Mean Streets of NA Duel Deck (Iain vs Making News) - Runner

sunergy 137

After a long and successful career, Iain is finally prepared to enjoy the finer things in life. Good friends, fine drinks, and large sums of other people's money. It would all be so easy if it weren't for the news crews lining up to boost their ratings with a crime obsessed public by blowing Iain's action way out of proportion. Iain's associates pay him to keep their names out of the headlines and if he wants them to stay his associates he needs shut down these newsies fast.

This deck is meant to be played only against the matched opponent deck. The decks are constructed to ensure that each deck is balanced and retains the ability to surprise even after regular play. It is also thematically coherent so that most games result in a compelling story to help newer players better understand the flow of play and become more invested in the netrunner universe.

I consider it a good pairing for relative beginners, suitable for introducing tracing mechanics and tagging mechanics after they understand fundamentals like running and breaking ice. Even for experienced players, going up against such a trace heavy deck with niche trace busting cards like Power Tap in your deck is a fun scenario that generally never happens in competitive play.

Everything revolves around money. A drip economy founded on link and Underworld Contacts is ideal, but slow. Often you'll find yourself relying on multiple Tri-Maf Contacts which makes keeping a low profile even more essential. Account Siphon is, as always, extremely powerful, but don't float tags unless you are confident the money you have will last you for the rest of the game.

Finding your icebreakers can be a problem, and they aren't that efficient even when found. However, if your opponent exploits this to score agendas aggressively they'll be effectively handing you the credits you need to become unstoppable on a silver platter. Against so many tracer Ice and operations, being rich is the both best icebreaker and the best defense.

Get rich, stay rich, and laugh as all of your opponent's security becomes a massive liability.

4 comments
2 Jan 2016 CowboyTintin

Huh... what a clever idea. Maybe I'm just jot in the 'know,' but has anyone ever done this before?

Either way, I like the thought of taking cards that aren't necessarily Tier 1 and balancing two decks around them to be played specifically against each other...

2 Jan 2016 sunergy

@CowboyTintin

There a fair amount of suggested teaching and demonstration decks out there that are matched pairs of decks. I got the idea when I was using a preconstructed teaching deck to introduce a friend to Netrunner and found myself having a hell of a good time using a bunch of cards that had long been rendered marginal or obsolete in competitive play. From there I just decided to take the concept beyond teaching and to use my full collection, as the the teaching decks often stuck with just the core set.

3 Jan 2016 CowboyTintin

Well, I commend you on an excellent idea.

Each time I picked up a deluxe expansion my wife and I would play three or four games with the 100% expansion-card decks that they suggest in the little liner-note things. The decks were, I think without exception, total crap. But once you got the hang of what were in them, it was actually a lot of fun to play with cards you would have never put together...

I'll be sure to play around with these. "Duel Decks." Good name. Hope that catches.

How long did it take you to balance them?

3 Jan 2016 manveruppd

Matched decks sound like a fun idea, and a great way to teach more complex decks to beginners! Nicely done!