MaxXimum Jank (Store Championship Winner - Undefeated)

cdrock 274

This deck went 7-0 at the Troy, IL store championship on 1-31-15.
There were 25 participants at the tournament.

Card Choices

Eater - This is the main icebreaker in this deck. Nearly all runs in this deck will be card abilities with replacement effects, making eater the perfect tool to get through whatever ICE there may be.

Femme Fatale/Knight - These are the icebreakers used to access cards when we really need to, generally on archives after cards have been trashed. They are pretty versatile too though, and a single knight can pull off multiple Account Siphons and Wanton Destructions. Also, Femme is especially good at getting through Tollbooth/Komainu incredible cheap (and is the only sentry breaker against Swordsman).

Keyhole/Wanton Destruction - These are the main win cards in the deck. A well timed Wanton can not only slow the corp down drastically, but score you several points. If I have it, I love to Amped Up before my Wanton runs to trash all 5 cards in their hand. This destroys all of their combo cards, and potentially scores you several agendas they had been gathering up over time. Keyhole is another beast, and can cause serious damage on a badly protected R&D. Even if you don't see Agendas on your keyhole runs, you get to trash key cards in their deck while figuring out what kind of deck they are running.

Account Siphon/Day Job/Sure Gamble/Liberated Account - These are the economy cards in the deck and have been more than enough to get me through games. One of my favorite first turn moves is to play Day Job, giving me a lot of momentum on the second turn.

Same Old Thing/Retrieval Run/Deja Vu/Levy - These are here to recur cards that you may have trashed earlier in the game. Maybe the most important card in the deck is the single Levy AR Lab Access. There are 6 cards to get it back over the course of the game, so when you are getting close to the end of your deck the first time, make sure you have a way to get Levy back if it is not already in your hand. There are times when you simply can not get Levy back, and this is where you have to amp up your game to 11 and put significant pressure on the corp.

Grimoire/Parasite - Grimoire is in here for both the memory, and the extra virus counter it adds to Parasite. Parasite is a great card in this deck, and is essentially an economy card over time as the corps ice gets trashed. I generally use parasites on the ice that are the most taxing for eater to get through. Over the course of the day I used them almost entirely on Eli 1.0s and Komainus. I never wanted to play Grimoire though and never really needed the extra MU, so I may take that out.

Net Celebrity - One recurring credit every turn is extremely useful, even if you are just using it to trash their assets. Most importantly though, I wanted a current in the deck to negate any of the Corps currents.

I've Had Worse/Plascrete - These are here for protection against meat/net damage. I went with one plascrete as a meta call, assuming there would be more Weyland than there was. I've Had Worse is an amazing card against Personal Evolution, and as a drawing card against any non-threatening decks.

How to Run the Deck

Opening Hand - Generally I just look for economy in my opening hand. With lots ways to get my other cards back, I want to make sure I have enough money to do so. I also like having Account Siphon and Wanton in my opening hand against unprotected first turn HQs.

Pressure All Servers - One of the things that this deck does well is pressure all 3 central servers, and with parasite trashing their ice and you trashing their other important cards, it is very hard for the corp to catch up. I like to focus on either HQ or R&D for a while, and then out of the blue play a Wanton or Keyhole and switch to the other while they aren't ready for it.

Play With What You're Given - The draws in this deck can be extremely inconsistant, so you have to be ready to play with whatever you're given. Don't have any Eaters, but you have a Knight? Install Knight on HQ and Account Siphon until you do. They just put an agenda behind a remote you won't be able to get to with Eater? Account Siphon them down to nothing and then run while they can't rez the ice in front of it. Or slop down a Same Old Thing and run the single Singularity on the remote. In a way, this deck feels a lot like criminal.

Most importantly, MaxX is extremely punishing for making bad decisions. Know your MaxX deck inside and out, and find a way to play with the cards your are given.

Possible Changes I never used Grimoire, and rarely used Joshua B (which is mainly there for an extra trash during Wanton runs). I would probably add another Amped Up, and add a some cutlery. I believe a few utensils would do wonders in this deck. The changes I would make after playing the tournament:

-2 Grimoire -2 Joshua B.

+1 Amped Up +2 Knifed +1 Spooned

The reason I wouldn't add any Forkeds is because sentries are generally lower strength than Barriers/Code Gates, so those would be good Parasite targets.

Conclusion

Thanks to my good friend SlySquid for providing me inspiration, and to my team of local netrunners for a great day. Also, this deck was named by 3rd place player Benton.

PUNK ROCK!

12 comments
1 Feb 2015 LazerDoofus

Did you face anyone playing Crisium Grid? if so, how did you deal with it?

1 Feb 2015 Myriad

Crisium seems like less of an issue if you are packing so much ice removal and knight.

Memory has almost always been the issue in most MaxX decks I have seen. Keyhole/Femme/Eater fills up the base and some people like to drop Morningstar in there, which just takes up too much memory.

How has this deck performed sans pre-paid? I like Liberated a little more since it might make the glacier match up a little better.

1 Feb 2015 cdrock

I did not, I don't think! I played against one Weyland, but I finished the game quick enough that it is hard telling whether there was a Crisium Grid in there or not. I think if you play aggressively enough you can deal with Crisium Grid, or simply finish the game before it becomes too much to deal with. I would guess that using parasite and the cutlery I just added to destroy ICE on the GD server as well as using Knight/Femme would be enough to trash it and move on with your day.

1 Feb 2015 cdrock

@Myriad, I don't think pre-paid is good in MaxX. The most important reason is that Hardware generally is pad in MaxX as its very hard to recur, and I'd rather use my Deja Vus on more important things. Also, it is very slow to net credits and this deck is fast enough that it likely wouldn't net more than 3 or 4 credits over the course of the game if you play it turn one. Another important note is that pre-paid is less beneficial without Lucky Find, which would be near impossible to fit in this build.

I tried adding Morning Star but it just wasn't working out. The 2 MU, and the Retrieval Run it takes up are just too much for it to work well. Using Knifed and Parasites on annoying barriers is a much better solution I think.

1 Feb 2015 SlySquid

Love the detection you went! I'm so suprized at the flexibility in decks, I feel it's going to keep her on top for a long time...

Now to figure out a counter because we opened Pandoras box!!!! Lmao

2 Feb 2015 johncraven

your deck has 47 cards... is that by design to counteract Maxx's ability?

2 Feb 2015 cdrock

@johncraven Yes! 47 - 5 opening hand cards is 42, which is divisible by 3. Otherwise at the end of the deck, you would discard 1 or 2 without drawing one.

2 Feb 2015 johncraven

so you spend the whole game not spending clicks to draw or in multiple of threes? is this verifiable? with 45 its not likely you'll click 3n+1 times per game?

2 Feb 2015 LSK

Have you considered Scrubbed instead of Net Celebrity to free up influence? Scrubbed can make your Parasites more effective and save credits on some Eater runs.

2 Feb 2015 cdrock

@johncraven I generally don't have to draw, and work with what I'm given. If I DO draw, it is mostly with 'I've Had Worse', which draws 3 as well and doesn't disrupt the pattern. Also, it doesn't hurt to have more than 45 in a MaxX deck anyways, as it runs out very quickly.

@LSK, I tried running Scrubbed but it was inconsistent. I didn't like paying the 2 credits to play it, and more often than not I would run into a piece of ice that was 2 strength or less first anyways. Net Celebrity has been much more consistent for me, but the sample size is too small to say which is better.

2 Feb 2015 pants on head

I've been playing around with something similar with Whizzard post O&C, and I really think this sort of heavy pressure build is where most any Anarch is going to want to go for right now. I really like the feeling I get playing these kinds of decks, as you don't have much of a set game plan, you just go where the cards you have lead you.

2 Feb 2015 slevin38

Hows the PE matchup? Seems like it could be a bit of an issue since you mill your deck relatively fast, even with two run throughs