Updating current decks

Updating decks when new data packs come out can be a very difficult task to tackle and even more so trying to figure out if any new deck archetypes can spawn from new cards combined with existing ones.  One of my biggest strengths in previous games, and I feel like it carries over into Netrunner, is designing decks and updating existing ones.  One of my personal preferences, and something of a trademark of mine, is including many functional one-ofs to give you the most options possible.  I'll get more into detail on this in a bit but for now let's jump into what we're looking at with the current set.

Instead of going by and giving card by card ratings (that's already been done several times), I'm going to just pick out a handful of cards from the pack that jump out at me as the most powerful cards and worth building around.  We're start with the Runner since this pack features a new Criminals ID:

Kraken

3-cost Neutral Event

Play only if you stole an Agenda this turn.  Choose a server, the Corp trashes 1 piece of ice protecting that server.

This card seems very powerful to me and for Criminals especially (and Anarchs to a lesser extent but still good).  Combined with Parasites you can seriously cripple the Corps servers and when you add in Forged Activation Orders and Emergency Shutdown, you're also crippling their economy.  One thing that I really don't like about this card is that it is really swingy.  When it's bad it's really bad and when it's good you put the game severely out of reach.  I feel like cards like this are bad for the game because they aren't fun to play with or against.  That said, it's hard to justify not playing this card in Criminal and Anarch decks that focus on ice denial.

This card is one of the key cards in the set.  It screams "build around me" and really complements the super ice denial strategy that's already very good.  It also gives Gabe (or now Andromeda) a reason to play with Parasite.  Spending influence is going to be a little more challenging now with Gabe and could be something like this:

1 Ice Carver ***

2 Xanadu ****

3 Parasite ******

1 Corroder **

You lose The Maker's Eye and access to Medium this way but you put a lot more pressure on the Corp in the mid game which is somewhere where Gabe starts to taper off a bit.  I think this strategy would rely a bit more on Crypsis as your main breaker but I could be wrong there.  Only being able to play 1 Corroder is a bit of a pain if you don't draw Special Order.  Here's what I see the shell of the Gabe deck being:

1 Ice Carver ***

2 Xanadu ****

3 Parasite ******

1 Corroder **

3 Emergency Shutdown

3 Forged Activation Orders

3 Inside Job

2 Kraken

That includes the influence cards plus the overall basic core for an ice denial strategy.  Sprinkle in the usual Criminals suite of Inside Job, some number of Account Siphons, and your economy cards and you have yourself a deck.  Top it off with your ice breakers of choice, the Special Orders, and Mem Chips to have room to host the Viruses and you're done.  Here's how my deck would look.  Keep in mind that this is just version 1.0 and is untested and certainly subject to change:

ID:  Gabriel Santiago

Programs:

2 Sneakdoor Beta

3 Parasite

1 Corroder

1 Femme Fatale

1 Ninja

1 Peacock

2 Crypsis

Hardware:

3 Desperado

2 Dyson Mem Chip

1 Plascrete Carapace

Resources:

3 Compromised Employee

2 Armitage Codebusting

2 Kati Jones

2 Xanadu

1 Ice Carver

Operations:

3 Sure Gamble

3 Inside Job

2 Account Siphon

3 Forged Activation Orders

3 Emergency Shutdown

2 Special Order

2 Kraken

That's what the first draft would look like I think.  Kati Jones seems like a spectacular card for Criminals to take advantage of as it gives you a very solid source of income late in the game.  Using a Kati for 6 or 9 gives you the much appreciated credits to get a Femme into play and close the game out.  It also gives you money to win Traces against an NBN or Weyland player looking to Sea Source you out of the game.  The Plascrete really might not be needed in the deck and might be better off as a third copy of Special Order or a singleton copy of HQ Interface (which is a card I think is a little overrated but still very solid). 

Andromeda

Identity: Natural.  Criminal

1 Link - 45/15

You draw a starting hand size of 9 cards.

This is a tricky one.  I feel like she's very good if only because she enables really explosive starts.  I think the 2 credits on an HQ run by Gabe is more powerful in a vacuum but she can do some pretty silly things.  Assuming that you're running 45 cards, she draws 20% of your deck at the start of the game.  This basically ensures that you're going to get your Economy and ice breaker suite set up very, very quickly and will be able to Account Siphon through ice at an extremely early point in the game.  Her base link also seems like the perfect ID to run Underworld Contact in.  I'm not 100% sure how to build a deck with her yet but I'd start with a pretty aggressive core such as:

3 Sure Gamble

3 Easy Mark

3 Inside Job

X/X Kati Jones and/or Armitage Codebusting

3 Special Order

2 Corroder

1-2 Femme

1 Peacock

1 Ninja

2 Crypsis

3 Desperado/Doppelganger 

I'd want 2 Corroder for sure because naturally drawing one is very good in an aggressive deck.  You want to be tutoring up your other breakers when you need them and drawing Corroder to break through early Ice Walls and Walls of Static.  Search up Peacock against early Enigmas, etc.  I would consider 2 Femme's in this deck because you don't have a lot of ice denial and they might get a chance to either advance an Ice Wall to infinity and/or rez a Tollbooth or Heimdall.  Having access to 2 Femme's lets you target the early Ice Wall with the first and still have a backup for the big ice.

Obviously you can go much more aggressive than what I list but the overall game plan is taking her starting hand and building a rig as fast as possible.  I suggest Doppelganger because once she gets set up, making the free run off the Console becomes very easy.  I also think Doppelganger combos pretty well with Inside Job as making that first successful run can be challenging at times.  Inside Jobbing to trigger the free run is pretty sweet and about as aggressive as you can get.

I really don't think Anarchs or Shapers gained much in this Data Pack.  Creeper is probably an OK card for a Kate Super Link deck but it's very inefficient at doing what it does.  I'd still test out 1 copy of it and see how it does though.  Not taking up a MU is quite good and might even free up space to install a Sneakdoor or Medium in your rig when you otherwise couldn't without Mem Chips or playing a mediocre card such as Djinn.

Replicator is interesting and is another card that makes Inside Man more enticing.  That said, the Hardware deck needs something to do other than just play a bunch of hardware that gives you Link and MU's.  You aren't actually improving your board state by doing this and become vulnerable to Corp decks who either fast advance or just wall up behind a super server.  

Quality Time is another card that seems good on paper but in practice might not be as good.  Drawing 5 basically means that you're going to end up discarding a few of them which makes it a Diesel that you just get to pick the best 3 cards from but end up having to pay 3 for.  I'd almost always play Diesel over this card but then again maybe I'm way off.  I guess in a deck where you run something like Public Sympathy then maybe you'd want this card over Diesel.  

Pheromones is a card I've seen a lot of players talk about but I really don't think the card is good at all.  Taking up 1 MU is pretty huge for the already MU starved Shapers and other decks won't want to splash it at an influence cost of 2.  If you could use the credits on each HQ run, instead of just recurring credits, then it'd be much more playable but as it is I'm not very impressed.  I'm pretty confident in saying that this isn't a very good card but I have to be careful tossing out blanket statements like that when Noise exists and cards have the subtype "Virus."

Finally, Surge is the other card I feel like is worth talking about.  I've seen a lot of people saying Surge is good with X or Y but really surge is just good with 4 cards at the moment.  Medium, Nerve Agent, Parasite, and Crypsis.  With Parasite it serves as basically a removal spell that they can't really stop.  With Medium, it serves as a pseudo Maker's Eye that they need to purge immediately.  With Nerve Agent it serves as an HQ Interface that they need to purge immediately.  Finally, with Crypsis, it basically just serves as a free action and powers up Crypsis to run a big server.  I don't think the card is super powerful but could easily see Noise playing it as like a 1-of for a surprise card that forces a purge.  It's obviously best on Parasite and Medium of the above mentioned cards.

I think the Corp gained a lot of pretty sweet cards in this set as well and we'll start with the one that I feel is the best card in the set because it makes an underplayed ID much more of a threat.  That corp is Jinteki and the card is Hokusai Grid.

Hokusai Grid

2-Cost Upgrade/Region

Jinteki

Whenever there is a successful on this server, do 1 net damage.  Limit 1 region per server.  

4 cost to trash

The fact that this card isn't unique really puts it over the top in my opinion.  Even at 4 to trash it's a bargain for you and hard to trash for the Runner.  If you get multiple of these out, it's going to be a headache and a half for the Runner to figure out where to run and actually justifying running with the threat of Junebug, Snare!, Aggressive Secretary, and now this card.  Jinteki now basically plays as an Asset deck with very little Operations and will rely on Assets to generate its income.  While this is more consistent overall, it also leaves you more vulnerable to trash effects like Imp.  I think that this is negligible because you just end up with so many cards that generate credits anyway.  I think that Whirlpool could also find a spot or two in a deck like this as you're already playing a bunch of punishing ice anyway and really discourages early runs by the Runner.  Setting up a server with Chum over a Katana and then topping it off with Whirlpool can be pretty gross.  If you also have the Grid on that server you actually just won the game unless they for some reason have more than 5 cards in hand at the time.  Add in cards like Snare, and Fetal AI and you're doing a ton of net damage at basically zero effort or risk.

At it's absolute very worst, the Grid is a Neural EMP that also drains the runner of 4 credits, or they ignore it and you have free reign to do what you want in that server and play any mind games you feel like.  Enough talking about the card, let me give a sample decklist of something that I'm pretty excited to try out.

ID:  Jinteki, Replicating Perfection

Agendas:

3 Nisei MK II

3 Braintrust

3 Fetal AI

1 Private Security Force

Assets:

3 Adonis Campaign

2 PAD Campaign

2 Melange Mining Corp

1 Dedicated Server

1 Edge of World

2 Project Junebug

1 Aggressive Secretary

3 Snare!

3 Hokusai City Grid

1 Marked Accounts

Ice:

3 Neural Katana

1 Whirlpool

2 Chum

2 Wall of Thorns

1 Rototurret

1 Janus

1 Archer

2 Data Mine

3 Wall of Static

1 Enigma

Operations:

3 Neural EMP

This here is my kind of deck.  It may seem like it's just all over the place (and it is) but there's a method to the madness.  Your overall goal is to flatline the runner but it is possible to win by Agendas with some good planning and mind tricks.  If the Runner hits an early Snare or Fetal AI it's going to be tough for them to run early.  Cards like Medium and Maker's Eye become risky to even play because of fear of hitting multiple traps and just losing.  Neural EMP makes a runner who feels safe either become flatlined or severaly crippled. 

Note that this deck is very, very difficult to play properly.  You have to be aware of the tricks it can pull off and have a pretty good grasp on when you can trick your opponent.  I've played a Braintrust turn 1 without even flinching and scored it on the following turn.  Note that you don't have a lot of End the Run ice and that's on purpose.  Most of the time you want to runner to come through but there are obviously times where you just need to protect a server and stop the runner from getting in.  

The Janus in the deck might be a bit of a stretch but if you hit an early Melange, it's not too difficult to rez and is a bit of a back breaker.  Hitting the runner with a Janus basically means a Snare! or Hokusai Grid plus some EMPs can easily kill them.  Chum and Data Mine is another neat trick but you need to make sure that you some something else behind the Data Mine so Chum isn't completely dead.

Bernice Mai

Unique 0-Cost Upgrade

NBN

Whenever there is a successful run on this server, Trace 5 - If successful, give the runner 1 tag.  Otherwise, trash Bernice Mai.  3 to trash.

Bernice Mai is mainly the other corp card getting a lot of press and I can see the merits to the discussions but I'm not really getting on board with it.  I am absolutely certain that the card is super powerful.  It's free to rez and Traces for a million.  We're all aware and not debating that it's certainly going to tag the Runner.  But then what?  Closed Accounts and Psychographics are two cards that come to mind but neither of those are super impressive without something to really close out the game.  I really want there to be an NBN "Scorched Earth" effect but maybe something a little less threatening (like 2 damage instead of 4, mayhaps).  The only problem with that is that then Weyland would likely splash it and have access to 2 Scorched Earth effects.  I suppose the same can be said for NBN.

Anyway, it's hard to splash more than two Scorched Earths in NBN but maybe that's the direction it will just need to go.  Bernice certainly pushes them that way at least.  You can go a route with Big Brothers and just aim to tag the Runner a ton of times and Psychographics + SanSan them out of a game.  Scoring a Restructured Datapools or Executive Retreat doesn't seem to hard now with that idea.  All that said, Closed Accounts isn't exactly the worst thing you can be doing when they're tagged, it's just not exactly the best.

In the theoretical deck listed above, Bernice is an all star but for NBN decks that don't want to Scorch their opponents, I don't think she's really all that attractive.  Once we get Project Beale and the NBN data pack, we might have some more things to do with tags.  Here's to hoping anyway.  As an aside, Project Beale is absolutely absurd with SanSan combined with a huge Psychographics.  I can see situations where the Runner has 3 tags after a Big Brother turn and you place Beale in a SanSan server, advance it, then Psychographics for 3 scoring 3 points in a turn.  It also has the added bonus of just being able to be placed in a SanSan server and scored that turn for 2 points.

I mention SanSan a lot and that's because it's the best NBN card by a pretty wide margain.  If you aren't playing at the -very least- 2 SanSan in your NBN decks, you need to reevaluate it.  

Simone Diego

Unique 4-cost Upgrade

Weyland

2 recurring credits.  Use these credits to advance cards in or protecting this server.  3 to trash.

Simone Diego is the other card that could potentially see some play because it's basically the second Weyland ID that can also be used on Agendas.  I feel like the cost is a little steep, and she's easy to get to and trash, but the reward is pretty nice.  This goes pretty nice in a Weyland deck that wants to advance ice pretty well and sets up some pretty sweet Commercialization's.  A card like this could also POTENTIALLY make the ice like Woodcutter playable but I'm not exactly holding my breath for that one.  Mainly, I'm thinking that you can triple advance an Ice Wall in the server, using the ID ability, in one turn for 0 total credits.

I'm on the fence about this one but won't be too necessarily perplexed to see it in winning lists in the future.  I think that really covers it for this data pack.  Criminals certainly got a bump or at least a different direction to go and that's certainly nice.  Anarchs gained Surge which may prove to be mediocre.  Shapers didn't gain much but Creeper may see some fringe play.  I was asked about HQ Interface and I didn't talk about that card too much but I feel like it's just an average card, maybe slightly above average.  It's certainly better than Nerve Agent in non-Anarch decks though so there's that.  It might see some play because the effect stacks at least.  We'll see.

On the corp side, Jinteki certainly got a bump and there's 100 different ways to build a Jinteki deck now which I definitely like.  NBN got a pretty sweet card and Weyland got a potential winner.  HB basically gained nothing in this pack which is perfectly fine because they were already the best corp by a pretty good margain.  Maybe they can splash Bernice and get some use out of her but I'm not sold on that idea.  

Thanks for reading and see you again soon!

Up All Night -- A Kate documentary

For todays entry, I want to talk about the state of the Shapers and more particularly, Kate.  For the last few months I've just considered the Shaper faction to just be in a bad spot.  They gained some super powerful cards but their overall strategy in the game just didn't seem to fit with the way that the Corp decks were being built.  How could we score agendas if our opponent would never build a remote server and just fast advance everything?  That was the question that I would ask myself and then would just answer it by tunnel visioning and assuming that you just couldn't and move on to a deck that could (like either of the other two runners).

Recently, I've found out that my thought process was just wrong.  I want to start by saying that I don't think Chaos Theory is very good in a vacuum.  I think that her +1MU is fine, and 40 cards is certainly good for a Runner, but Kate's ability, if played right, is so much better.  I tried all kinds of Chaos Theory decks; from heavy link to Dino based decks that aimed to Personal Touch and Dino all your icebreakers to break through any fort with ease.  These decks were all "good" but nothing was really sticking as "great."  The deck was slow to set up and it was very difficult to run on the Corp without at least most of a rig set up.  Running without a sentry breaker early game was a death wish as cards like Rototurret and the various trash ice cards would ruin your day if not played around properly.  Furthermore, you are super reliant on Maker's Eye to score you points and are always a little behind if you don't score at least an Agenda off of each Eye attempt. Another thing that was annoying was that the 40 card minimum for CT didn't really leave us room in our deck for Sure Gamble and without Opus, our economy was less than stellar.  I know we could just play with Gamble, but then we'd have to cut something more powerful overall and I don't really consider that "making the deck better."

What came out that compounded these issues?  Nothing really, we just have to change the way that we build our Shaper decks.  Recently, I've been building Notoriety based Kate decks and having very good results.  Notoriety may seem like a mediocre card on the surface, and very hard to score, but in essence it's the new way that the Shapers have to play.  As long as NBN and HB fast advance continue to post the best results, we have to make our own points.  Because of this, the latest data pack has some goodies for us.

All-Nighter, Doppelganger, and to an extent Underworld Contact are all great additions to the Shaper arsenal.  With basically every deck at least playing some sort of Trace card, cards like Rabbit Hole start to look even more enticing than before.  I've started to build my Kate decks with 3x Rabbit Hole, 1x Helpful, and 3x Dyson Mem Chips and haven't looked back.  Coincidentally this also makes your Code Gate breaker "free" since you can install it for 1 less with Kate's ability and it doesn't take up any MU's when you have link.  This basically blanks their Enigma's which is pretty huge early game.  Underworld Contact is basically the Armitage Codebusting in this deck.  While it won't provide you as much burst, it's more sustained and doesn't require clicks.  I had too many games where having Armitage + Magnum Opus was just awkward and unnecessary.

The Doppelganger started off as an experimental card that ended up being extremely good most of the time and very poor some of the time.  The times where it's extremely good set up some ridiculous turns and has earned its spot in the deck.  Even in the situations where it's somewhat bad, it's still +1 MU for a minimal cost. I'm still trying to decide if it's better than Spinal Modem or even The Toolbox but for now it's staying in the deck.  It also combos extremely well with a good portion of the deck.

All-Nighter is the other new card that really deserves mentioning.  At it's absolutely very worst, All-Nighter is worth 2 credits (Magnum Opus click) or 1 card (a draw click).  At its best, it's worth several points via a big Medium dig turn or scoring multiple Notoriety in a single turn.  I have been surprised by the subtle power level of the card and think that more people should be trying it out.  It's because of All Nighter and Doppelganger that cards like Medium are playable in Shaper.

That leads us to what our deck is really trying to focus on.  Ideally, what we want to do is Test Run for a Medium and just go nuts with Doppelganger and All-Nighters.  It's really not that hard to set up and is pretty crippling when it happens.  If you happen to draw the Maker's Eye to finish off the cycle then it's just icing on the cake.  When/if you draw multiple Notoriety's, you can use the All-Nighters and Doppelganger to set up a multiple Notoriety turn as well.  Either way, this is quite good in the current Netrunner tournament structure.

Here's the list I'm working on in its current iteration:


Deck Created with CardGameDB.com
 Android: Netrunner Deck Builder

Identity:
Kate

Total Cards: (45)

Event: (15)
Sure Gamble (Core) x3
Test Run (Cyber Exodus) x3
Diesel (Core) x3
Stimhack (Core) x2 ■
Notoriety (Trace Amount) x3
The Maker's Eye (Core) x1

Hardware: (9)
Rabbit Hole (Core) x3
Dyson Mem Chip (Trace Amount) x3
Doppelganger (A Study in Static) x2 ■■
Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead) x1

Program: (11)
Corroder (Core) x2 ■■
Femme Fatale (Core) x2 ■
ZU.13 Key Master (What Lies Ahead) x2
Crypsis (Core) x1
Magnum Opus (Core) x3
Medium (Core) x1 ■■■

Resource: (10)
The Helpful AI (What Lies Ahead) x1
Personal Workshop (Cyber Exodus) x3
All-nighter (A Study in Static) x3
Underworld Contact (A Study in Static) x3

Influence Values Totals -
 Anarch: 9
 Criminal: 6
 Shaper: 53

Now, some card choices:
No Aesop's Pawnshop?  No.  I had it in the deck for a while but the issue was that all my cards are necessary and I'd have several turns where I wouldn't need or want to pawn something.  Rabbit holes are okay to pawn I guess but you aren't really coming out that much ahead there.  In the end, they were cut because they just weren't pulling their weight and I haven't been sorry about it.

Only 1 Maker's Eye.  I'd really like to fit a second one in but right now there isn't room and I really haven't missed it all that much to be honest.  Playing with 1 copy keeps them honest anyway and Medium does most of the dig work in this build.

1 Medium.  You really don't need more than 1 because of Test Run.  You basically want to set up to where you Test Run it and go crazy on the next turn or draw it and go crazy that turn.  Only downside of Test Run'ing it is that the virus counters get reset at the end of the turn.  Because of that, you just set up a big Medium on the following turn.  Even if your opponent sees what you're up to, they usually can't react to stop you once you have your rig set up.

I'd like to fit in a copy of Nerve Agent somewhere but don't feel comfortable cutting the Stimhacks.  I'll try out the no Stimhack build which would be -2 Stims, +1 Maker's Eye, +1 Nerve Agent but I'm not convinced that it's better than what we already have.  Stimhack with a few cards on Workshop is really silly and is ultimately the best way to get a Femme into play.

The matchups for the deck are overall better than what I had originally expected.  I played a handful of games against NBN and naturally walked through all of the trace ice en route to easy victories.  It's very diificult for them to Sea Source you with all your trace and similarly it's very hard for them to even score a Restructured Datapool against you.  Against Jinteki, Doppelganger is your friend.  You have to play around Snares and such for getting hit by them typically isn't crippling.  Make sure you play out all your stuff before running against them as you don't even want to get your Opus Katana'd.  Weyland is much like NBN.  They are very hardpressed to Sea Source you and Carapace is a bit of a breather from Scorched Earth.  Still always try to have 4+ cards in hand, even with a Carapace out as 2x SE's are not that uncommon.  HB is really still your toughest matchup.  Never run on your last click unless you're sure that you can break their Bioroids.  Make use of All-nighters to make sure you can break through their servers.

I welcome any questions or comments, hope you give the deck a try and get similar results as me!

Regionals wrap up

And welcome back!  As I was saying in my last blog post, my regionals were this past weekend and I had a great time playing the game and hanging out with some friends that I hadn't seen in quite some time.  Overall, the tournament ran very smooth despite FFG not having an official program to use for their tournaments (please, hire someone to make this).  For those wondering, we used the Challonge system and edited the number of points game wins and match wins are worth.  The program worked great for the most part but you need to hand edit tie breakers or else it's not accurate at all.

Anyway, we had 22 players for the event and the meta was more diverse than I had originally thought it would be.  As I said in my last post, I went with Weyland and Noise and I'm not sure that was entirely the best deck choices and I'll explain why I think that way.

Noise has been talked about so much as the "deck to beat" that players are altering their decks to deal with it.  I noticed it quite a bit when I sat down first round and saw tons and tons of NBN players in the room.  Now, I don't think NBN is particularly bad, I just don't think that it's the best choice.  As it turns out I was wrong and the NBN decks were crushing all day.  The only time I ever saw NBN struggle was when they were matched up against a heavy link Shaper deck, but that's to be expected when most of your ICE has Trace sub routines, including splashing out of faction Vipers and playing with Dracos.  I will say that I'll now look a little more closely at NBN and am pretty excited to get access to Project Beale here in May.  I don't think the new ID will be as good as the old one with all the Trace cards in faction (and out of faction) but we'll see when it's finally spoiled.

On the other side, we have Weyland.  While I wasn't entirely disappointed with Weyland, I was far more reliant on Scorched Earth wins than I had previously thought I would be.  Maybe this was a result of me adding 3 Snares to the deck in the final days of testing, maybe it was a result of the way the faction works, maybe it was just the ways the draws were working out.  All that said, I didn't win a single game by agendas and all the Weyland players I played against never beat me by Agendas.  I think something that pigeon holed is easily countered and playing copies of Plascrete Carapace as well as link cards to counter Sea Source go a long way.  Even NBN was Scorching people all day so your cards are never wasted.  HB Fast Advance did well all day as well and I honestly didn't see a single Jinteki of any kind among the 22 people.

The top 4 if I recall was 3 people from Pittsburgh and myself to defend the home turf.  The decks were:
HB Fast Advance // Kate heavy link
NBN // Criminals
<Unknown> // Criminals
Weyland Tag n Bag // Noiseshop

If I had to choose again, I'd play NBN heavy trace splashing 2x Scorches and 3x Viper among my influence and for runner I'd either stick with Noise or play Shaper heavy link.  Despite my thoughts on Shaper just not being in a good place, I saw it doing well all day in the hands of a very solid player.  Just some quick asides on the tournament format:

1.)You need to play two decks that compliment each other.  I don't think Weyland + Noise was a good combo to play because you give up a lot of points as Weyland on your way to Scorching them and that puts a lot of pressure on Noise to win quickly (which is hard to do).  I only got 2 "full" wins (6 points) in the event and my corp had a lot to do with that.

2.)Fast Advance decks are very, very good in tournaments because you can score several points quickly and take a lot of pressure off your runner deck.  Even if they make cards that make fast advance strategies less good, it will still be a good choice for the 4-6 points that you'll undoubtedly score.

3.)Playing as the Corp first, in my opinion, is the correct decision.  Knowing how aggressive you need to be to win the match as the runner is very important.  If I win as Corp and only give up 3 points to the runner, I'm not going to risk running into my opponents June Bug with 2 counters on it.  Little things like that go a long way in winning and losing.  If you lose as the runner and only score 1-2 Agendas, then you basically have to run at every face down card with advancement counters on it and are more likely to get caught by a June Bug.  I hope this makes sense to people because I learned a lot this past weekend.

In the end, I lost in the top 4 to Pat who was playing HB fast advance and Kate link.  We both mulliganed into the worst Corp hands imaginable and he was able to draw out of his where as I couldn't draw out of mine.

So anyway, that's my regionals experience.  Again, I had a great time and hope to at least hit up one more regionals before they end; most likely the DC one in May.  Thanks for reading!

Regionals Pre-Report

Welcome to my new Android: Netrunner blog!  I had originally made a website focused on the ins and outs of the FFG Netrunner game but have since decided to focus more on a blog style approach.  The benefit to this is that I can post at my own leisure and not worry about trying to satisfy the masses but rather post a few times a week based on playtesting sessions and discussions with my playgroup.  It may end up being more than a few times a week some weeks and may end up being once a week for others.  Point is, I'm going to provide you with the best information possible as often as I possibly can.  Anyway, enough about what this is going to be moving forward and on to what it is actually is; a blog about Netrunner.

First thing first, this weekend is my local regional.  I'm pretty blessed this year in that my local game store in Morgantown, WV has recently got into FFG LCGs and lobbied pretty hard for regionals for various LCGs. That said, this will be my first year attending a FFG regional event and I couldn't possibly be more excited for it.  I come from a pretty competitive gaming background, playing professionally in games such as VS System, Magic the Gathering, and the WoW CCG.  I've done quite well in the past and I can say without a doubt that Netrunner is one of the best games that I have ever played and can't wait to get a little more serious with it.  Anyway, my friend Zach Cavis and I have spent a ton of time testing the game and figuring out what the best strategies are and have come to the same conclusions that many others have had:

First, Haas-Bioroid and Weyland are the two best corps decks.

and

Secondly, Noise-Shop and Aggro Criminal are the two best runner decks.

I know, I know, not the inside information you were looking for but the truth of the matter is that that's just how the game is right now.  There's been plenty of HB decks listed so I won't bore you with the details but basically fast advance style of approach is the best way to go about it.  With the printing of Trick of Light, and basically every deck already playing Ice Wall, it's very easy to score agenda's out of your hand in a single turn, even 4 cost agendas.  HB is the best at this because they also have in-faction access to Biotic Labor which is more or less a 4 cost Trick of Light that doesn't require you to already have advancement counters on ICE.  So basically, you have two different "combos," which only take 1 and 6 credits:

1-credit:  Place an agenda (gaining 1 from ID), advance, Trick of Light; score.
6-credit:  Place an agenda (gaining 1 from ID), Biotic Labor, advance x3, score.

Both of these approaches are impossible to stop once it's the corps turn so there aren't many ways to attack them.  So.  What are the ways to attack this style of deck?  Well the answer is obvious in theory but much harder in practice.  To slow down this deck, you need to constantly apply pressure to their central servers (which is a recurring them with the Runner that we'll talk about later).  Gabriel is good at this because he wants to attack the hand from various angles as it is, and Noise is good at it because you can easily Parasite the low cost, efficient ICE that HB already wants to run.  The Shapers are a little less good at this because you're incredibly slow to get set up and you're typically more geared to run remotes and R&D.  Shapers don't gain anything from running HQ unless you splash out of faction cards like Nerve Agent that aren't typically good in those style of decks.  Inherently, I believe that's why Gabe and Noise are the best runner decks, even though Gabe hasn't gained anything of value for at least two data packs now.

The other Corp deck that I feel is the strongest is Weyland Tag-and-Bag.  I've logged a ton of games with this deck and you win by damage 80% of time and by Agendas the other 20%.  I've also seen a bunch of Weyland decks that only run 2 Scorched Earth or even none at all and that is absolutely 100% wrong.  It's easily their best card and should be run x3 every single time.  Weyland is also the deck that I'll be piloting at regionals on Saturday.  Let me supply my deck list before I get into specifics:

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


Total Cards: (49)

Agenda: (11)
Government Contracts (A Study in Static) x3
Project Atlas (What Lies Ahead) x3
Posted Bounty (Core) x2
Hostile Takeover (Core) x3

Asset: (2)
PAD Campaign (Core) x2

ICE: (21)
Ice Wall (Core) x3
Shadow (Core) x3
Hadrian's Wall (Core) x1
Data Raven (Core) x3 ■■
Tollbooth (Core) x2 ■■
Archer (Core) x3
Wall of Static (Core) x2
Caduceus (What Lies Ahead) x3
Hunter (Core) x1

Operation: (15)
Commercialization (Cyber Exodus) x3
Beanstalk Royalties (Core) x3
Hedge Fund (Core) x3
Scorched Earth (Core) x3
SEA Source (Core) x2 ■■
Anonymous Tip (Core) x1 ■

Upgrade: (0)

Total Agenda Points: 20

Influence Values Totals -
Haas-Bioroid: 0
Jinteki: 0
NBN: 15
The Weyland Consortium: 39

Okay, so, some card choices:

1.)No Oversight AI.  That was in the deck originally until we figured out that it just wasn't needed.  Sure, it's pretty sweet on Archer but more often than not we'll have scored a Hostile Takeover by the time that matters.  Sure, it's fine on Tollbooth, but that isn't very hard to break.  Only other option is Hadrian's Wall and again that's not too daunting either.  So, we cut them in favor of the Anonymous Tip and a Hunter and have loved the changes.

2.)Operation based economy.  In my experiences with the deck, I've never really liked Assets in it.  I know that there are 2 PADs in the deck but that's more out of necessity than actually wanting them in there.  You'll gain most of your money off of Commercialization and Hedge Funds and that's perfectly fine.  Unfortunately, since you'll either want to advance an ICE every turn, or set something up, Melange isn't very good in the deck.  I've tried it and it just doesn't really work out for you.

3.)SEA Source+ Scorched Earth.  The way that games play out is that you'll score a Hostile Takeover or two, probably a Project Atlas and maybe a Government Contracts.  You'll have forfeited your HT to rez an Archer and will be in the drivers seat to winning.  What your opponent will have to do is spend a good bit of his credits getting through a remote to stop you from scoring another Project Atlas which will drain him of credits and leave him open to get SEA Sourced out.  This isn't a dream scenario, it's just what typically happens.  If your games are vastly different then you're probably doing something wrong.  This deck is particularly good against Noise decks as they're broke a good bit of the time as most of their economy is Stimhack based.  On their stimhack turn, assuming you aren't dead, you can almost always win on the following turn.  Add in that Noise is weak to tags and you have yourself a pretty favorable matchup.  Gabriel is a little harder because he can play around Archer quite well.  What I like to do against Gabe is pop a Data Raven and/or Shadow in HQ to provide protection against Account Siphon.  You can drain most of your credits into a Trace ICE and minimize the effects of their best card.  Also, never install Archer until you are sure that you can rez it.  Getting your best ice Forced Activation Orders'ed is embarrassing.  

Finally, the runner side of things.  As I said before I feel that Gabe and Noise are by far the two best runners.  Noise is technically better because Anarchs just have better cards overall but Gabe is a little bit more forgiving of your miscues.  If you mess up on a big turn with Noise or not use your Workshop properly (or never draw it) then you're going to lose more often than not.  Here's the Noise deck that I plan to take to regionals.  Again, I've logged tons of games with this deck and am very comfortable to talk about it and field questions:

Identity:
Noise: Hacker Extraordinaire (Core) 


Total Cards: (45)

Event: (11)
Deja Vu (Core) x3 
Stimhack (Core) x3 
Easy Mark (Core) x2 ■
Sure Gamble (Core) x3 

Hardware: (4)
Grimoire (Core) x3 
Dyson Mem Chip (Trace Amount) x1 

Program: (20)
Crypsis (Core) x3 
Femme Fatale (Core) x1 ■
Corroder (Core) x1 
Parasite (Core) x3 
Datasucker (Core) x3 
Medium (Core) x2 
Nerve Agent (Cyber Exodus) x2 
Djinn (Core) x2 
Imp (What Lies Ahead) x3 

Resource: (10)
Personal Workshop (Cyber Exodus) x2 ■■■■
Aesop's Pawnshop (Core) x2 ■■
Wyldside (Core) x3 
Armitage Codebusting (Core) x3 

Influence Values Totals - 
Anarch: 58 
Criminal: 3
Shaper: 12

This is very much like a standard list for Noise decks.  The Corroder has been everything from an Infiltration to a Yog but ultimately I want the barrier breaker just in case.  Using Crypsis to break everything gets a little taxing sometimes so you just want basically anything else to help out from time to time.

Well, thanks for reading and hope to get some viewers for future blog posts!  Can't wait to post a tournament report!