Noisy Mills (5th place Malaysian Nationals, 7th in Swiss)

Hey guys, first write-up here !

This deck is based on the Noise Boys Are Back (5th Dallas Regional) build by LiteS which you can find here: https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/44285/noise-boys-are-back-5th-dallas-regionals-

The only difference is that, I added one card, the 46th as Jarogniew Mercs as a safe push button. This is only my second organized play event, so I'd prefer to give myself more options to bail myself out just in case something out of my expectation happens. Luckily enough, Jarogniew Mercs saved my life twice which I will explain in my match-ups.

The Malaysian meta is pretty diverse to be honest. Lots of different decks floating around and there are people who were very creative and dedicated to certain strategies. This deck was selected because of the "jankness" and surprising factor. It did worked well and I'm glad I made the right choice.

Deck Tech:

1. I pretty much followed all the guides given my LiteS, except that sometimes you really do need to consider running Archives, but don't run it without a good reason !

2. Go rampant on Centrals early. Imp is your all time favorite to control HQ and R&D. Make sure to install it early and use up all the counters. However, you might want to purposely safe at least 1 alongside with other virus programs to bait the Corp into considering purging virus counters (might need other viruses on field to make this work). This will definitely slow them down a lot. Most Corp decks don't pack Cyberdex Virus Suite so I got away a lot in tempo when they purge viruses. **Tips: Remember you can trash Agendas as well. Big stuffs such as Obokata Protocol is a good target. You are making Archives run a threat and also denying the Corp's chance to score big agendas. The Corp will also need to consider burning a Jackson to retrieve it, which is good either way.

3. Deja Vu for Cache if you are smelling victory through R&D thrash. You get good econs and also money for icebreakers just in case you couldn't make it and will need to run servers.

There are more plays and strategies that I'd yet to explore as well. Overall LiteS had explained most of the part of the deck tech. Imp and Cache are both my favorite virus programs. Lamprey felt a little lackluster but could be good against Corp decks that has weak in the early game.

Match Report:

Match 1: vs. Jinteki RP Prison (Loss)

It was my first match and I was very nervous and excited to be paired against one of the Malaysian top players. I'd a pretty good start as I managed to run into Centrals, broke the lock and got myself 5 points. However, I was digging for my Paperclip to break his remote ICE and still couldn't get it. I went for the R&D all-in-thrash, but fell short for a turn after my opponent scored his final agenda successfully. My mistake was didn't pay enough attention to Archives when I made a run for check. I pretty much milled all of his good ICEs and should've went for R&D or HQ instead. After the game my opponent revealed to me his installed ICEs and my guess was true. They are all friendly cheap ICEs that I can easily tank the subroutines. Lesson learned.

Match 2: vs. Weyland Jemison Astronautics (Win)

The game was a bit weird as I never faced any Jemison decks before, but I assume that my opponent is probably going on some kind of nasty ICE protections and a very unique way of scoring. I pressured the centrals very early and make my opponent spend credits. He didn't manage to recover much economically and I drew all my Cache in the mid-game, granting myself a huge economic advantage. However, the centrals are heavily ICEd and I find myself in a situation where my opponent had fired 2 Jacksons and I couldn't mill him out. With the huge econ I had an my instincts are telling me that he's probably agenda flooded because there are no scoring for quite a few turns, I ran the HQ aggressively backed with my econ advantage. True enough, I scored the last 2 agendas all from HQ and took away the game.

Match 3: vs. Haas-Bioroid Cybernetics Division (Win)

Match 3 was against my best friend Wei Keat. I knew his deck well and he knows that I'm his bad matchup because of his reliance on runners making runs into his false remotes with Cerebral Overwriter. I did made a mistake however by making a bad run to stop him from scoring into 6 points, and got myself into danger zone with only 1 card allowed to keep at the end of turn. He didn't manage to deal me lethal before I landed my Jarogniew Mercs (thanks buddy !). With Jarogniew Mercs on board, its pretty close to impossible for him to kill me outright. True enough, I milled him down aggressively and took away the game with him losing with empty R&D.

Match 4: vs. Jinteki Personal Evolution (Win)

Another damage reliance deck. My game plan is the same as against Cybernetics Division. Make runs on centrals to pressure Corp, make them spend credits, and sit behind my viruses. The game was predictive as I milled almost all of his agenda into Archives. He did got me to a dangerous point when I was poking his R&D and HQs to check on the situation. However, once again Jarogniew Mercs saved me from getting hit by his Show of Forces. I took away the game by milling the Corp out. He was clicking for econs desperately, which opened up the mill win con for me.

Top 8 Round Game 3: vs. Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future (Loss)

This is my Top 8 loss that took me off from semis. I didn't have enough econs to deal with the assets and frankly speaking, my inexperience also hurt me a bunch as I was paired against another one of the top players in Malaysia, Choon Ling. I tilted and threw the match away, feeling helpless against his remotes although I was very close to the bottom of R&D. Allowing Estelle Moon to fire just to mill him out turns out to be the worst decision ever. Lesson learned.

If you can't win by run, then don't run. Decks like Jinteki PE or Argus punish runners for running but they are not very well matched-up against Noise imo. Jinteki RP decks are pretty good at stopping you to run centrals so you need to a hand that has quick access to icebreakers and Cache.

Overall I enjoyed playing the deck and it was a good choice to bring to the Malaysian. I predicted that the players would like to zap and boom people a lot but turned out it wasn't to that extreme at all. I think thanks to my good matchup in the last 2 Swiss rounds I was able to make my first Top 8.

Very much thanks to the Malaysian community ! I certainly had a blast that day and am very excited to play in competitive events again ! Loving that intense and mind burn feeling, definitely Netrunner > Magic for me ! And thanks to LiteS for the deck design and play tips !