NBN - Late Night Infomercial

Everyone knows the power of economics in Netrunner. And this may be a deck that is actually... competitive, if we can get the goal off the ground. Might need some tweaking for that.

So the 'Thing' That NBN is good at, is Traces. Weyland has Meat Damage and Advance-able Ice, Jinteki has Traps and Net Damage and Psi, Haas-Bioroid has Brain Damage and Click Gaining... Well NBN Has Tags and economics - And by Economics I mean Closed Accounts.

But I also mean Traces.

See, a Trace is only scary if the runner 1) Can't break it on an ICE and 2) Is actually afraid of it going off. Most people know that when you play NBN, there will be a point you get tagged, and just play around it. So they stop paying for most of the traces you usually see, preparing for the ineveitable Psycho Beale if that can be pulled off, or Closed Accounts for a scoring window.

But what if we adapted that to make it all scary, so that the Runner must always be broke? Opening up many many many more scoring windows as the Runner has to regain credits?

NBN - Late Night Infomercials

NBN: Making News (Core Set)

Agenda (9)
3x AstroScript Pilot Program (Core Set)
3x Character Assassination (Opening Moves)
3x Restructured Datapool (What Lies Ahead)

Asset (8)
1x Aggressive Secretary (Core Set) ••
2x City Surveillance (Mala Tempora)
2x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves)
3x Marked Accounts (Cyber Exodus)

Upgrade (4)
2x Bernice Mai (Humanity's Shadow)
2x Red Herrings (Core Set)

Operation (7)
3x Closed Accounts (Core Set)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
1x Power Shutdown (Mala Tempora) ••

Barrier (6)
2x Bastion (Creation and Control)
2x Paper Wall (Mala Tempora)
2x Wall of Static (Core Set)

Code Gate (5)
2x Pop-up Window (Cyber Exodus)
2x Tollbooth (Core Set)
1x Viktor 2.0 (Creation and Control) •••

Sentry (10)
2x Archer (Core Set) ••••
1x Caduceus (What Lies Ahead) ••
2x Data Hound (Humanity's Shadow)
2x Flare (Future Proof)
1x Ichi 1.0 (Core Set) ••
2x Muckraker (Second Thoughts)

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.


The only way Trace's remain scary is if they actually have a purpose for that trace firing. As a lot of Trace is on ICE, those Traces become not so scary (or even noteworthy) if they can just be broken without firing. So there is a lot of Program destruction in this deck - we have to keep them out of the Breakers so they can't get through. Drop those Corroders/ Fracters first - because the Barriers are the decks main ETR ice, but dont forget things like Magnum Opus - the goal  of this deck is to regularly bankrupt the runner.

Which means throwing those Trace's becomes a very complicated game. You don't (most times) want to just blow the runner out of the water with credits and make it impossible for him to pay for it. Sure on Flare, that is a great idea. 2 cards out of hand and some hardware? Rockin. But on Muckracker? Unless you really need the run to end, you actually want him to be paying to beat the traces. It's more expensive. Muckracker is a perfect example of the idea of this deck. Pay the Tax (Buy this awesome thing on this late night infomercial for only 7 payments of 19.99!) or you don't get in.

So it becomes a game itself - how much do you spend on this Trace? You want to leave it in the realm for the runner to beat, but you need a reason for him to think he has to beat it. It's a Shell game - much like Jinteki traps, but on a different level - and a level many Runners probably won't be thinking about.

Psychographics is not in this deck, and neither is Midseasons. If you drop a butload of tags on the runner at once, they stop paying to prevent tags. Plus we're pushing the Meta, and we've already seen the Midseasons > Psycho > Beale combo.

So I've included cards that give negative effects for those trace's hitting beyond just tags. Some as simple and understanding as Caduceus, some as scary as Viktor 2.0. A single hosted conter on him makes him scary if the runner ever suddenly finds themselves without cards... 2 or 3 is even more scary.

And so the Making News Identity is used because the goal is to bankrupt the runner, and making them spend 2 more (plus basically canceling out the base 1 Link of some runners) just helps in that. . Just like Account Siphon recursion decks goal is to keep the corp continually without credits, so too is this deck. Closed Accounts is obviously a workhorse here, and the single tag you need for that would be where you want to drop enough they can't fight it cause you're going to hit them next turn.

When using Flare, Carapace is obviously a target, but don't forget about stuff that gives reaccuring credits. The goal is to bankrupt the runner with a thousand little taxes, until they are out of burst economy and are forced to click for credits. And of course, Tag Punishment in the form of killing Kati, Daily Casts, Armitage, ect is extremely important.

Where to go from here?

Archived Memories could be a serious powerhouse in this deck, and maybe moving inf around for a second Viktor 2.0 would be scary. A second Aggressive Secretary would be nice to increase the chances of seeing it. Bad Pup removal might be considered (Veterans Program?) simply because free money is bad.

Will it Work? Doubt it. Will it cause you to think? I hope so.

(though I honestly feel this, so far, has the best chance of actually being competitive)

Reina - Double Up!

Ill admit. I'm not to happy with this deck. Its ... stretching even the idea of stretching the Meta.... but at least it makes us think.


Starlight Crusade was one of those cards I think that a lot of people went ... eh? And Honestly, until Double Time is released in a couple months (which is supposed to be all Double Events) it's probably not worth building a deck around. But why does that stop us?

Remember. These decks are not meant to be competitive. They are here to make you think. To approach things from a view point that most find untenable and see if something interesting can be sparked.

So I took a look at all the Double's spoiled so far - This includes through Double Time, so you'd have to proxy this deck to even try it. But given that the doubles most expensive influence ended up being between Criminal and Anarch, I choose to go with Anarch.

This is a concept - The Starlight Deck - That will undoubtedly get better with time. But ... this might actually be working here? The only doubles I didn't use (That we know for certain the entire text on at least) were Frame Job and Eureka. Frame Job was too situational (plus I'm playing around with that in a different deck, heh) And there wasn't really anything worth using Eureka for in an Anarch deck - and not without spending influence on things like Motivation, which didn't seem worth it.


Double Up!

Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter (Mala Tempora)

Event (12)
2x Hostage (Opening Moves) ••••
3x Lawyer Up (True Colors) •••
3x Queen's Gambit (Double Time)
1x Running Interference (Mala Tempora) ••••
3x Singularity (Double Time)

Hardware (4)
2x Dyson Mem Chip (Trace Amount)
2x Spinal Modem (What Lies Ahead)

Resource (14)
2x Access to Globalsec (Core Set)
2x Aesop's Pawnshop (Core Set) ••••
3x Daily Casts (Creation and Control)
2x John Masanori (Opening Moves)
3x Starlight Crusade Funding (True Colors)
2x Underworld Contact (A Study in Static)

Icebreaker (9)
3x Corroder (Core Set)
3x Mimic (Core Set)
3x Yog.0 (Core Set)

Program (6)
2x Datasucker (Core Set)
2x Djinn (Core Set)
2x Rook (Opening Moves)

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.


So here we have a few things. Queens Gambit and Singularity actually mesh really well together. But normally that's an entire turn plus whatever you have to spend to get into the server, so it's probably not worth it most times. But if Starlight is out...

Aesop's becomes important to have suddenly, because we want to be able to get rid of Starlight when we're done with it. Hostage is then useful, for finding Aesop.

And now we're running two resources that are important to the deck concept. So Tag Me is right out, meaning that Lawyer Up could become potentially useful.

We'll throw in the traditional Anarch breaker suite and add in a Rook to play off of Reina's base ability. Running Interference combines with that and can make that all important get me in there now run possible.

Since we are already running Aesops, Daily Casts becomes a decent economy card with selling it to Aesop (not amazing, but better than Liberated Accounts, especially cause we are already click starved)

Without a lot of Viruses or Caissa, Spinal Modem becomes the better console. Well now we're a little worried about Link Strength - and if we include some boost there (and Dyson is good  for the memory we'll need) then hey. Why not include Underworld Contacts. Since we're already Resource Heavy...

And finally John M. He's in because he provides card draw when we are loosing a click, meaning we still get something out of all 4 clicks, effectively.

What else can we do?

Medium is probably a good idea to put in here - being able to get RD lock would help a lot for a victory condition. Ive found without some sort of HQ or RD multi access you are in a lot of trouble. But thats if you want to actually make this ... competitive.

And once more Double Events come out this might actually become viable.

No idea if this is worth it. Will it work? Doubt it. Can it make you think? Maybe.