Your Princess is in Another Citadel

bubbathegoat 605

First, credit where credit is due: I got the original idea for the central combo for this deck from @zeromus, and a lot of help recently from @lopert to tweak and improve this list. Finally, @bakashinobi always helps me fine tune and test all of my decks. This deck doesn't happen without the help of these three.

This list was undefeated in Swiss at The Relentless Dragon Store Championship. I lost to CI7 in the cut, which is a pretty bad match up that I never practiced for. We had a really strong field in our 16 players, with at least 4 of the local top 8 players from last year's Cambridge Regional (and at least 2 more were top 8 at the CT regional). I am not a regional top 8 contender, so I was really impressed at how easily this deck handled opponents I can rarely, if ever, beat. I now am starting to believe that this deck can really win anything.

This is the latest evolution of my list that I first published over here: https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/39036/power-nexus-andy-from-zeromus

I took out Security Testing fairly early, as it felt unnecessary. This deck can generate credits from power taps using Nexus, trace subroutines on ICE, and Citadel Sanctuary clearing tags. Using John Masanori to take an intentional tag fulfills a similar econ need without the cards slots.

I tried Same Old Thing (and a current), but I didn't feel like they were powerful enough. Siphon spam is powerful, but NBN is often fine running at 1-5 credits anyways, and Sweeps Week bounces them back right away.

I dropped the Faeries and Golden for a Mongoose and Femme Fatale, which I've been very happy with. Femme Fatale is a great late-game install to allow multiple bypasses of a DNA Tracker, or Tollbooth, or Data Raven for an R&D Dig. Mongoose is fine as a primary killer since Nexus is your real killer anyways. In a pinch, Femme can break sentries, and only costs 1c more than Mongoose to break an Ichi 1.0 (note you should only be paying 5/6c, and getting 2-3c back from power tap).

The big addition that I'm loving in this build is The Supplier. He speeds up this deck and fixes your bad opening hands. You want all 3 to maximize the chances of seeing him in your opening hand. There are 20 targets in this deck to go on the supplier, a few of them work very well. Daily Casts basically gets an extra turn of payoff, and nets 7 instead of 5. Temüjin Contract installs at the start of your turn, before you take your first click, which can let you take all 4 clicks for 16 credits on a naked server. Citadel Sanctuary can be safely stored on the supplier, which really shuts down meat damage kill plans.

To everyone suggestion that I cut Medium: Medium wins games. I don't know why I am asked to defend it so often. I would sooner cut Paperclip for Saker than run this list without Medium.

So, from playing yesterday I can immediately tell that the 3rd Career Fair should be cut to add back the 3rd Dirty Laundry. DL was the weakest econ card, but the Career Fair's are largely superfluous with The Supplier. Still, CF in an opening hand is quite good and accelerates openings very well.

The Deck still plays the same. Against glacier it establishes remote lock, and can lock R&D with medium pressure. Legwork clears out HQ when you need to.

NBN: You won't get to set up everything, but you'll get enough to effectively blank CtM's ID and make a lot of ICE irrelevant. SYNC tends to run poor, so you can afford to take a Data Raven tag and let Citadel clear it later to avoid the ID tax on tag clearing. HHN is easier to play around because you can get some credits and clear 3 tags and let citadel finish the work for you. The only ICE you should really need to break is Tollbooth, which you should use Nexus/Femme to bypass. Be careful about putting too much on the supplier, as the corp will try to tag you and trash it.

Foodcoats: Glacier is pretty weak right now, and this deck is helping hold them down. Ash is pretty much useless. Caprice can be bothersome, but pressuring centrals can flush her out, or get her installed on a central instead.

Palana/RP: Batty trashes are bad, but not game-ending. You have a backup decoder and killer, and paperclip installs itself. Nexus bypass means it takes 2 pieces of unbreakable ICE to keep you out. With good pressure on 3 targets, winning down a breaker is still very possible. The Supplier helps again here, since you can safely stash important cards onto him when you need to risk taking net damage.

(Weyland) Rush: Go fast and Medium dig. Siphon will be available and can buy you time to set up remote lock. Don't let them have the credits to biotic the game-winning agenda.

1k cuts (IG49/54, BoN, PU, PE): These are all actually bad matchups. I saw the, at tables at both SC's I played at, but none of them played me. The good news is these decks are really, really bad against all 3 whizzards that are the main meta runners. Account Siphon still does work, so make them broke and trash their stuff. it is a lot tougher than the other matchups, but still winnable. Again, stash important cards onto the supplier before you risk net damage.

CI7: This is a bad matchup. I don't have much experience against it, unless you count losing. Landing an early siphon can be devastating, but Reuse lets them bounce back without missing a beat. Siphon turns are your windows to hit other servers, so make them count.

On the day, I played against TarMar Sol, Clone Retirement Palana, Titan Rush, and Boom SYNC.

Sol: I opened with the supplier and a bunch of my rig onto him. TarMar was called on various pieces of my rig, which I declined to install until the corp called something else. I motivated him to call something else by landing an account siphon. He was never able to establish a remote to score out of, and lost to a mixture of Medium digs and Legwork on a jammed HQ.

Palana: This was my closest match of the day. I was able to clear an early Nisei MkII and Agg Sec from HQ on a legwork run, and later cleared the 2nd Agg Sec on a single-access following a Celebrity Gift. The corp was able to score 1 Nisei and all 3 clone retirements, which meant the TFP I was unable to steal from HQ was the game-winning agenda. I ran it 4 times and eventually stole it by winning psi games. From there it was a slow grind to find the last points, but by that time no server was safe and HQ was bleeding credits to TFP psi games. I closed on a clean-up run after my opponent jammed the TPF hoping I would be afraid of a recycled Agg Sec in the remote.

Titan: Medium wins games. I made an early misplay and ran into an Engima that I saw come off R&D while I had Peregrine in-hand. That allowed the Atlas to score, which I had to make up for by forcing an Archer rez on R&D to kill me Medium before I installed any breakers. The Archer rez tutored a Hostile into HQ, which I was able to snatch with a Legwork. This put me on 3 points, and left the corp very narrow scoring options for the rest of the game. Soon I was set up and locked the remote, locked R&D, and poked/siphoned HQ until it coughed up the points.

SYNC: I installed Citadel Sanctuary early and got my Nexus down to dodge Raven tags on remote and R&D runs. This let me grab an early QPM, which put the corp behind on the scoring plan. He landed a HHN on me, but I was able to play a some econ and clear 3 tags, then let Citadel clear the 4th for me. Once I had the 2nd Citadel on the supplier, the kill plan was out of reach. From there I installed a Femme on the R&D Data Raven and dug in with Medium, pulling the win out of R&D.

7 comments
5 Dec 2016 moistloaf

grats bubba

5 Dec 2016 Longi

Hi, congratulations on the results. I am wondering what card would you cut for a third Earthrise Hotel. Maybe the two copies of Carrier Fair and Dirty Laundry are enough? Have you tested with three hotels?

5 Dec 2016 bubbathegoat

@LongiYou may be right that a 3rd Earthrise Hotel may be a more important add to this list than a 3rd Dirty Laundry. I've gotten used to the amount of draw currently in this deck, but there is still a lot of click-draw going on.

5 Dec 2016 magikot

Sad to see the lack of SoT, but I think Supplier is a great call.

5 Dec 2016 bubbathegoat

Today is quite a good day on NRDB, @lopert has posted his DLR list, which is a little similar, but adds a lot of cool stuff: netrunnerdb.com

8 Dec 2016 ANRguybrush

On the lam could be great here.

12 Dec 2016 Longi

@guy.brush Yeah, I can´t imagine what cards to cut for it. @bubbathegoat Don´t you miss sometimes a more permanent HQ multiaccess? I will try to switch one Legwork for HQ Interface. There is even the synergie with The Supplier.