Back to Basics

Recently in one of the Netrunner leagues I'm in, we had a theme night.  This time the theme was to build a deck using only the Core set and the Deluxe boxes.  So I went the extra step and built two decks using only the core set.

Gabriel Santiago

Programs
Femme Fatale - 1
Ninja - 2
Sneakdoor Beta - 2
Crypsis - 3
Corroder - 2 (4 Influence)
Gordian Blade - 2 (6 Influence)

Hardware
Desperado - 1
Akamatsu Mem Chip - 1 (1 Influence)

Resources
Bank Job - 2
Crash Space - 2
Decoy - 2
Armitage Codebusting -3

Events
Account Siphon - 2
Easy Mark - 3
Forged Activation Orders - 3
Inside Job - 3
Special Order - 3
Infiltration - 3
Sure Gamble - 3
The Maker's Eye - 2 (4 Influence)

Just out of the box, Gabe has the potential to be one of the strongest runners.  Solid economy, efficient breakers, and a little multi-access.

Making News

Agendas
AstroScript Pilot Program - 2
Breaking News - 2
Priority Requisition - 3
Private Security Force - 3

Ice
Data Raven - 3
Tollbooth - 3
Enigma - 3
Hunter - 2
Wall of Static - 3
Archer - 2 (4 Influence)
Hadrian's Wall - 2 (6 Influence)
Rototurret - 2 (2 Influence)

Assets
Ghost Branch - 3
Melange Mining Corp. - 2
PAD Campaign - 3

Upgrades
SanSan City Grid - 1

Operations
Closed Accounts - 2
Psychographics - 2
Hedge Fund - 3
Beanstalk Royalties - 3 (3 Influence)

A minor note here: the deck I brought originally didn't have the Rototurrets or the Hunters.  I've added them in now to boost the ice count and decrease agenda density, plus I forgot to use up all of the influence, which is where the turrets come in.  But anyway, it's got a decent array of ice, with some good economy, although you may need to protect your assets.  Ghost Branch makes for a good ambush, since you can trigger it without spending any money.  The single SanSan helps with Fast Advance, and can be used to force the runner to spend a significant amount of money trashing it.  Priority Requisition has a bunch of good targets (Archer, Hadrian's and Tollbooth,) plus Breaking can be forfeited to get an Archer online.  Psychographics may or may not be usable over the course of the game, but it can help.  Still, it could maybe be switched out for Anonymous Tip if card draw is really necessary.  Or Red Herrings could be brought in to help protect agendas.

So, out of 6 games played, I managed 2 runner wins, 1 corp win, 1 runner loss and 2 corp losses.  Pretty much average play using just the core set.  Still, the fact that it is possible to do so well with just the core set is impressive.  Now to try this during regular play nights.

Until next time, remember to ice up your servers.

Colorado Regional Tournament Report

Well, last weekend was the Colorado regional tournament, which proved to be interesting.  Doubly so for me, since I missed last year's tournament (because I was on vacation in San Diego at the time.  SanSan was fantastic.)  At any rate, here are the decklists I took.

Time is Money Friend 2.0

Engineering the Future

Agendas
Accelerated Beta Test - 3
Efficiency Committee - 3
NAPD Contract - 3
Project Vitruvius - 3

Ice
Eli 1.0 - 3
Heimdall 1.0 - 2
Enigma - 2
Turing - 3
Viktor 2.0 - 3
Ichi 1.0 - 3
Troll - 3 (6 Influence)

Assets
Adonis Campaign - 3
Eve Campaign - 3
Executive Boot Camp - 2 (2 Influence)
Thomas Haas - 3

Upgrades
Heinlein Grid - 3
Red Herrings - 2 (4 Influence)

Operations
Biotic Labor - 3
Enhanced Login Protocol - 3
Green Level Clearance - 3
Shipment from SanSan - 3

This was a tinkering of a deck I had taken to a previous store championship.  It's a fairly standard fast advance/never advance deck.  I teched in Turing to deal with Eater decks.  Aside from that, the goal is to get as much efficiency out of your own clicks while forcing the runner to waste their clicks.

Mind over Matter 2.0

Quetzal

Programs
Corroder  - 1
Datasucker - 2
Djinn - 2
Medium - 2
Mimic - 1
Nerve Agent - 2
Origami - 3
Overmind - 3
Sage - 1 (3 Influence)
Yog.0 - 1

Hardware
Cyberfeeder - 3
e3 Feedback Implants - 2 (4 Influence)
Ekomind - 2

Resources
Adjusted Chronotype - 2
Daily Casts - 2
Data Folding - 3
Donut Taganes - 1 (2 Influence)
Public Sympathy - 3
Symmetrical Visage - 2
Wyldside - 3

Events
Game Day - 2 (6 Influence)
Stimhack - 2

Reworking of the same deck from the last post.  Tried to make it faster with Wyldside and Adjusted Chronotype.  Pulled out Pawnshop and Quality Time and replaced them with Game Day for more card draw.  Brought in a copy of Sage to deal with troublesome code gates such as Tollbooth and Lotus Field.  Also put in Donut Taganes since I dropped the number of events even further.

Round 1: vs. Grant
Quetzal vs. Replicating Perfection: 0 - 7 L
EtF vs. Kate "Mac" McCaffrey: 8-2 W
An average start to the tournament.  Quetzal was too slow to get off the ground against RP, which frustrates me, since I have a feeling that the large number of RP players at the Tulsa regional may have inspired more people to bring a build to Colorado.  Although, top 8 was apparently free from Jinteki, so it didn't amount to much.  I suppose the big mistake of this game was I forgot once again that Cortex Lock is a sentry, not a code gate.  Second game brought me up against the other massive influx to the tournament: Kate.  Grant was running what looked to be a PrePaid Voicepad version of Kate.  Still, he wasn't able to draw the breakers he needed, which let me draw out the midgame into a victory.  Oh, and Turing and ELP made a strong play in that game.

Round 2: vs. Rick
Quetzal vs. Making News: 6-4 L (meat damage flatline)
EtF vs. Valencia Estavez: 4-8 L
A reprise of the match from the Gordian Blade tournament.  The changes I made to Quetzal were mostly results from discussing the deck with Rick, so it was interesting to see how it would turn out against him.  I was able to get the Wyldside and Chronotype combo fairly quickly, though he managed to snipe Wyldside with a Making News, so that shut down the card draw.  After that, I got really aggressive, and managed to snag a Project Beale and 2 NAPD Contracts.  Unfortunately, my aggressiveness led to a lot of tags, which led to getting double Scorched.  Might have been able to avoid that if I could have gotten more than one of each Public Sympathy and Origami.  Corp game was not too great either.  Turing never showed up, but neither did Eater.  Got an Executive Boot Camp up and protected it with an Eli from an ABT.  Of course, that server might have been better used for trying to score agendas.  Or it might have been better to use the Eli to protect R&D.  Either way, I couldn't keep him from getting to the agendas.  Although, Blackmail never showed up either.

Round 3: vs. Martin
EtF vs. Edward Kim: 6 - 8 L
Quetzal vs. Replicating Perfection: 2 - 8 L
From what I remember, Martin was running a stealth build for Edward.  That was kind of frustrating, because suddenly none of my ice were taxing anymore.  Plus, he managed to snipe two of my ELPs off of R&D.  Still, a fairly close game.  And once again, Quetzal failed against RP.  I think I should have put more priority into trashing Sundews when they came up, but again, the deck runs slowly.  At least this time I managed to swipe a Fetal AI.

Round 4: vs. Barry
Quetzal vs. NEXT Design: 4-7 L
EtF vs. Kate "Mac" McCaffrey: 8-4 W
I think both Barry and I were slightly on tilt at this point.  Once again, Quetzal was too slow to set up.  Corp game was interesting for me.  Mulliganed a hand with no economy into a hand with 3 agendas, one piece of ice and one Green Level Clearance.  I think I drew a fourth agenda with that Green Level, so the game could have been done there.  Managed to sneak through an agenda in the open on turn 3, though.  Barry was running stealth Kate, but his breakers weren't showing up, which gave me enough time to score out and win.

Round 5: vs. Nick
EtF vs. Kate "Mac" McCaffrey: 8-2 W
Quetzal vs. Personal Evolution: 6-7 L
Another interesting match.  I'm not entirely sure where he was going with his Kate deck.  He was making use of Underworld Contacts and Data Folding for credit generation, but also put in Professional Contacts for card draw and credit gain.  So, once again, I managed to keep the game in the midgame phase long enough to win.  Second game, this time I did managed to get the full setup and get going, but a problem with the deck I hadn't foreseen cropped up.  Once it's through, it runs out of steam.  Plus, I lost somewhat critical cards with no way to get them back.  So, I managed to get some agendas, but ran out of cards, so I couldn't make any runs.  Oh, and I hit my hard counter, Komainu, twice.  Lost a bunch of cards the first time, had to spend a ton of credits the second time.

Round 6: vs. Marc
Quetzal vs. Because We Built It: 6-9 L
EtF vs. Kate "Mac" McCaffrey: 2-8 L
Managed to get my rig set up as runner again.  Was able to pull some agendas through digging R&D.  Marc's strategy was pretty good.  He iced up HQ and used Off the Grid to score out agendas.  Although, he was using a lot of barriers and space ice, so I could have probably pushed HQ a little harder.  Lack of planning did me in here, as I lost my Sage to a Nebula.  Second game, and I'm sure that the loss here was my fault.  I went for an early ABT, and ended up dumping the other two ABTs.  I don't remember much else about the game or his strategy as Kate, as it was over sometime after that.

So that's that.  Quetzal failed me completely.  EtF did about as well as I expected, though.  I suppose had I playtested out the changes I had made a lot more, I probably would have gone with the other runner I had prepared.  Still, there's always next year to try and take a regional tournament.  Well, until next time, take care of yourselves in the Net.

On the Matter of Spoilers

Corporate Troubleshooter here.  I'm in preparation for the Colorado Regional tournament, and so I've been working on some decklists that I don't want to make fully public yet.  So, I felt like talking about another topic that's ongoing with Netrunner.

Spoilers.  With almost any game, film, or book, they're kind of inevitable.  In order to raise hype for a product, the marketing department will usually release a trailer or a preview for said product.  Yet, sometimes details are leaked out deliberately by personnel.  Why?  Maybe to get important information out, or maybe to stick it to the people in charge.  So far, we've had some spoilers from FFG for every set so far, and for the entire upcoming packs in the SanSan cycle.  But we also have some spoilers in the form of the System Crash draft set, which has cards in it from the upcoming packs.  We've also had text spoilers for upcoming packs and for prior sets, which have been somewhat reliable.  And we've had spoilers that were actually traps set up by FFG to figure out who was leaking information.

So what do we do about spoilers?  Well, you can try to avoid them, but if you're in a Netrunner community online, other members may not feel the same way about spoilers, and may post them publicly.  You can embrace them, and start planning out decks in advance, which is not a bad idea, but it means you're now planning for a meta that doesn't exist yet, and may not exist because of unforeseen factors.  There isn't an easy answer to the problem of spoilers, although from a certain mindset, there isn't a problem.  Still, the flavor text does have a point: "Don't you hate it when you know everything before it happens?"

Well, that's all for now.  Next time will probably be my report for the Colorado Regional tournament.  Until then, keep an eye out for spoilers.