Haas is Boss: Top 8 UK Nationals 2015

I've been running this deck the past few months and brought a variant to the Galway Regionals (coming second). I decided to drop a Tollbooth, Inazuma, IQ, Cyberdex Virus Suite for a second Caprice, two Vipers and a third Turing for the Nationals. The cyberdex was in there for Clot and Imp but I never missed it. I went upto three Turings as I was expecting a lot of AI breaker nonsense. While Inazuma is hilarious D4vid kicks its ass and there are too many answers to a pricey Tollbooth rez (esp. cyber cypher). Also Caprice is too powerful to pass up (she also helps with stimhacked remotes). I also swapped out a Beta Test for a Mandatory to ensure that if there was a scoring window early I could maximize it. Some runner decks these days like to snowball but the setup is often two or three turns.

One of my favourite tricks with this deck is have two remotes one with tech start up sitting with an ash, the second with an install advanced advanced Mandatory. My turn, install Haas with the Tech startup, rez her (for free hopefully with Breaker Bay) and score the Mandatory to gain five clicks. No one has beaten this deck with a scored Mandatory on the table. Even just a rezzed Haas is awful. Being able to purge, then install and gain a credit is actually closer to having two extra clicks a turn. Why not run three pointers? Well, if the runner does get past the taxing ice and Ash/Caprice nonsense then they get a measly two points for all that effort. That'll often open a large enough scoring window for an agenda or two as well. Ice is cheap (only two cost 8) and taxes any inefficiency in the runners rig. The ice placement is key, if you suspect siphon/eater nastiness, then Turing is your best friend on the centrals.

A note on Haas. Some people suggested dumping her but I feel that she's pretty integral to the deck. Haas is more taxing to steal than NAPD, is a huge psychological blow to the runner, and gives you openings to plays you just can't do with three clicks, with the fast advance option being the most obvious. Plus, it's pretty hilarious. When I played the Spanish regional champ's Wizzard deck he started laughing out loud saying "I have no idea what is going on, no one does this" as the tournament organizers take a photo of a five click corp. Moments like that are why I play netrunner. If you are trying Director Haas out for the first time, try running two of her in a deck. It'll give you a better idea of the opening plays to use her in, her weaknesses, things like that.

The deck that inspired me to play with Haas in the first place was Darkshift07's http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/15839/director-haas-glacier-1st-place-fat-ogre-store-championship