My Little Persephone

N.B. October 2019: I've been away from Netrunner for almost a year now. While prepping for some casual games this week I found this old decklist. Normally I'd just let it be, but since sometime in the unknown past I felt the need to write 1500 words about this sucker, I feel like I'd hate for them to go to waste. So here, enjoy a snapshot of history, for whatever it's worth.

Original Writeup, Sep 2018 (?) One Saturday morning last December, I woke up from a dream about Persephone. I don't really know why. I hadn't been playing Netrunner that much over the preceding 6 months, and while I had purchased most of the Red Sands cycle, I hadn't really looked at them that closely, and was definitely in a lull in my relationship with Netrunner. And yet, I woke up vividly thinking about this killer that everyone agrees is "pretty terrible." I can only assume that this was a prophetic inspiration from on high (Boggs be praised). I began to jot down ideas.

By that afternoon, the deck had (surprisingly) taken a nice little 6-game win streak. By that Tuesday, the decklist was solidified, and wouldn't change for about 3 months. Persephone redefined my relationship with Netrunner. I've now been playing Persephone decks for 9 months, and have never looked back. I even won a small GNK with one.

No, the stats aren't incredible, but the enlightened Persephone player isn't here to win every game with tryhard lists and laser precision. The enlightened player is here to make a mess of R&D and leave their opponents in flabbergasted confusion.

You might win a little better than half your games, and that's alright- you're going to love every minute of it (or not, I don't dictate your experiences).

After 9 months of playing Persephone-runner, I think this is one of the most successful iterations of my own little private archetype- so let's look at the list:

The Influence

This is pretty static, and hasn't changed too much between iterations, though the recent MWL mixed things up a bit. Maxx wants at least one Levy AR Lab Access at the best of times. Persephone Maxx wants two. You might not need both Levies to win the game, but if things really get rolling on the Persephone-train (hereafter P-train), you don't want to be caught without the second one. This is the first iteration of the deck to run less than three Egret. I went down to two to make room for two Clone Chip. The Clone Chips are there to get back either your Persephone or your Egret as needed. I also used to run The Turning Wheel, but found that once you've got the P-train rolling, or are making sufficient use of the other pressure cards in the deck, that's your multi-access. The final pip of influence goes to Aumakua. I used to run Career Fair in the deck, but in shuffling the influence around to make room for Clone Chip, there was only one inf remaining. Career Fair is virtually useless as a one-of, so Aumakua it is.

The Breakers

Apart from Persephone, these shouldn't be too surprising. You're playing Maxx, heap breakers are helpful when so many cards are going through your heap. Notably, we're all-in on the Persephone plan, however. That means no additional backup killers. The single copy of Aumakua can be targeted with Clone Chip if necessary, and helps counteract some of the expense of breaking expensive code gates or sentries with must-break subs.

Persephone

I think the thing to understand about playing a P-train deck is that you aren't going to count on Persephone for the win. It is part of a toolkit of other pressure cards, which together will help you close games in your favor. You don't spend the game trying to dig through the stack and achieve the perfect setup. Persephone often helps you over the edge, but it's not the entire key to winning the game. This deck doesn't have a lynchpin combo or setup it needs to close out- instead it consists of money, breakers, and pressure cards. Persephone helps as both a breaker and a pressure card. Notably, Egret helps a lot to find you openings for P-train mills. It can turn vulnerable code gates, barriers, and mythic ice into mill opportunities. Likewise, there will be some sentries which you actually want to break (crazy, I know). In these circumstances you don't want to break with Perseph for obvious reasons- then you throw an Egret down and break for Paperclip value.

The Econ Suite

These are fairly vanilla, and resemble a typical Anarch suite. I don't think there's anything surprising or worth commenting on especially. The one thing that I will note is that this deck is usually starving for cash, so playing as many econ cards as you can (even if it means a slight drop in tempo) is usually worth it to carry you through the midgame.

The Tech

As I mentioned above, this deck isn't designed to cheese out a win with Persephone alone. Rather, it's constructed to lay down a lot of pressure across the board- every central, every remote can help you get closer to victory, which means that the Corp will often struggle to stay ahead on protecting itself from potential vulnerabilities.

• Maw is terrific value for this deck, since you want to run a lot. Whether it's running remotes against asset spam or farming a server which is already giving you P-train mills, it's an undeniable hero in the deck.

• Bhagat encourages the Corp to protect HQ, often at the cost of leaving more servers underprotected. This is a recent addition to the list, and really helps maintain the constant aggression you need to keep the Corp on the back foot.

• Spoilers is also essential. You're going to need time to set up economically during the early game, and getting one or two of these down can be super disruptive.

• Freedom Through Equality: This deck used to wait until it had milled sufficiently, and then Mad Dash Archives praying for the win. Now you can spend 3 credits and an extra click for pretty much the same effect. However, it does help a little in that you can clear a Scarcity of Resources if you need to. Further, on the turn that you try to close out the game, it can be nice to play this click one, run HQ for Bhagat/Maw value, run R&D to check the deck, and then close out on Archives. It marginally improves your odds of accessing the agenda you need.

• Street Peddler can be awkward (losing three events, especially a Levy, will make you cry). However, it's an important part of the deck for increasing your speed and consistency. It can pop a surprise Egret, Spoilers, or Maw; most importantly, at instant-speed. You often want to wait to drop the Egret until the very last moment, therefore the speed of a Peddler can really help you a lot.

• Clone Chip, like Peddler, can give you instant-speed Egret windows. Further, it helps the deck's consistency in the cases where your Maxx mills dump critical pieces (Persephone, Aumakua) into your heap.

Ok, but how do I play your dumb deck?

Unlike the Data Leak Reversal or Noise: Hacker Extraordinaire reversal decks of yesteryear, or even the Contaminate/Gravedigger decks which occasionally pop up now, this deck is going to involve some interacting with the Corp. You can't sit back and spend your turn clicking to mill the deck. Those decks would play a solitaire game and mill the deck until one player won. The essential NPE element of those decks was that the corp felt like they were left out of the game while the runner could easily win the game without effort or thought.

Not so with Persephone, my friend, not so with Persephone. Every game is going to require careful thought. Your deck is going to cough up something different every time, and you're going to have to be flexible depending on what you draw and what your matchup is. In some games, Persephone will absolutely win you the game. In others, you'll never install it.

Against rush and glacier, you typically want to get your Spoilers down as quickly as possible, and capitalize on its passive pressure while you set up your rig.

Against kill, Bhagat, Maw, and econ are your friends. It's harder for them to land an HHN if you knock out the cards they need and keep your money up.

Against fast advance, you again rely on Spoilers, but you need to run a lot more to knock out Biotics, etc. and try to snipe agendas off R&D before the corp can see them.

And against any corp, you look for useful opportunities to trigger Persephone. You're looking for a variety of ice here. Jinteki's sentries can be useful (Komainu, Cortex Lock, even Anansi- sort of). But to make the most of the P-train, you're going to need a little help from your Egrets. You want especially to see porous code gates like Mausolus, DNA Tracker, Miraju, Pop-Up Window, and all of the Fairchildren save 3.0. The more subroutines, the better. However, when the subs are lower-impact (as with Miraju and Pop-Up Window), you might want to plant the Egret just to to be able to repeatedly hammer the server. There are also a variety of barriers that will make you smile as well. Endless EULA, IP Block, and Data Ward are all high-value P-train targets.