Duel: Look No Hands

This is a dueling deck designed to be played against https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/47010/duel-look-no-hands. As such I will describe some of the interesting interactions between the two decks rather than just focusing on this one list.

The idea of this duel between Valencia and Cybernetics Division is to attack the number of cards each player can hold. Cybernetics lowers everyone's hand size to begins with and tries to ultimately kill the runner by scoring Self-Destruct Chips, brain damage via Marcus Batty, an Enforced Curfew and a final kill with Chairman Hiro. The threat of brain damage via Black Level Clearance also allows some protection for a rush strategy which may force the runner to take more damage when they have to check your scoring remote.

Valencia does her damage by giving bad publicity via Investigative Journalism and Mining Accident then using Itinerant Protesters. This is punished using Fisk Investment Seminar, Eden Shard and SYN Attack (they must draw 4 cards if they can't discard 2 cards). The current war is very important in this game so both sides have a number of ways to recur Itinerant Protestants and Enforced Curfew, more so than in a regular deck. If (and this is a very questionable if) you want to turn either of these into proper decks then you can make space there.

Those are the main plans for both sides and there are a few extra synergies within each deck, for example, the corp has Breaker Bay Grid to pay for Black Level Clearance and the Campaigns while the runner has Inject and the conspiracy breakers to make full use of the bad publicity.

However much more fun are the silly interactions between the two decks. In "testing" we found that Val was a little too strong so part of Cybernetics economy package is the Peace In Our Time in the runner's deck. There are no AI breakers so the corp has Mother Goddess and Loki to give them an extra chance to score Self-Destruct Chip and Project Vitruvius in necessary. One of my favourite interactions in the duel is the extra hand size for Val using Brain Cage but then no way to stop it getting ripping out by the Lab Dog. This happened twice within one test game which was hilarious from a thematic point of view. Rip my skull out with a dog once, shame on me...

There are a few other weird cards in the Valencia deck that can be switched around. Vigil is solid draw and Wanton Destruction can easily clear out the corp's HQ and still leave clicks spare. Severnius Stim Implant was supposed to be the joke multi-access but it's surprisingly effective with Vigil, Earthrise Hotel and Fisk Investment Seminar all firing. Stimhack is there as a very tempting trap for the runner but The Noble Path is slowly becoming one of my favourite cards and is even worth using a Same Old Thing on in this duel.

Unquestionably these dueling decks are most fun when given to two unknowing players/chumps/guinea pigs. Bring the popcorn, settle down and enjoy the show. Happy Janksgiving!