Weyland - Building a Better ICE

Weyland has this amazing ability on their ICE. Much of their ICE can be advanced.  Unfortunately this usually is not effective money wise, even with Commercialization, and certainly isn't effective click wise. Sure Ice Walls are usually good for it, and other times Hadrians just gets stupid when advanced.

Then there comes ice that can only be advanced when rezed. And the worst part one of these is 'Do Net Damage' - how is that ever going to be useful? That is one things that generally only are useful when they catch the runner by surprise.

But what if we use it as a Tax? Woodcutter with 6 sub routines on it is one expensive thing to break! But dear god how is that ever going to be useful. Plus the turn we rez that ICE its just going to be stupidly sitting there doing nothing. Not to mention costing 6 credits more than its rez cost to even be worthwhile...

Well, there is some help for that... and so we have Building a Better ICE idea...

Weyland - Building a Better ICE

Weyland Consortium: Because We Built It (A Study in Static)

Agenda (8)
2x Government Contracts (A Study in Static)
3x Priority Requisition (Core Set)
3x Project Atlas (What Lies Ahead)

Upgrade (8)
3x Amazon Industrial Zone (Trace Amount)
2x Ash 2X3ZB9CY (What Lies Ahead) ••••
3x Simone Diego (Humanity's Shadow)

Operation (14)
3x Beanstalk Royalties (Core Set)
3x Commercialization (Cyber Exodus)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
3x Oversight AI (A Study in Static)
2x Restructure (Second Thoughts)

Barrier (6)
2x Hadrian's Wall (Core Set)
3x Ice Wall (Core Set)
1x Tyrant (A Study in Static)

Code Gate (4)
2x Enigma (Core Set)
2x Tollbooth (Core Set) ••••

Sentry (9)
1x Archer (Core Set)
3x Matrix Analyzer (Core Set) ••••• •
2x Shadow (Core Set)
1x Swarm (Opening Moves)
2x Woodcutter (Cyber Exodus)

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.



Key cards in here are Amazon Industrial Zone and Oversight AI, followed by Simone and your base identity. Amazon, Oversight AI, and to a lesser extent Priority Requisition is going to be how you get ICE rezed out of the run. Simone and your base identity means you can in a single turn put 3 advancement tokens up onto any of your advance-able ICE ... for free. And once you get Commercialization onto one of those ICE...

Matrix Analyzer and Ash are going to be the last pieces of this puzzle. Matrix analyzer is going to fulfill two roles. First to advance your ICE out of turn of course. Second to increase those agenda's into scoring position. And that is where ASH comes in. Because the operational economy + Commercialization is so very strong in Weyland (even outside of Building a Better World) the money should be there to rez Ash and drop enough on the economy to keep them out of your Agenda - and on top of that, Matrix Analyzer allows you to make the second run on that server even more expensive.

The key thing to remember in this deck. Woodcutter will never flat-line a runner. Tyrant will never really keep them out, once they start a run. Swarm will never eat any programs, no runner will ever pay the credit cost on it once you have it rezzed. But my god the tax on getting through those ICE will be incredible. When it costs 12, 15, 20 credits to break your server, they are not going to get to run every turn. And then a surprised Ash... that will let you score.

At least. Thats the hope.

What more can be done?

We're running a pretty risky Agenda mix here - the Priority Reqs - really worth it? To rez a Tyrant? Maybe. But 3point swings to the runner are brutal. Is it worth the price? Possibly - this deck can have the big taxing ice that would be needed to keep them out. Maybe mixing up the agenda package would help out.

Is Operational Econ the way to go? Maybe swapping in for some PAD or Melange type econ would help out more, and freeing up those spots for other things - like Red Herrings (after all, if you just spent 10+credits to break into my server, and now you need another 5 to steal? Hmmm)

Will it work? Doubtful. Does it make you think of something new? I hope so.

Challenging the Meta - Sweeps Week?

True Colors spoilers hit the web last night, and already there is talk - Is the Andromeda Meta doomed?

So, this card is - against Andromeda - a possible turn 1 +8 credit boost for the Corp. Assuming they draw it. Assuming they splashed it. Assuming they are against Andromeda. What does that really mean for Andromeda?

Well whatever ICE on the table is going to get rezzed. You can guarantee that. A double ICE'd HQ is a possibility too, making Account Siphon early a tough sell, and Inside Job not nearly as brutal.

And then of course, if the Runner does have the ability to get in for that Account Siphon, that is much more likely to be useful now, with the Corp probably going to have trouble spending all 13 credits he's sitting at (or 14, maybe even 15! if he was ... um... crazy) meaning an Account Siphon, while still a possible 15 credit swing, may not be as brutal to the corp either - having credits to spare early on.

Of course how often is that going to really be seen? There are already multitude of posts on BGG about the averages of seeing this card and what not and I'm not going to bother going in on those. If you want the math you can go look at it. I'm talking about the Meta, what this Blog has been designed for to challenge, to make us think, to hopefully see decks that are not AndroAggro and HB or NBN Fast Advance dominating the tournament scenes.

And of course, Lukas has been reported to say they are always very interested in the Meta, and consciously design cards around it, to force it go change, grow, and adapt. Is this the start of that?

It's tough to tell. Playtesting, practice, and tournament results are the only real way to see how the Meta is being adjusted. There is a possibility however...

From Chaos to Nothing

Chaos Theory's greatest strength is her small deck size. Able to more consistently get to what she needs when she needs it, she is kin to Andromeda in that matter. What if we took this to the extreme?

Again. I remind you, these decks are not necessarily competitive. Will they work? Possibly. Will they win? Who knows. Will they make you think? I hope so.

Shapers in general have a lot of good tools. One of their Consoles is called the Toolbox and for good measure - with Tutors galore and recursion in the form of Cone Chips and Scavenge, this faction relies on being able to find the right tool for the job in their bag of tricks. 

What if we take both of these to extremes?

Note - this deck list spawns partially from discussion on BGG about using Escher and the Strength for a full run breakers.

From Chaos to Nothing

Chaos Theory: Wünderkind (Cyber Exodus)

Event (11)
3x Diesel (Core Set)
3x Escher (Creation and Control)
2x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
3x Test Run (Cyber Exodus)

Hardware (18)
3x Capstone (True Colors)
3x Clone Chip (Creation and Control)
3x Dinosaurus (Cyber Exodus)
3x R&D Interface (Future Proof)
3x Rabbit Hole (Core Set)
3x Replicator (Humanity's Shadow)

Resource (2)
2x Aesop's Pawnshop (Core Set)

Icebreaker (3)
1x Gordian Blade (Core Set) (Edit: Fixed from Snowball!)
1x Inti (Creation and Control)
1x Pipeline (Core Set)

Program (6)
3x Magnum Opus (Core Set)
3x Self-modifying Code (Creation and Control)

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.


The idea here is that between Replicator and Rabbit Hole you'll be able to thin your deck rapidly of cards, increasing your chance to be able to draw what you want. Add in Capstone to the mix (newly released in True Colors this month) and you have a card draw engine to support blowing through the rest of those cards. Replicator+Capstone means you'll be able to at least draw one card after both are on the table every time you install a piece of hardware. Time it right and you can dump your hand for an entire new one, drawing into whatever you are looking for - probably your economy and your tutors. Sure that's a lot of clicks, but what is reducing your deck to be able to get your key elements out (Escher, RD Interface, and hardware to feed to Aesop's)

Economy wise, there is a trick here... Escher is The Key to this deck. Run. Run often. Force them to rez ice. And once they have several ice rezzed and you can see several of their types, you can Self Modifying Code your way into whatever strength for a run gaining breaker you need  to secure RD. Between Capstone and Replicator/Rabbit Hole shenanigans you should be able to draw into Escher quickly. And once their servers are arranged in neat, static orders of all Barriers or all Code Gates, those 'Gain strength for the entire run' breakers suddenly are a lot more efficient...

And Magnum Opus and Aesop's round out the Economic engine - after all, what good are 3 Replicators going to do you in play, or 3 Rabbit holes, or 3 Capstones (Edit: Oops! Its unique!)? Money money money is what they are good for, and you will, because of Escher, have a significantly better breaking run then the Corp might quite believe possible.

The trick will be knowing when to install so you have Aesop's fodder later in the game, and toss for card draw. Hard thing to teach, but that is about awareness of the state of the game and the deck itself. Hopefully you will be able to thin this deck out quick and fast, making that less of an issue.

What else could it use?

Levy AR Access is probably not a bad idea in this deck. Same Ol Thing to recur those Eschers too. Its big weakness is Program destruction too, but the Clone Chips should help out with that. Money might be an issue, so swapping into Daily Casts+Aesops might not be a bad thing.

Plus I didn't spend any Influence. Expose might be really useful to, less chance of running into Neural Katana's or Brain Damage ICE while face checking.

Will it  work? Who knows. Does it make you think? I certainly hope so.

Jinteki - The Ice Labyrinth

Jinteki. Oh Jinteki. How we feel about you is always an interesting exchange. The shell game of traps and bluffs and death by a thousand cuts... how will we ever really know you?

So there have been a couple of Jinteki builds that have been popular of late, though maybe not the most competitive. There is Bad Publicity's Jamesteki build - a true 1000 cuts. With little to no ice and the rest being traps and 1 point agenda's, or the typical trap shell game of kills and Project Junebugs.

Now again - these decks that I am posting are not necessarily going to be competitive. Remember that. Don't make comments of 'Well such and such will destroy this' Of course it will. These are deck lists designed to make you think. Challenges to use cards that otherwise aren't popular.


So. What does Jinteki have that doesn't get used? Trap Ice. Sure people will throw a Chum in there, or a Datamine, but how many Cell Portal or Whirlpools do you really see? And how many decks do you really see that make use of it? Add to that your opponent will have to go through ice to get to you, means you are certain they are going to encounter your combos.

Whats the  main problem? well of course paying for all this. Jinteki economy has gotten much better of late, so that is less of a problem, and there are cards like Braintrust (who really over advances that?) and Akitaro Watanabe keep that low.

And the second problem? Positional ice. it only works if it keeps the right order. If you can't get that order right, you just wont get anything done. well Sunset helps with that. Levy University might also help - but possibly give up too much surprises? Who knows.

So.


Onto the deck list

Jinteki Ice Labrynth

Jinteki: Replicating Perfection (Trace Amount)

Agenda (11)
3x Braintrust (What Lies Ahead)
3x Fetal AI (Trace Amount)
3x Nisei MK II (Core Set)
2x Unorthodox Predictions (Mala Tempora)

Asset (4)
2x Levy University (Creation and Control)
2x Sundew (Mala Tempora)

Upgrade (3)
2x Akitaro Watanabe (Core Set)
1x Off the Grid (Second Thoughts) •••

Operation (9)
2x Celebrity Gift (Opening Moves)
2x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
2x Restructure (Second Thoughts)
3x Sunset (Cyber Exodus)

Barrier (5)
2x Himitsu-Bako (Opening Moves)
1x Paper Wall (Mala Tempora)
2x Wall of Thorns (Core Set)

Code Gate (11)
3x Cell Portal (Core Set)
2x Chum (Core Set)
2x Enigma (Core Set)
1x Sensei (Trace Amount)
2x Tollbooth (Core Set) ••••
1x Viktor 2.0 (Creation and Control) •••

Sentry (4)
1x Grim (Opening Moves)
1x Ichi 1.0 (Core Set) ••
2x Neural Katana (Core Set)

ICE (2)
2x Whirlpool (Humanity's Shadow)

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.


So what is the goal here? Replicating Perfection will help in securing you time to build this ice trap. You'll want two remote servers - One you are slowly setting up into your trap. Cell portal first. Trap style ice, like Chum into Katana  and Whirlpool on the outside. Then you can rez an Akitaro with a couple of Brain trust counters to keep them in an infinite loop till they run out of credits to break the Katana and die. Levy isn't that bad in setting this up, just search for the ice and hold it for a turn or two shuffling your hand.

Off the Grid is a nice little trick - rez it /after/ they've run on your central to get back at them. Score in the other Remote you've set up while waiting for your Cellportal Whirlpool trick to come off.  And cards like Wall of Thorns and Toolbooth are there as stoppers, to ice your centrals and just be a pain in the butt.

And if they see your setup with expose? What are they going to do? Unless they are running Escher theyll have to run it. You just make sure when you put your agenda in that server you are ready to pay the costs to make the infinite loop happen. Whirlpool > Katana > Cell Portal with Akitaro rezed and a triple over advanced Braintrust....

Ahaha... Okay that's a one in a million game that will never happen. But even if you only have the credits to rez Cell Portal a couple of times, if they don't have the creds to pay for breaking Katana every time


Does it Work? Doubt it. Does it make you think of something a little differently? I certainly hope so.

ANR - Crazy Decks!

Break the Meta! (hack the planet!)

Okay. So that's a bit of a silly start to what I hope will become an interesting platform for discussing what can be done with Android Netrunner deckbuilding!

If you do not know what Android: Netrunner is, check out the Fantasy Flight Games page for this awesome Living Card Game (LCG) Here! Watch the Video tutorial and go get started in playing this amazing game.


But describing the game is not what my purpose with this Blog is going to be. Rather, as I stated above, I want to break the Meta. Challenge people to think about deck construction in a new, different way.

Will these decks work? Probably not. Most of these decks will probably fall flat on their face and be not very competitive.

So whats the point you ask?

To make you think. To make you look at cards you might normally disregard and toss to the side as useless or extremely situational. To shake things up in a way that might provide you with tricks to make your more competitive decks have an edge over the rest of the players out there. To prepare for when more cards come out that could make these decks ...work.

To start this journey of expanding our ideas on how to make cards work for us, lets start by getting a description of the current Meta.

First. What do I mean by Metagame? 

As the Urban Dictionary link above expands on, Metagame (Commonly referred to as 'Meta') is the "The Highest level of Strategy"

So for Android: Netrunner, this is what is considered the understanding of deck construction of the most popular and strategically sound, consistent, and strong deck types.

Lets take a look at some of those.

First off, we have the Corporation. Meta for the Corporation as of this posting (Jan 2014) falls into a few major types, with a couple of subtypes in there.

Corp Rush

This could be Fast Advance, Never Advance, or just Always Advance (far less common). The most common Fast Advance decks use tricks like Biotic Labor, San San City Grid, Trick of Light, or Autoscript Counters - or a combination of the above. The Goal of these decks is often to be able to trick out an agenda in one turn. Relying on 3/2s and 3/1s as their agenda composition, they will use the listed cards above (and others) to get the ability to install and score an agenda directly from their hand, without giving the Runner time to steal it out of a remote where it is most vulnerable. 

Never advance decks use similar methods, but rely on a large amount of assets as well, causing the runner to be unsure if its worth running on the card that was just installed - is it worth paying to get through all that ice just to see a PAD Campaign?  This is a mini shell game - a bluff to be able to have a full turn to advance and score. 

And finally Always advance is similar to Never Advance, in that everything that goes into a remote server gets Installed, Advanced Advanced. Many of these will be traps, relying on the same bluff against the runner as Never Advance. 

Rush is the main Corp Strategy because you are aiming to put pressure on the Runner, forcing them to make tricky, or even better, bad decisions in their runs. When you are sitting at 4 or 5 points and could conceivably win with one more Agenda, the Runner becomes a little more desperate and may make mistakes, or may have no choice but to run your server for that card sitting there, draining them of credits, taking damage, or any number of unfortunate events. 

The Rush deck type will probably always remain a very strong contender - giving your opponent less turns to win is a lot of pressure upon the Runner and in tournament situations can lead to a lot of mistakes being made.

Tag and Bag

Some corps don't want to deal with Agendas and scoring. They'd rather blow up the building that the Runner is hiding in, and just remove the threat in the first place. Tag and Bag decks are always going to be strong, because even at 4 influence, Scorched Earth is just a strong card for killing the runner. Tag and Bag relies most often on finding a way to Tag the runner - through Snares, SEA Source, Midseason Replacements, Data Raven, or other, and then dropping Scorched Earths on them to kill them. Two at a minimum, with recursion tricks like Archived Memories, or Project Atlas counters to search or other methods to be able to deal with cards like Plastecrete that will protect the runner. 

The second method is Net damage. Most favored by Jinteki of course, these decks rely on traps and surprise to catch the Runner in a mistake to finish them off - such as a double advanced Junebug into a couple Neural EMPs. With Net Damage being mostly death by 1000 cuts, its harder to pull off and relies more on the Runner making mistakes.

Runner Decks

The Runner Decks have a variety of different types, but by far the most common at the moment is the Andromeda Aggro deck - A deck designed to be consistent, fast, and effective. Andromeda's base ability allowing the runner to see upwards of 18 cards (baring duplicates) in a draw and a mulligan means the Runner is most likely going to see what they want. Stuff this deck full of fast running event cards that punish the Corp, reward the Runner, and  help deal with threats of Ice without having breakers on the table  gives this deck type a lot of power. No matter what your opinion of Andy's overpoweredness or not, the current  Meta is dominated by variations of her fast running deck.

Okay! Thanks for taking this overview tour with me. Next up, we'll start breaking this meta!