Chameleon Hayley (1st Place Dice House SC 2016)

iherdn3rfz 95

First of all, credit for the deck goes to Mr. Scott Kincaid (@Vash2002). The deck is more or less a carbon copy of his deck which was posted by @KingOfOdonata: http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/31993/hayley-kincaid-student-artist-edition-bluegrassmagic-sc2016

The night before the tournament, I hadn't done much playtesting and was just looking for a runner deck that looked like a blast to play. I went in without any kind of expectations, but to my surprise, this went deck 6-0 overall and carried me to my first store champ title. Hayley schooled PE, Bootcamp Glacier, 24/7 Haarp, and an EtF glacier in the swiss, and another EtF glacier and a murder Blue Sun in the top 8.

This is an incredibly fun deck to play, gets set up fast, and makes credits hand over fist. It definitely felt like a deck that's easy to learn but hard to master. There is a lot of shaper bullshit in this deck between Hayley's ability, PW, and Chameleon bounce happening after you discard down to your hand size. I definitely don't feel like I got as much as I could out of the deck, but the deck was forgiving enough and I pulled through in the end.

Potential card changes:

-1 Scrubber, +1 Harbinger

-1 Akamatsu/Artist Colony, +1 Paricia/Astrolabe

6 comments
24 Feb 2016 Brototurret

Let me preface everything by saying that I'm the original designer of the deck (My name is Scott Kincaid , hence the 'Kincaid' part). Let me give ya some direction on the flex spots and what kind of direction you can go with them based on the meta that you're in.

So you have about 4 'flex slots' in the deck. Film Critc , Colony , where you have Scrubber , and Plascrete. Scrubber is an interesting call , but I feel that 2 Harbinger is the way to go , rather than just one. Besides , you have an in-faction 'scrubber' in the way of paricia. Yeah , it doesn't hit upgrades and takes up memory , but it triggers tech writer and paricia is really nice to install on the back end of a hayley trigger off of a program ( which will be the most common thing you trigger off of). Plus you gain a buck if you host it on 'zade , and it's pure profit when you sell it to Aesop's.

Film critic is there to neuter any Midseasons deck , plus helps with TFP , NAPD , and QPM. Against Sync , you'll have to take a tag mid-run during the game.. I'd rather avoid the chance of giving the corp a kitty if I can avoid it. This hayley list tends to go down 0-2 or 0-4 early , and then completely locks out the game. Giving the corp the chance to score out on random accesses is not something I want to even risk.

Plascrete because plascrete. 24/7 news combo decks are the only deck that can just say "screw you" and win without you ever interacting with it. With a plascrete and the +hand from chameleons , you should never be AD 24/7'ed ever. You want to take as much of the luck element out of the game with this kind of deck. Plascrete (and to an extent Film Critic) does this well.

Artist Colony is a love/hate card for me. A LOT of the time , it does absolutely nothing and I wind up selling it to Aesops after I've installed it (and only off of a hayley trigger). But I've had games where I stole a breaking news against a 24/7 deck and Colony-ed it away to get my plascrete right after he played 24/7. Feels good man. Colony is kind of you "oh crap" button when you need it. If you're in a meta full of news teams and shi kyu's , then this card is great. Corps tend to run less 1pt agendas these days , so Colony in a random game isn't all that great. It's a lot like Turntable , though. Doesn't REALLY do anything in most matchups , but in the ones that it's relevant in it can just win you the game.

2 Harbinger is FANTASTIC to have for many reason. It covers you from power shutdown (zade is 0 after all , and only SMC is equally costed but takes up 2 MU). The extra harbingers give you extra instances to utilize your triggers for profit , and each harbinger is 6 credits to you AT WORST. Throw in a tech writer and a 'zade and a harbinger is 8 credits of pure profit. This gives you more liquid funds , so you can make more runs per game having Harbinger in the deck , than without. I feel 2 Harbinger is mandatory. 1 MAYBE if you need the 1 influence back and want to splash in something cute/meta for your deck.

I was at 2 astrolabe for a while (-1 Akamatsu) , and it felt great. Right now , I'm on 1 Astrolabe and 0 Akamatsus , as Plascrete took it's place. I kinda miss the 2nd Astrolabe , so I might go back up. I didn't want to cut into my harbingers , so that's why I cut the Akamatsu over a Harbinger.

This deck is so good , that I legitimately feel like this is one of THE best possible runner decks you can build. Noise is great and awesome and all that , but he needs a little luck to beat you. Hayley needs one draw effect to go right , and she'll win ANY matchup she's up against. Even if her draws are weird and wonky , you still have a very strong chance to win the game. Noise has bad matchups , Hayley doesn't.

Congratulations on your SC win with this deck , and I'm happy you found it so fun to play ! Message me any time if you have questions about efficiency or anything else about this beast of a deck. I'm Brototurret on Jinteki.net , and you can get in touch with me on FB if you're part of the 'netrunner geeks' group.

24 Feb 2016 WhitetreeShaper

@Vash2002hi scott

24 Feb 2016 Darthwickett

Going to toss in my .02 as one of the local guys in Scott & KingOfOdonata's meta that's also playing this deck. This thing is full of so much shaper BS it's amazing. Being able to drop a clot or plascrete from hand on the corp's turn is so satisfying. The one main drawback to this deck is its bookkeeping. Installed this, to install that, credit here, token there. But when the biggest complain it tracking how the deck is making money... That's a good problem to have.

25 Feb 2016 iherdn3rfz

@Vash2002 Hey, Scott. Nice to hear from you. Thanks again for putting together this decklist. It's such an incredibly fun and strong deck.

Yep, I realized what a mistake scrubber was after the first couple rounds. Definitely taking out it for paricia, which has incredible synergy in this deck as you talked about.

I really want two Astrolabes because this deck is so card hungry, and you can always sell the first and install the second for profit and Hayley trigger. Not sure what to cut, however, after the changes. Going to 46 for a second astrolabe isn't appealing. I suppose the least useful card is Artist Colony, but I really dislike playing against Haarp and Artist Colony exponentially increases the amount of clutch shaper bullshit you can pull off with Hayley trigger.

25 Feb 2016 Brototurret

@iherdn3rfz

Cut Akamatsu for the 2nd astrolabe. You never ever need 6mu anyways.

24 Mar 2016 k.art

I tried a very similar deck in two SCs now. Went 2nd and 4th with Sync fast advance on Corp side. So not too bad. :-) Biggest issues are all the moving parts of this deck. Even after sort of mastering to play and rushing, it takes too long to perform all the little operations. If you've spend 40 minutes for the first game already and Corp scores and takes the lead, time pressure is huge. Brain needed some good rest after the tournaments. Nevertheless, I think it's a super strong deck that theoretically can deal with nearly everything.