Big Girls Windfall Their Monoliths

Card draw simulator
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Derived from
Big Girls Play With Monoliths
Inspiration for
Big Girls Windfall Their Monoliths at the Angel Arena
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ila 464

Like many people who play this game, I love all the bad cards. One of the worst out there has to be Windfall. It plays against so many things that are common sense in Netrunner. Windfall works best when your deck is full of expensive things to trash, but of course, you don't want to fill your deck with stuff like that, they will never see any play and clog up your hand. So I started brainstorming and trying to figure out a use for this awful card. Enter Trope and Monolith.

If you can control all the cards in your stack, you can get maximum results from your Windfalls. Of course, you will need to empty your stack first, and what better way to do this than with PeekaySK's Big Girls Play With Monoliths archetype? If you like his deck, imagine playing it and doing it's usual shenanigans, plus having a super turn where you go:

Click 1: Use Trope with 3 counters, return 3x Monolith to your previously empty stack

Click 2: Windfall for 18 credits

Click 3: Windfall for 18 credits

Click 4: Windfall for 18 credits and give your opponent a wink ;)

Not only is this possible by turn 6, but it's extremely consistent with the small deck and crazy card draw. The hardest thing is knowing exactly when to set down your 1st Trope. You want it to hit that 3rd counter just as you've run out of cards. If you are not ready to Windfall and Trope gets up to 4 counters or more, you are diluting your chances of getting all three Windfalls to land on Monoliths. Similarly, if your stack is gone but your Trope only has one or two counters, you will spend an awkward turn clicking for credits (you don't want to run because losing your Windfalls or Levy to a snare means game over). I've found that if you completely ignore the Corp you can get your Windfall turn on turn 6 extremely regularly, which means you need to put that Trope down on turn 3. If you want to run a bit that will of course push your timeline back. When you are ready for your super turn you should have 3 Windfalls in hand, 1 Levy, and one other card, maybe a breaker you want to play right away before you Levy. And of course, a Trope with exactly 3 counters.

Some notes/explanations:

Hyperdriver really pulls it's weight here. Play these down as soon as you see them and use them the subsequent turn. If you aren't seeing a lot of card draw (which is rare, but it does happen) use a SMC or Clone chip/SMC combo to get your Hyperdrivers in. You will not regret it, those extra clicks will drastically accelerate your Windfall turn.

Trope: This can be a 2 of or a 3 of, depending on how many times you want to run through your deck and Windfall for 54 credits. If you are powering through your deck and don't see a Trope by turn 3 just pop a SMC to pull one out. If you go to 3x you will need to play with the breaker suite for influence, but that's fine since there are so many great options for Shapers.

Freelance Coding Contract will not be used as liberally as you might think. You want to play your Hyperdrivers, a single Trope, and possibly your SMCs. Everything else can be chucked to FCC though, which will give you enough credits to play your Quality Times and Clone chip/SMCs. One thing you can do is play your Clone chips and sell your SMCs. Then you can always get your SMCs back in a pinch.

Breakers/Medium: Once you have a huge pile of credits and can shut down fast advance with Clot your next goal should be to set up with medium and your breakers and start digging. Gordian Blade and Battering Ram will keep you going strong into a deeply iced RnD while Atman/Mimic/Datasucker will solve everything else. Sharpshooter is there to help you out before the data sucker virus counters get flowing.

End Game:

After you pull out two Windfall turns you can install Monolith if you need it. I wouldn't recommend installing Monolith until you have already used both Tropes. Windfalling your Moniliths is your best source of money. You can make a lot of Medium runs with the kind of credits Windfall can bring. Happy digging!

10 comments
6 Oct 2015 steevo15

Awesome idea, sounds super fun. I don't know if it would work better or not, but Bookmark might be fun to use, possibly instead of Freelance Coding Contract since you said it doesn't get used as much as one might think. This way, you can bookmark the cards you want as you see them, then when you have enough money to put a monolith in play, you can pull them off bookmark to mass install for a discount.

6 Oct 2015 ila

Ohh Bookmark, what a great idea! I'll have to try it out. I don't want to take out FCC though, it's the only source of credits until you pull off the combo. It's a pain to hold onto those Windfalls sometimes though... I'll try to find space for it as a 1 of and see if it works.

Some changes I've made so far:

  • 1 Battering Ram + 1 Inti (So much better against Wraparound, plus I'm using Atman more than I thought I would)
  • 1 Gordian Blade + 1 ZU.13 Key Master (Again, cheaper, great counter to early rush of Enigma/Quandry)
  • 1 Levy + 1 Astrolabe (2 Consoles?? Crazy, I know, but I'm just never installing the Monolith or making it to the 3rd Levy before the game is over. Plus with only 2 Tropes it's really not worth it to run through a 3rd time. That extra card draw with all the asset spam going on is great and the MU is just enough to get out whatever I need.

I'm considering one more change: - 2 Datasucker + 1 Paricia + 1 Nerve Agent. Going down to 1 Datasucker makes me nervous, but it might be worth it to be able to apply pressure to HQ. Also, I'm seeing so much asset spam out of pretty much everyone I play against, Paricia could help out with this.

So far this deck has been performing well, with 4 wins and 2 losses. 3 wins came from this new Gagarin Hotness going around. The other win was from that new NBN current identity (with paywall implementation). Both decks were trying to play an economic war, but that's hard to do when you can burst to 54 credits. One loss was against NEXT Design, which I thought would be a great match up since Atman seems decent against NEXT ice, but it was a disaster as I hit brain damage early on and couldn't pull off my combo. The other loss was against CI. My opponent out-janked me and pulled off their score combo before I could break into his heavily iced RnD. Overall this deck is a ton of fun to play. Bursting to 54 credits in a turn is exhilarating!

12 Oct 2015 Marimbist11

Just played against this deck on Jinteki. It was very exciting and surprisingly consistent. Good thing I had Targeted Marketing ready for the Windfalls!

12 Oct 2015 ila

That was a fun game! You nailed me with that Targeted Marketing. The Trope/Windfall/Monolith engine sets up faster than you might think, but if your opponent knows what you are doing it does open up some big scoring windows while you execute it. Your ice was pretty taxing though, I was running through my funds really quickly!

17 Oct 2015 rumirumirumirumi

This deck is great fun to play against because you really have to act fast and play on the tiny 1-turn windows that show up. Once the Windfalls drop you better hope to have either the FA win in hand or enough taxing stuff out to last until the next Windfall turn. It's surprising;y strong once it gets those credits and the rapid draw can get those credits out very consistently.

17 Oct 2015 ila

Thanks Rumi! You are exactly right regarding those weird scoring windows this deck creates. The corp can more or less have their run of things until you land your Windfalls, then you just take control. I wish there was a way to put down pressure while you get ready to combo, but anytime I try to run too much I end up delaying the combo until it is too late. Once that combo hits though.. oh yeah.

31 Oct 2015 LeonardQuirm

This looks amazing! Definitely taking it for a spin.

How restrictive do you find the timing of Trope to be? If you could free up an influence and card slot or two (Clot seeking like the obvious choice to me) you could add Dr Lovegood. Then he can blank Trope at 2 counters up until the turn you want to use it. Or do you find it's easy enough to time it right without him?

1 Nov 2015 ila

Thanks @LeonardQuirm! Dr. Lovegood is a great idea! I'll have to try it out. After playing this deck maybe 50+ times I've gotten pretty good at the timing for the Trope counters. It's definitely the trickiest part of the deck. If you give it a try, let me know what you think!

2 Nov 2015 LeonardQuirm

I've been thoroughly enjoying playing slight variants of this on jinteki.net. So far I've gone 4 for 2, I think, and both of the losses have been misplays on my part - in one my opponent played Targeted Marketing and named Clone Chip (I think because I was Shaper rather than anything about this deck), and I made the mistake of playing around it rather than just ignoring it; and the second I lost hilariously:

  • I drew half my deck in one turn and couldn't find a Freelance Coding Contract, so couldn't generate any cash on the way through my deck.

  • The third Trope counter was going to appear when I had 1 card left in my stack. Fine, I think, I can draw first then do the stuff - I've got Hyperdriver, so have a click to spare! I hadn't noticed that this last card was in fact my third Monolith, so it wasn't in my discard to Trope back. Whoops!

  • I then spent my turn running everything wildly (deciding to go for a 4-Trope with 3 Monoliths, rather than 3 with 2), hitting an Assassin and having my Trope trashed because I was broke, not to mention 3 net damage.

  • So I Levy'd (fortunately that survived the damage) and started trying to set up AGAIN, and managed to once again go through half my deck without drawing a Freelance Coding Contract.

  • And then my opponent scored a Chronos Project with two of my Monoliths and almost all of my breakers in my heap. Whoops!

In more productive discussion, having played it I think Dr Lovegood isn't actually necessary - spotting the timing for Trope isn't too tough. I've been trying with some changes - using Shrike and Corroder rather than Clot, Battering Ram/Inti and Mimic, but I didn't get enough from them in the end. At the moment I'm trying out a Vamp - drain the corp's money immediately post Windfall, then run R&D without any ICE - but that's been one too many cards to have in hand. A third Clone Chip is a necessity though - immediately post-Windfall you want to install your Medium and any breakers you need. I'll post my version after some more plays :)

4 Nov 2015 ila

Sounds like you've had some great games! I know how you feel, when this deck falls apart, it really falls apart. I like your ideas on the program changes. That was the part of this deck that I never really liked. However, I have come to really appreciate Inti, especially in the current NBN climate we are facing. I completely agree on the 3rd clone chip, I've even gone up to 3 SMCs. I have a slightly updated version of this deck, I think it is a little more powerful. Good luck running!