Last weekend (9/12) the Android Netrunner Pro Circuit held many tournaments across the country. And I was able to attend the Heartland of America tournament. I decided to go with some unconventional decks this time.
Throw Your Life Away
Decided to go with the MaxX build I've been using and wrote about last time. As for corp, well, here's what I came up with.
Space Construction Company
Identity: Gagarin Deep Space - Expanding the Horizon
Agendas
Hollywood Renovation - 3
Oaktown Renovation - 3
Project Atlas - 3
Ice
Asteroid Belt - 3
Builder - 3
Ice Wall - 3
Nebula - 3
Shadow - 3
Wormhole - 3
Assets
Constellation Protocol - 3
Jackson Howard - 3 (3 Influence)
PAD Campaign - 3
Upgrades
Cyberdex Virus Suite - 1
Satellite Grid - 3
Operations
Commercialization - 3
Hedge Fund - 3
Trick of Light - 3 (9 Influence)
The idea here is pretty much standard glacier using the space ice. Some synergy between most of the ice and Hollywood Renovation. Satellite Grid is excellent, because it means you can rez the space ice for free with just two advancement tokens. Constellation Protocol lets you move the tokens off the space ice to power up your Ice Walls or your Shadows. Builder can make a space ice nearly free or can power up an Ice Wall. Commercialization for obvious reasons, and Jackson Howard similarly. PAD Campaign for additional economy. The only not so good pick was Trick of Light. It was added for some fast scoring with the Project Atlas, but it doesn't work with Oaktown Renovation or Hollywood Renovation, except to move them up quickly to maybe get the improved effects.
The big problem was not testing the corp deck ahead of time. If I'd had that opportunity, I could have made the changes that might have improved it. Well, no point regretting the past. On to recounting the events.
Round 1: vs. Drew
MaxX vs. Engineering the Future: 7-4 W
Gagarin Deep Space vs. Edward Kim: 3-5 L (timed loss)
An interesting set of opening games. What I remember most about the runner game was inflicting 4 points of brain damage to myself and taking 2 more from Cerebral Overwriters. Lost on time by putting out an agenda at the wrong time, plus playing a glacier deck in a 65 minute round format is kind of problematic.
Round 2: vs. Josh
MaxX vs. Tennin Institute: 7-5 W
Gagarin Deep Space vs. Hayley Kaplan: 2-7 L
Another fairly close game as runner. Corp didn't fare too well. I think he managed to get his setup out quickly, so I wasn't able to really protect anything.
Round 3: vs. Mark
MaxX vs. Engineering the Future: 3-7 L
Gagarin Deep Space vs. Geist: 0-7 L
And this is the point where a bit of a flaw in the MaxX deck cropped up. I was able to pick out a fragment out of his hand in the mid game, but by the end game, I had burned through my deck and all of his central servers were turtled up as well as his scoring remote. So I wasn't able to really access anywhere, even with my backup breakers in place. Corp game was terrible. Couldn't really get anything done.
Round 4: vs. Sam
Gagarin Deep Space vs. Iain Stirling: 6 - 8 L
MaxX vs. Engineering the Future: 5-7 L
Closest corp game I had that day. Scored an early Project Atlas, which I did quickly to get around the Gang Sign he managed to get out, as I had nothing valuable to protect in HQ at that point in time. That may have been a mistake, as he was able to make massive amount of money each turn from that point on between Data Foldings, Underworld Contacts, and Iain's ability. Had to fast advance the remaining Project Atlas' with Trick of Light in the midgame, but his credit advantage was insurmountable. Ended up facing another glacier deck, and lost mostly because I misplayed a run and lost two icebreakers to access a bluff card. Got to love how I always seem to fall for everyone else's bluffs, but all of mine fail. Also, in midgame, lost a full Daily Cast to a Corporate Town. Had to burn a lot of resources to deal with that.
Round 5: vs. Jason
MaxX vs. NEH: 7-5 W
Gagarin Deep Space vs. Kate "Mac" McCaffrey: 2-7 L
It's interesting that all of my runner games were fairly close. This game I won by snagging an agenda out of the hand, then digging several agendas out of R&D before he could draw the last 3 for 2 he needed. Went up against a Prepaid VoicePAD Kate build, and lost badly again.
So, out of 26 players, I have no idea where I placed. Probably below 20. Still, I wasn't taking this tournament too seriously. Mostly was using this as a testing ground for some decks I was working on. Still, I've been doing some tinkering with both ideas, and we'll see if they improve in the near future.
Until next time, check your computers for Sneakdoors.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Throwing My Life Away
Wow, another month passed without a post thanks to a combination of apathy and lack of ideas. But I have started working on a new idea.
With The Underway, Anarch runners got a new tool in the form of Faust. It's a decidedly interesting concept to base a deck around. But to use it, we're going to have to draw a lot of cards every turn. So, we may as well stick with Anarch because Faust is in faction, and so are Wyldside and Adjusted Chronotype. Also, we can take advantage of I've Had Worse. That gives a good deal of card draw, but we'll need a lot, so we need a runner who will greatly benefit from card draw.
Yeah, that works.
Throw Your Life Away
Again, the strategy is to draw lots of cards between WyldPancakes and MaxX's ability. Faust is supposed to be your main breaker, but you've also got Corroder, Mimic, and Yog.0 for when you run out of cards and also to deal with ice that doesn't play well with Faust (such as Wraparound, Swordsman, and Turing. You've got Datasucker to drop ice down and Net-Ready Eyes to buff your breakers up. Plus, Medium gives you some multi-access in R&D. To hold all those programs, you've got Grimoire. To let you hold more cards, you've got Braincage and you've also got Skulljack to make Corp cards cheaper to trash, which lets you dig deeper on subsequent runs. For resources, you've got the combo of WyldPancakes, but you've also got Daily Casts for some drip economy and you've got Same Old Thing to recur events. As for those events, they're possibly the big thing. Sure Gamble and Lucky Find give you some burst economy. I've Had Worse gives a burst of cards before making a run, or works as insurance against being flatlined (say, by a Snare! or a Scorched Earth.) Amped Up and Wanton Destruction allow you to destroy the Corp's HQ, forcing them to spend a turn drawing back up or giving you some more control over their hand. Finally, you have some recursion in Deja Vu and Levy AR Lab Access, letting you get back a specific card or your entire deck respectively.
So, the current version shown in this decklist is not exactly the initial version. The earlier version didn't have the Datasuckers, the Mediums, or the Deja Vu. The earliest version didn't have the Lucky Finds either, instead using Career Fair and Easy Mark for additional economy. But, to be honest, it take up about the same amount of time to use Lucky Find while using fewer cards, which allows more room for other cards. The Grimoire wasn't in the earlier deck either, because there wasn't a need for additional memory at the time. Also, the earlier deck included Chrome Parlor to mitigate away the penalty of installing the cyberware.
The goal is to set up and draw lots of cards to fuel Faust. This in turn let's you get into pretty much any server, be it a remote for a single steal, HQ for a Wanton Destruction, R&D for a Medium dig, or Archives to see if you destroyed any agendas. The big problem is that once you've cycled through the deck twice, you're now dependent on your secondary breakers to do the work. Plus, the economy also runs out, so you may run out of money as well at the endgame. Still, if you can hit the corp hard and fast enough, it doesn't really matter if you take brain damage and throw away your cards.
Until next time, turn the volume up to 12.
With The Underway, Anarch runners got a new tool in the form of Faust. It's a decidedly interesting concept to base a deck around. But to use it, we're going to have to draw a lot of cards every turn. So, we may as well stick with Anarch because Faust is in faction, and so are Wyldside and Adjusted Chronotype. Also, we can take advantage of I've Had Worse. That gives a good deal of card draw, but we'll need a lot, so we need a runner who will greatly benefit from card draw.
Throw Your Life Away
Again, the strategy is to draw lots of cards between WyldPancakes and MaxX's ability. Faust is supposed to be your main breaker, but you've also got Corroder, Mimic, and Yog.0 for when you run out of cards and also to deal with ice that doesn't play well with Faust (such as Wraparound, Swordsman, and Turing. You've got Datasucker to drop ice down and Net-Ready Eyes to buff your breakers up. Plus, Medium gives you some multi-access in R&D. To hold all those programs, you've got Grimoire. To let you hold more cards, you've got Braincage and you've also got Skulljack to make Corp cards cheaper to trash, which lets you dig deeper on subsequent runs. For resources, you've got the combo of WyldPancakes, but you've also got Daily Casts for some drip economy and you've got Same Old Thing to recur events. As for those events, they're possibly the big thing. Sure Gamble and Lucky Find give you some burst economy. I've Had Worse gives a burst of cards before making a run, or works as insurance against being flatlined (say, by a Snare! or a Scorched Earth.) Amped Up and Wanton Destruction allow you to destroy the Corp's HQ, forcing them to spend a turn drawing back up or giving you some more control over their hand. Finally, you have some recursion in Deja Vu and Levy AR Lab Access, letting you get back a specific card or your entire deck respectively.
So, the current version shown in this decklist is not exactly the initial version. The earlier version didn't have the Datasuckers, the Mediums, or the Deja Vu. The earliest version didn't have the Lucky Finds either, instead using Career Fair and Easy Mark for additional economy. But, to be honest, it take up about the same amount of time to use Lucky Find while using fewer cards, which allows more room for other cards. The Grimoire wasn't in the earlier deck either, because there wasn't a need for additional memory at the time. Also, the earlier deck included Chrome Parlor to mitigate away the penalty of installing the cyberware.
The goal is to set up and draw lots of cards to fuel Faust. This in turn let's you get into pretty much any server, be it a remote for a single steal, HQ for a Wanton Destruction, R&D for a Medium dig, or Archives to see if you destroyed any agendas. The big problem is that once you've cycled through the deck twice, you're now dependent on your secondary breakers to do the work. Plus, the economy also runs out, so you may run out of money as well at the endgame. Still, if you can hit the corp hard and fast enough, it doesn't really matter if you take brain damage and throw away your cards.
Until next time, turn the volume up to 12.
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