Nixon Speedrun (BABW Rush/semi-glacier)

Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity.

This deck is the closest to the experience of being a corrupt politician that you are going to get in Netrunner. The objective is to naked-facedly Graft fast and and graft early. Fast Track for it, if you must. You make money, plop down some ICE, then brute-force score Graft behind. And once you score one Graft, you tutor for another Graft, a Casting Call and a Dedication Ceremony, and strap on rocket skates.

But wait! This is no simple rush. You have a lot of money. Why the hell stop at junk gearchecks when you can instead institute extreme gearchecking so that no unwanted runner gets into your precious server? Your objective is not only to make them pull out all the breakers, but also to have enough money to cut through two Spiderwebs on top of a Little Engine. And this is far taller order than one would expect.

But wait! You also pack ice with teeth. Runners may assume everything is a simple ETR. Then you trash their stuff, and set them back on tempo, as you keep on accelerating.

But wait! You are not only gearchecking and taxing the hell out of them. You are also allied with yellow-coloured media that will gleefully make anyone brave enough to spoil your plans a target for the brave patriots. And if they clear the tags, well, they better have enough cards in their hand to survive what the terrorists they are deserve.

You know what? If an occasion arises may even drop this pretence of corruption and just go for a full Government Takeover. If you have the money and Dedication Ceremonies in hand? Why not. If they try to get cute, you kill them, and proceed with your plan.

You have 7 agendas in your deck total. You will probably have at least one of them on the table as soon as turn 2, so your R&D is as safe as it gets. Ten card Medium digs? You can take it. Just keep advancing.

Sure. There are things that wreck you. Biased, over-intellectualized media. Leaks. But if you go fast enough, you just may get to the end of your Nixon Speedrun before they have the chance to counteract. And then, it does not matter if you have simply grafted more than anyone in the past, or taken over the entire government. A win is a win.

A few less flavourful tips:

-You don't have to hardcore rush. If the runner is down with credits and has no breakers on the table, it is fine to take your Grafts slowly, and for example install them second-click. With Dedication Ceremony you can then threaten next turn score, but without it, you can go 3x advance next turn, then score with two clicks remaining turn after, setting up for Casting Call -> Dedication Ceremony play to score another 5/3 right next turn.

-Trust your gearchecks. Little Engine may be giving the runner 5c on a break, but it costs them 7c to break with Gordian Blade. This is a lot, when you factor in the installation costs.

-Don't Fast Track Government Takeover if you can go grafting, but if you start with GT in hand or draw into it early, you can just as well try to push it through.

-ICE is a crutch. If you have a lot of money, throw GT out into the field without any ICE to protect it, and watch the runner sweat as they wonder if they can steal it and survive the Punitive Counterstrike. Or lose to Critic. This is not a safe play.

-Chimera is a great gearcheck, but it also has an upkeep cost. Don't rez it unless it will save your bacon.

-This deck matches surprisingly well into popular Whizzard lists - his ID ability is useless against a deck where the only trashable is BOOM! and most tech cards used to curtail asset spam simply do not apply here. Finally, a lot of the ICE - particularly the trusty Little Engine - are difficult to overcome quickly through the use of Anarch breaker suite.

-ICE placement is important. If possible, stick Rototurrets and Bulwark outermost and Little Engines innermost. However, don't sweat it too hard if you have to go with a suboptimal placement in order to rush.

-This deck is super swingy. You will lose some games because of random GT steals. You will win some games because of random GT steals. If you like consistency this not the deck you want to use.


This is a variant of the Make Weyland Hate Again list by MarbleMunkey. The credit for the idea goes to them. I would also like to thank the Warsaw Netrunner League for helping me to refine the list over long weeks of play.