck without any upgrades... Or ICE, for that matter), he started doing some crazy things. And before I knew it, the board state went something like this::strip_icc()/pic1880363.jpg)
The super Johnny combo:
So basically what was happening was that every successful run he made, he was trashing a Pawn to install a Pawn (the same onenever the same one, when there's 3 on the board other caissas can also be recurred!), each getting him a cred from Scheherazade, and a card from Exile. Times that by 3? That's 3 creds + 3 cards. Also he had a John Masanori on the table, so the first one got him an extra card.
(edit: So the timing on Pawns seem to indicate that a Pawn couldn't pull itself from archives, but it could pull a bishop or any other caissa, so that makes if seemingly possible to get to 3 creds + 3 cards per successful run!)
Forget this first point below, not icing archives just gives him a free run channel, so DO ice archives!So, Lesson 1: Don't put ICE on Archives.
Each central server with ICE on it is a route for a Pawn to lounge on. I was silly in thinking that only central runs fired Pawn's ability, meanwhile all servers allowed it to fire. Hence why I dubbed it the SUPER MEGA BANK JOB strategy
Pawns can even be stacked, but that gave you the chance to trash two Pawns with one ICE install. I tried to trash the Pawns by installing ICE, that was the standard way of dealing with irritating Caissas, right? WRONG.
Lesson 2: Don't bother trashing the Pawns, stack your ICE!
I thought trashing was the way to go, because hey, recursion eventually runs out, right?
WRONG. With this strategy, the draw power is so damn epically massive, it's like playing with half of the deck in their hand. Which cards can recur/fetch Pawn?
Scavenge
Test Run
SMC
Clone Chip
Same Old 2 of the above events
Pawns
Together that's 6x3 = 18 if x3 of each. That's quite a bit. Synergised with all kinds of run events (Indexing and Maker's Eye for accesses, Dirty Laundry for more money, etc), it's a lot of runs and a lot of income.Lesson 3: Don't ICE Archives!
So just to reiterate, don't ICE Archives! That gives the Pawn an extra route to go down, and the best defence against this is actually to provide LONG routes into your centrals so that Pawns need to take multiple successful runs to pay off. I pre-emptively ICEed archives without thinking much of it, and boy it sucked.
Lesson 4: Don't have undefendedremotesany servers
So, again, this is SUPER MEGA BANK JOB. Bank Jobs with massive payouts. So don't give it soft targets. The easiest deck to do it with would be Weyland's assetless economy, of course, but you can be careful about your assets. Even minimal protection can neuter it.
Playing it:
Well that's enough about playing against it. While I haven't played it myself, I'm super interested in seeing how to play it and how to construct it. Yademael played very well and very persistently, and I'm not experienced with it enough to know whether that's the best way to play, but between Femmes, Knights, and one-of of many breakers, he was able to get into most servers. It was Ash and Red Herrings that were holding him barely at bay on the scoring remote. I had just about gotten R&D locked by multiple Maker's Eyes and Indexing, each fuelling subsequent ones. An Levy AR Access reset the deck and he kept drawing about half of till the last 13 or so cards of my own deck, which I ploughed through with Jackson to hunt for ICE.
What else do I know about it...? Not much, but damn it's a fun prospect. I think if the corp knows that it's coming it's relatively easy to fend off, as a layered central should just about neuter it. But hey, I look forward to seeing its evolution
Oh and one final tip: don't play this on octgn, play it on a real table, or else the bookkeeping of all the bits of numbers changing will be a bitch to work with, and as the corp keeping track is just a nightmare, especially since the message history tripled for no good reason. Hope they change that back soon...
- [+] Dice rolls
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So Opening Moves and Second Thoughts are out, and although I haven't had a lot of time to play, I've been experimenting, and have had some observations.
1. It's the corp's turn at money
Between Restructure, Celebrity Gift, Geothermal Fracking, Profiteering and everything else that's come before, the rich corp can now get richer. An Account Siphon can be mitigated rather handily by having 15 creds sitting in the pool - sure, a big swing is still a big swing, but at least it's much much harder to keep the corp broke, and even a broke corp isn't necessarily helpless, with Shipment from San San.
2. Bad Pub is a as yet untapped vein of gold mine for the Runner
It's common for games to end with 3+ Bad Publicities these days if the corp is gunning for it. What the Corp gains in burst econ (Right now Bad Pub = money now for the corp), the runner gains in long term econ, but with cards like Blackmail coming up, Bad Pub will look worse for the corp in the future. For now, Corps should enjoy the fact that only a handful of cards take advantage of them beyond the running creds (Personal Workshop, Clone Chip, SMC)
3. Killers vs Destroyers (vs recursion)
If the runner can't spend their BP credits, then they're useless. Bad Pub can be largely mitigated by well-placed Destroyers, who're sentries. Killers has become EXTREMELY important, and with a rich variety of good destroyers (Rototurret, Grim, Swordsman, Archer, even Ichi 1.0 and Ichi 2.0), the runner who're not prepared may easily find themselves running rich but useless. This means the much-neglected Ninja, Creeper, and even Cloak and Dagger will be making their comeback. Faerie may neglect the initial hit, but Faerie won't be able to make repeated runs.
And of course with killing comes recursion, Clone Chip has already proven to be amazeballs, the whole recursion set can only get stronger with time.
4. Clone Retirement is the best new addition to Jinteki
It's huge. Jinteki can now rush to 6 and score the last points out of hand with no setup. Jinteki can run Grim or Profiteering and cut the BP out with it. If Jinteki gets more than one Clone Retirements they can close out the game with two of them from 5 points... Oh my goodness.
5. OK Celebrity Gift, Profiteering and co also added tons to the Jinteki game
It's not all Clone Retirement - Givin money to Jinteki does it wonders. And more 1-point agendas are excellent given the core identity's ability. Jinteki is now actually quite competitive, I believe, and can only do better with Caprice Nisei (though not quite Scorched Earth Level disruption).
6. Diversity and focus
I'm loving that focussed decks are become more focussed and there's a more diverse gamut of focus area now:
Meat Damage Weyland deck,
Scorcher Weyland deck,
Huge ICE Weyland
Huge ICE HB
Cerebral Imaging no-remote deck,
Jinteki 1-ponter deck,
Killers killers killers deck,
Stupid Net damage deck,
Overwhelming Brain Damage deck,
NBN tag tag tag deck,
NBN Fast Advance deck,
And that's only on the corp side. The runner side is also diverse, a little less than corp side but it's coming. Loving it
7. There're a few more hidden gems that are unexplored yet - which is awesome!
Unexplored cards/themes are awesome, they hint at the future!
1. Caissas
2. Eureka
3. Blackguard
4. Off The Grid (kind of)
5. False Echo
6. Blackmail/Frame Job
7. Hard at Work
8. Stealth stuff
9. Reconstructor
10. Voice Pad
11. Replicator (still unsolved!)
12. Invasion of Privacy
13. All the NEXTs
14. Salvage and co
15. Mooooore!
8. Ambushes are a real thing right now
Between ambushes (especially Cerebral Overwriter) and anti-ambushes (Ronin, overadvanced super agendas like Project Beale, Project Ares, Project Atlas, not Braintrust
), decks that pack no expose will have a real hard time guessing what's what. And with the new economy, it's hard to bankrupt the corp to disarm traps. Could this be a time for Exploratory Romp to make an impact? Nah not really, but ambushes are real and they're scary!
9. I've never been happier with the corp/runner balance than right now
It seems very even in my experience right now, but the BP war will continue and I'm sure the runner side will swing up again. But for now I'm loving it
Wed Nov 27, 2013 9:38 am
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So I've been thinking about the balance between runner/corp (who hasn't?), and I've come to the conclusion that the root of the imbalance are due mainly to 3 factors:
1.The runner has (much more) access to STACKED ACTIONS that turn single clicks into multiples.
Several Runner cards fall into this category of stacking actions:
> Desperado
> Datasucker
> John Masonori
> Dirty Laundry
> R&D Interface
> HQ Interface (to a lesser degree)
> Medium
> Noise + Viruses
> All the repeat attack viruses
> All the recurring cred cards (many)
> Magnum Opus
> Professional Contacts
> Wyldside (kind of)
While on the Corp side, there's practically nothing to match these except for:
> HB Engineering the Future
> Alix TA1B07
> Recurring Credits (NBN core, Dedicated Server, Because We Built It, Net Police, Simone Diego)
And this comparison doesn't even take into account the standard economy cards (Kati vs Melange, etc) and how the corps' assets area always open to trashing.
We could argue that the runner must repeatedly break ICE while the corp only pay to rez it once, therefore the runner MUST have a much stronger economy in order to keep the game competitive and balanced, but with things like Shutdown, Crescentus, Parasite, Escher, Femme, etc. So the runner is often able to make the corp pay repeatedly, and even then this is further offset by another factor:
The corp must pay to score agendas. The runner does not.
Half the game is both sides looking for agendas. When either side finds them, they have to score them. The runner might be hunting blind and huting for access, but they don't need to pay to score. The corp not only has to pay to defend, but must pay to advance and score. This leads to them being at a natural disadvantage when it comes to building AND defending AND scoring.
Then, the corp's defenses are ALWAYS capped by the amount of ICE or tricks they have - no matter how much money they have. The runner with a ton of money is not the same as the corp with a ton of money. The only card to break that paradigm is Corporate Troubleshooter and Ash, which could explain their strength. But sadly the runner econ is much stronger in most cases.
So, while Heysus Jackson goes a long way towards giving the corp a chance rears its ugly head and gives you handfuls of agendas, it doesn't really make the runner particularly weaker - but instead pushes the game later into the R&D, where it'll still be terrible if the corp can't win in the meantime due to the above factors.
Do you think these should be addressed? Would the game be terribly boring if the runner is put in an even/weaker position? (HBFA has already made that abundantly clear - a well-defended corp who has no need to expose their weakness in a remote is hella boring for the game)
Edit: slightly to clarify.
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Quote:azanatos [TRASHES] The Professor at no cost, freeing up 45 MU.That was the sentence that closed out this last, incredibly fun game with @Azanatos
This is what it looked like.
I managed to first do a 3 token Project Ares, to kill a Plascrete, R&D Interface, and a MORNINGSTAR which was just resurrected by a test run + scavenge, after being whacked by the HQ Rototurret.
Note that Project Ares was not Psychoed - I had to use the one Psycho I did get earlier on a Mandatory Upgrades that was clogging up my hand next to the Vitruvius which he stole.
That last PSYCHO DROID ATTACK for 6 tokens caused him to trash his Identity. That's how bad it was
But really, after this game, I'm ready to throw in the towel, quit while I'm ahead. This deck just does not work consistently. As an agenda based combo, it's just way too vulnerable. If this was NBN I could be rushing Astroscripts. As it is, even rushing ABT through porous ICE (so chosen because of cost to break - R&D is damn important when you're putting together your combo. And this deck needs to win the econ war to pull the combo off) is hard. And that, I realised, is the worst part about a combo deck like this. When you're not scoring you're leaving score hanging about for the runner, and that has a slippery slope effect - when you lose 2 points, you're actually 4 down, cos you gotta score 2 to catch up.
Yes Action Jackson helps, a lot, but he just delays the inevitable. And not drawing him/getting him trashed is terrible. You'll note that I ended the game with 4 cards. I drew the last 2 Jacksons only a couple cards back. I had to dig like crazy for the last 2 points to close the game.
So:
1. The combo pieces are too many
2. The money requirement is too high (I try to start with a Vitruvius if I can, so I can use those tokens to recur hedge fund/more psychos, but it's seldom a choice)
3. Agenda pieces clog up everything, and
4. If the runner ever manages to keep above you in money terms (Credit denial crims, they really eat this alive. Derez everything, siphon, trash assets, etc etc), then you're screwed.
5. Them getting 6 points also means you're screwed. No chance to combo.
I still love the concept, though it's simply not competitive. The same concept will definitely work better with Beale simple because it gives points outright and doesn't leave the runner the chance to build back up or get lucky.
If anyone can make this deck better than I've been able to (I'm not gonna post a decklist cos decklists are meh. You can see half my cards on the screenshot anyway), then MORE POWER TO YOU!
Although I still love it when I get to shout:
"PSYCHO DROIDS ATTACK!!!"
*tears*
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I was part of the invitational tournaments that was held around about June/July. The invitational's mandate was to explore interesting and non-standard decks, but not simply for lols but to try their competitiveness out.
The original invitational thread explains it in detail as well has some really rich discussions:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1001238/anr-invitational-sta...
Here you'll find:
1. Deck concepts and decklists, the sole reason for the comp in the first place.
2. Play-by-play videos of all my games in the competition.
3. Post-match interviews - they're super educational and reveals a lot about the game, a good listen!
It was posted in the thread, so I'm just moving it here for easier recordkeeping:
Before we start I'd like to thank Hollis and co for the awesome organisation and ideas for the ANR community, and thanks to Db0 for enabling us to connect over the vastness of the internet Love you guys
Corp deck: Tracer Killer
This deck really is an exercise in "concentrate fire", in the way only the corp can do it, really. The premise is to maximise two things:
1. NBN's trace creds, in conjunction with
2. Program Killers. There's a cool little junction there on Burke bugs and Ichi, so they're in. More support for the Killer strategy comes in Corporate Troubleshooter and the other cheap Killer - Rototurret.
Rounding out the killer strategy are Chimeras, who theoretically is brilliant if I could kill even just a single Icebreaker. Itself alone is massively vulnerable to Crypsis and Darwin, so Troubleshooter assists that too.
The rest of the deck is topped up with NBN's never advance strategy - Astroscripts, San Sans, Popups, etc, to make runners run into the Killers - or to just score Astroscripts Heavy econ that doubles up as trashable decoys to train the runner into either running everything or NOT running everything - in which case you can score things naked to perk the runners' ears up a bit.
So Burke Bugs are really quite contentious. I'm not convinced that it's useless, but it hasn't really been amazing either. Generally it's a tax 2 for free ICE, but sometimes it's useless - there's a slight anti-synergy, ironically, between Burke Bugs and actually killing programs, as it becomes a blank ICE to run through. BUT if it's genuinely useless, it generally means the runner has no breakers - or all the imps ever to pad their trashes, which is only fine for a few turns. It's certainly close to useless if it weren't for the 2 trace creds.
I've also not overkilled on the trace cards in the deck to make sure I do have trace creds when I need them. Most of the time they go to Caddie and Burke Bugs.
Then there's Tollbooth/Flare - I love this combination - The runner seeing NBN with money will start to suspect one of the two, and if they see one of them in R&D or HQ, they'll expect it. If you have both, the mindgame potential is amazing - they saw tollbooth, so you drop flare. They spend all their money to hopefully make you waste your 8 creds on Tollbooth. Rez Flare and BOOM. Vice versa works too - Expecting Flare? Here's Tollbooth, enjoy losing 3 bucks with a gravy of ETR. There's only 2 of each, cos big ICE is a liability half the time.
The biggest problem with this deck is if it gives up early agendas it's kinda hard to recover from. You NEED that first astroscript or San San. You WANT IT SO BAD. The economy is generally pretty good, so launch that first Astro out of hand with that San San even if you go broke. Don't care.
I really like the strategy junction of Killers and econ denial (that's what San San is really), I might take this further later. Any suggestions welcomeSpoiler (click to reveal)Tracer Killer
Identity:
NBN: Making News (Core)
Total Cards: (49)
Agenda (10)
3x AstroScript Pilot Program (Core #81)
3x Project Beale (Future Proof #115)
3x Private Security Force (Core #107)
1x Corporate War (Future Proof #120)
Asset (9)
3x Marked Accounts (Cyber Exodus #55)
3x Melange Mining Corp (Core #108)
3x PAD Campaign (Core #109)
ICE (21)
3x Burke Bugs (Future Proof #119) ■
3x Chimera (Cyber Exodus #60)
2x Flare (Future Proof #117)
3x Ichi 1.0 (Core #62) ■■
3x Pop-up Window (Cyber Exodus #56)
3x Rototurret (Core #64) ■
2x Tollbooth (Core #90)
2x Wall of Static (Core #113)
Operation (3)
3x Hedge Fund (Core #110)
Upgrade (6)
3x SanSan City Grid (Core #92)
3x Corporate Troubleshooter (Core #65) ■
Runner deck: Worldkiller
"I have become Gabe, Killer of Worlds"
Yet another "all-in" strategy, this takes ALL the Ice killing cards and rolls them all into one, supported with ONLY CRYPSIS and Femme.
The suite goes like this: 3 parasites, 2 Djinns to find them, and a Datasucker to call up too. 2 Deja Vus to recall 2 parasites, hopefully. ALL the influence is there to kill ICE. Then the usual crim ICEkilling suite is present too - FAO, Shutdown, Crescentus, Femme.
Then there's the neutral one, Kraken. I managed to UNLEASH THE KRAKEN quite a few times, so I'd say it wasn't a terrible include, it's just something you gotta learn to time. Kraken and Parasite is anti-synergistic because the corp could just trash the Parasited ICE, so that's something to watch for, but not a huge issue.
Employees was chosen over Katie cos I want to not care about tags and beat traces. They proved to be awesome if I got them anytime near the first 4/5 turns. If the corp wanted to kill them then let them, if not, they're either gonna be rezzing lots of replacement ICE or be letting me through.
It completely lacks late game so if the corp manages to get out of the rut of ICElessness and cashlessness OR manages to keep some ICE up OR is able to play around having no ICE altogether, then it's in trouble. If agendas never come up, you're also buggered. Otherwise laying waste to all the ICE ever should get you points.
If anything, this deck needs R&D Interface, just like any Gabe deck. But as it's a uber-focused deck, I'm happy not having included "balance", lol.
Suggestions and comments welcome!Spoiler (click to reveal)Gabe Icekiller
Identity:
Gabriel Santiago: Consummate Professional (Core)
Total Cards: (45)
Event (20)
3x Account Siphon (Core #18)
3x Forged Activation Orders (Core #20)
2x Deja Vu (Core #2) ■■
3x Emergency Shutdown (Cyber Exodus #43)
3x Inside Job (Core #21)
3x Kraken (Humanity's Shadow #90)
3x Sure Gamble (Core #50)
Hardware (3)
3x Desperado (Core #24)
Program (16)
3x Parasite (Core #12) ■■
2x Djinn (Core #9) ■■
1x Datasucker (Core #8) ■
3x Crypsis (Core #51)
2x Crescentus (A Study in Static #65)
2x Femme Fatale (Core #26)
3x Sneakdoor Beta (Core #28)
Resource (6)
3x Armitage Codebusting (Core #53)
3x Compromised Employee (Trace Amount #25)
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With both my matches, I found that if you build your deck to a razor-sharp focus, they're easily dismantled if A) You run up against a hard counter or B) The opponent knows what's coming. My first match I hard countered both of sydwys8's decks, who were also very finely honed to a focus, and in my second match I felt the two decks were dismantled by knowledge.
But they were damn fun games nonetheless! And I've learnt lots from them, hopefully would be taking these concepts into a more stable future
First match video
Interview 1:Coming soonStarts in the above video at about the 55:00 mark
Second match video
Interview 2:
- [+] Dice rolls
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So let's move on to the Runners. C&C has dropped a whole slew of cards for what's mostly agreed upon as the least powerful of Runner factions in the game so far, so how does this Shape their landscape?
1. Shapers get their own style of game
Running has always basically boiled down to this: Run in the early game, build a rig towards the mid game, run some more with your complete rig. That style will remain constant, but more styles came about:
Criminals quickly developed their own style of running where the rig is secondary - they chewed through their events and a few key programs sustained it for as long as they could.
Anarchs ate through their programs too, as Noise simply didn't care what they installed as long as they milled with his virus suite.
Shapers stayed pretty much the same: you know exactly your rig is (cos you know those fracter, killer and decoder and magnum opus are somewhere in your deck), dig it out, build it, and run.
But the new C&C set has enabled a whole new breed of Shapers. It's all about programs, but the Shaper doesn't need to have an ideal rig and dig it out for a stable rig. They build their rig as the opportunity presents itself, they bring out pieces that best suit the opposition through superb draw and tutoring (6 tutors - nothing to sneeze at), they discard what they don't need to fuel the fire, and they are free to bring any key piece back with a multitude of recursion (and of course Anarch's Retrieval Run is not in Shaper to ensure some balance in the force). Whereas most decks know exactly what their "full rig" is, the new Shaper has many options in their deck, and reliably find the pieces they need depending on the situation they face.
Thus, building the new Shaper deck isn't only "let's build the best rig I can have the quickest", but must tend towards a meta dissection of "what are the corps playing now and what best kills their set?". The new Shaper is absolutely the proverbial (not the console) toolbox, with all the right bits for the right job at the right time.
The Professor and Exile are both really interesting in contributing to the morphic Shaper style - The Professor can have literally any program in the game in his deck/rig, and Exile just chews through programs like nobody's business - program killing becomes a joke as he accelerates even further into his deck recurring stuff.
Which is to say, honestly, that I have NO IDEA how to build for the new Shaper. I know that I could, in a single run, use SMC to pull a Femme to bypass an Archer, then clone chip the SMC to pull another breaker to break something else, break ICE, then after the run Scavenge the Femme to permanently target either something else or the same thing. It's like magic! But seriously, how reliable is it? What to pack for economy? Which out of factions to include? The possibilities are literally endless. And probably too endless I really look forward to seeing the new paradigm in action, but I really don't know how it works right now.
2. A new dimension of ICE/Icebreakers to play in
Up to now, most breakers have been playing in a single dimension - that is the axis of Sentry, Code Gates and Barriers. Access usually depended on whether you have the right type of breakers. Some decks disregarded that with AI breakers (Crypsis and now Darwin. Wyrm... Is quite frankly a joke), but really those haven't been that good. A close second dimension had been the fixed strength breakers, but they basically have been breaking along the same dimension of the 3 types with datasucker assist.
So the new dimension - ICE strength. Yes, AI breakers existed before, but they were always single-pump and Darwin was inflexible. The introduction of Atman is hotly discussed, rightfully so, and she allows the runner to disregard type and lock onto numbers. Supported by tutors, strength adjustors like Datasuckers and Helpful AI, other AIs like Darwin and Crypsis, dialing into a couple numbers is becoming viable. We might get more tools to help later, so watch out for that too.
This is a kind of a prelude to Spin Cycle's Caissas, who are also a dimension of their own, manipulating ICE and accessibility by moving pieces on the corp's board instead of collecting Fracters, Decoders and Killers.
Whether this new dimension of breaker is better than the old paradigm remains to be seen in testing. Undoubtedly though, there'll come more cards to support the alternative strategy.
And also, because of this additional vector to play along, big ICE may be a really good strategy, to supplement the same point from the analysis part 2.
3. Same Old Account Siphon
Honestly, I'm not even going to bother with this one too much because everyone is going on about it. It is going to be a thing, whether it's going to be in Crim, out of Crim, or whatever. At least Kit can't run 3 Siphons because she's only got 10 influence.
What does this mean for runners? It means that it's possible to suck the crap out of the corp for econ, provided you keep coming up with the goods and don't care about tags. Every runner deck has the potential to be a super siphon deck.
What does this mean for the corp?
1. ICE your HQ, don't leave it blind and open.
2. Keeping unrezzed ICE as deterrent, is a realistic option. Though by no means a perfect plan.
3. Spend your money, run poor if possible (hard)
4. Closed Account is 1 influence! Pack it!
5. The usual anti-Siphon strategies from the "previous era" still apply.
Though Same Old Thing can pair with many strong effects as well: Escher, a situational Deja Vu, Inside Job, Stimhack (ouch), Indexing, Maker's Eye, Kraken (I like this one especially because you can fulfill the same condition once and break 2 ICE), Test Run, Scavenge (really useful for shifting breakers around in terms of targeting on demand)
Because you'll have to play 3 clicks to get it out from hand and the card recurred must be from the heap, it's relatively loud - you shouldn't be taken by surprise by it, but it's entirely possible.
4. All Kitted out
Kit. She's the real deal. For once Shaper gets an identity that changes the game - not through some economic gains, but really changes the game. She, in a larpartly plays along the new vector of ICE strength instead of type, and does things that simply can't be done without her. There's been lots of discussion about her too, so let me just leave a few Kit tips here:
1. You can drop Yog first, then much later drop Dinosaur, then Scavenge the Yog onto the Dinosaur.
2. A single Tinkering makes two ICE vulnerable to a single decoder.
3. You can shift the target of Cyber-Cipher with Scavenge
4. Inside Job doesn't stack with her ability, unfortunately. Or rather because it does it makes Inside Job pointless.
5. Ice destruction (Parasite, Kraken) helps a lot, because no matter which ICE is trashed, the first one will be code gate.
6. She's still no criminal though, so she doesn't get money from running unless you supplement with Desperado or Datasucker. Don't try to run her like a criminal, because you still need econ not from running.
7. Ability only works once a turn! Good to remember!
Fri Jul 26, 2013 5:52 pm
- [+] Dice rolls
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So part one was all about HB and how they have everything in-faction, now let's go on... With more about HB
1. Big ICE popcorn!
This is an interesting swing - Big ICE used to dominate from the core set, then with Emergency Shutdown and various ICE disabling and killing things, the meta swung to smaller ICE. Then, in Genesis we got a taste of Oversight AI - something that made big ICE less of a liability if they got "taken care of", and now that "big ice popcorn" strategy is getting grown in a big way.
For HB, it's all about Bioroids, with multiple ways to cheat them into play, runners can now expect to run into giant glacial ICE in the first turn or two with regularity. But they're popcorn - they're one-use-and-toss. Sometimes they're trashed, sometimes they stick around, if the corp has money lying around. The flexibility of big ICE will become very important.
Levy University lets you seek out your big ICE without having to overload your deck with them bastards that might clog up your setup when you're not setup to rez them. Important!
One more thing on big ice - they're diametrically opposed to the popular datasucker + fixed strength breaker suite by being out of reach without tons of sucker tokens. While those decks typically are criminal and pack Shutdowns, rezzing them with popcorn effects make them less vulnerable to the derez effects, so they'll be able to block access once before going away - which is what the corp needs to score agendas anyway.
And along that same line of thought is the advent of Atman - this one's getting a lot of attention, and I'll go into her later, but right now bigger ICE means a larger variation of sizes that she needs to deal with - which means that while she can take down big ICE if her initial pump was the right size (or again, with enough sucker tokens), but now your ICE have a larger variation of sizes suck that she can't just one-size-fits-all quite as easily as she could a bunch of smaller ICE.
2. These are not the Bioroids you're looking for
Bioroids! They used to be safe-to-facecheck-first-click porous buggers, but now they've got quite some teeth. Throw out what you thought you knew about them, here are new facts:
>>3 (9 if 3x of each)2 (6 if 3x of each) of them are not safe to facecheck first click (Janus, Ichi 2.0,Heimdall 2.0). They do all cost more than the magical 8 credit mark, though.
>> Janus on Awakening Centre costs 8 to rez (still the magic number)
>> There are seven Bioroids that cost under the magical 8 credit mark, and four which cost 3 and under (including howler). That makes stacking them quite easy too for blocking out click break access.
>> Bioroid Tricks: All these cards can screw your run up against even a rezzed Bioroid: Scored Project Wotan, Tyr's Hand, False Lead, Howler.
>> Stronger Together: we knew it was good against fixed-strength breakers and some really popular breakers, but now it can help more ICE:
Ichi 2.0: str 5 > 6 - out of Ninja's (and now Dagger too!) single pump range. NB!
Heimdall 1.0: str 6 > 7 - out of Morning Star + Ice Carver's range (I've seen that rig a few times, don't laugh)
Heimdall 2.0: str 7 > 8 - lol more at Morning Star
Viktor 1.0: str 3 > 4 - out of Yog.0's range (but we knew that)
Viktor 2.0: str 5 > 6 - strength 6 is nothing to sneeze at, and a bigger *FU* to Yog.0 + sucker suites
Zed 1.0: str 1 > 2 - Ninja popularly comes with a single Personal Touch, I'm sure Dagger will be, too.
3. Go go janky combos!
Next Design, Cerebral Imaging and Custom Biotics are all Janky combo enablers. While people have been heralding Next Design as Corp's answer to the runner's Andy (who could be played as a janky combo enabler), it's really not reliable enough to compare. What Next Design does enable is a second turn score in its free remote, either of a 5/3 agenda with a full out rush, or a 3/2 from unadvanced, with some other econ actions. However the chances of pulling those off are smaller than Andy's first turn blowouts, because of maths:
Andy gets +4 in the form of cards, guaranteed.
Next Design gets as many +s as having ICE in their opening hand, up to 3.
1) That's a 60% ICE hand. The likelihood of that is dependant on the deck build.
2) That's 29 ICE in a 49 card deck if you want to match those odds in build. It severely encourages ICE-heavy build, and that's a restriction.
3) If you want to double ICE to prevent tricks or if you're packing Bioroids, you will need ICE in hand AFTER the first batch of automatic install. That means 4 ICE in the first 7/8 cards. Those are tough odds.
So, there are so many luck and build requirements to get the full +6 (3 install and 3 draws) out of Next Design that you should only consider it at +4 (2 install and 2 draws). Is it the same as Andy's +4? In my opinion, no, because Next Design also comes with -3 influence and no Link (naturally).
But if you get that janky perfect draw, you'll be pulling off those janky perfect combo starts
Now, Cerebral Imaging. Not sure how the maths will work out, but it encourages an all-out econ and draw deck that makes HQ attack nigh impossible. If 1 out of 6 odds of hitting agendas was fun for NBN: The World is Yours, imagine 1 out of 10. Or more likely 3 out of 15 Just don't spend any money unless you're scoring stuff! It's a very interesting power, but it only exacerbates the power of econ denial. It was already proven in NBN, if you have no ICE to drain economy, you can easily build up an obscene bank. Now if only Account Siphon wasn't such a big thing
Custom Biotics is a blank ability, but with 22 influence - and that will only get better the bigger the cardpool gets. Did you want Midseason and Scorched both out of faction? Now you CAN (though not 3x of each, which would cost 24 influence... 2 short) The possibilities are pretty vast, but is it worth giving up +1 cred for turns with install? That's hard to say, until the right combo is found, and ONLY this identity can play that deck, because it'll need more than 15 influence to run.
So the new Identities are all pretty specific enablers, which leaves the original ETF to do the heavy, consistent, lifting work, which is pretty perfect, since HB honestly shouldn't get more "consistent workhorses", especially not ones that can compete with mighty ETF.
That's it for now, and I think I've exhausted corp thoughts Discuss!
Thu Jul 25, 2013 4:20 pm
- [+] Dice rolls
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I was going to do a card-by-card, but then I got bored. Instead I'm going to do some trend analysis which will hopefully spark some discussions:
1. HB got more Brain Damage
Just look at that. You can load your entire deck with brain damage. The above doesn't even count what we already have before now - Viktor 1.0, Janus, Ichi 1.0, Heimdall 1.0, etc. The brain damage deck will be a real threat - and it will hurt more than Jinteki for the unprepared. And Howler is even scarier than Chum as it can work alone OR as Inside Job protection.
No wonder Jinteki was unallowed in Custom Biotics, because the combos there would just be sickening - any brain damage means a much easier flatline - congrats to FFG for creating another great theme/mechanic amalgamation in Custom Biotics And now with the new 1.2 tournament structure (at least before swiss rounds), flatlining is no longer a disadvantageous strategy.
2. HB got (even) more clicks, and that means more FA
Extra clicks are nothing to sneeze at. Don't scoff at Efficiency Committee thinking it can't benefit FA because you can't advance ICE when you use it - you can use them for a whole variety of things like drawing or creds with Gila Arco. Haas Arco is just obscene - another in-faction Fast Advance enabler - its very existence makes advanced cards must-run.A 2 advanced Arco = 2 extra clicks the next turn! Two!!!!(Ok you can only use it once a turn, I missed that, but it's still badass as at least two Biotic Labours rolled into 1!!) And even more if you overadvance it... It's practically an NBN card, to be honest, not only rivalling but kicking psychographics' ass.
Minelayer can let the corp spend their clicks and money doing things other than install, and can trigger ETF for another install cred. It's a solid econ and pace generator, especially on R&D, which again boosts FA.
3. HB gets REALLY scary withtrapsambushes
From the previous point - can you really afford to let an Haas Arco sit with 2 or more advancements on it? CAN YOU?? Combine that with a DEADLY brain damage ambush, Tommy Haas who just makes the runner's run cost the corp nothing, HB has become *the* best corp to run ambushes. Add in Junebugs and watch runner impale themselves on your tricks - or give you 10 extra clicks to score ANYTHING out of hand.
4. Thus, EXPOSES will become so damn important
Because of the traps, exposes will become incredibly valuable. I'm surprised that there aren't better expose effects available now, though Exploratory Romp can technically be termed an Expose effect for Ambush Assets. Though that still means two runs to access.
I wonder if you can expose ICE in the Awakening Centre. It's quite interesting that you *know* that they'll be Bioroids, but at a 7 cred discount, even Ichi 2.0 can come out for a buck. Awakening Centre with 1 ICE on top of it early game is almost a guaranteed safe server.
5. HB now has so much economy options that it's not even funny.
Gone are the days where the corp econ selection forced everyone to play Pad Campaigns even if it didn't fit the strategy. HB is now making money out of facecheck runs, making money out of runner running advanced stuff, making money out of installing, making money out of free ICE rezzes, making money out of doing bugger all. HB has money options - it's now more a matter of picking which ones than having or not. Deck economy balancing is now entirely in the hands of the deckbuilder. Want asset econ? There're tons. Want operation econ? There's tons.
6. HB has out-econed Weyland, out-trappedAmbushed Jinteki, out-FA'ed NBN
OK, so this is the bar that's been set for HB's big box deluxe set. And with this, they have, in my opinion, overtaken just about every other corp faction's "KSP" (Key Selling Point). How is that right? The big box deluxe expansions for all other factions better be damn amazing - heck, if the next datapack cycle (Spin Cycle) has no HB cards HB will still be fine and dandy.
I love the fact that this LCG environment is constantly evolving, but I sometimes fail to see how everything is "supposed to" fit together, when dominance of certain sides are just seemingly damn obvious.
Anyhoo - that's it for part 1 Discuss!
(On Android: Netrunner and Android: Netrunner – Creation and Control)
Wed Jul 24, 2013 3:43 pm
- [+] Dice rolls
