Crushed Fingers and Rug Pulls (Insane WR guide*!)[startup]

Carki 306

TL;DR

I am confident this deck is strong given the current field in parhelion startup. Currently 27 - 6 with it, (Statistical outlier for me). Try it! But also let me know if it worked for you, as I am in desperate need of that sweet sweet nerd cred.

Overview

My initial attempts with Pravdivost were grindier, tag focused versions. It was decent, but hard to justify vs R+.

With a faster game plan, the id works for you by rewarding questionable plays like neglecting your central servers. The deck is very straightforward, built around the busted 4/2 agendas that wins you the game without losing tempo

Game Plan

Plan A is scoring a Beale as a 3/5. This is especially critical in matchups where the runner has less incentives to run often. The safest way to do so is never advancing it behind your best ices using your 6 copies of Seamless Launch. But if you see a scoring window open, even half open, or blatantly imagined, just go for it. Get the pie. That pie is worth more to you than the runner. There will be more pies to grab with your bloodied, crushed, fingers.

Oh yeah, Gaslight is Seamless launch with extra steps. Runners can deny themselves 2 credits if they want, makes no differences to you.

Tips

Try to use your best ice for the scoring remote. You want a single remote that is as taxing as possible. Put as few resources as possible on centrals. This might end up being quite a bit, depending on the matchup, but you should feel bad about it.

As an example, if you see a single etr ice and a Offworld Office in your opening hand, it's a good hand. Install them right away.

Crypto crash is trickier. You don't want to hit some curious runner holding a few bitcoins who might have lost his key. You want a crypto bro that is deep in some obscure currency that claims to solves every issues under the sun. The crash needs to hurt. If you have one installed, consider waiting an extra turn. Use your ability on some ice as to not arouse suspicions.

Don't put your Regolith Mining License in your scoring server. Instead, try to be especially careless with them. As they are, like most assets, actually Seamless Launch.

Tweaking

Don't mess with Seamless Launch, don't mess with things that looks like a Seamless Launch. Everything else is fair game.

Surprise performers:

I would keep at least one Daily Business Show. It accelerates your game plan, helps with RND locks, and can be helpful getting/avoiding the more situational cards in the deck.

Mestnichestvo and Ice Wall are great. Ice strength is either useless (Boat) or busted (fixed breakers). These ices are useful no matter what.

Worse performers:

You'd think Vladisibirsk City Grid is critical in that list, it's decent, allowing scoring 4/2 out of hand, sometimes. I never tried cutting it.

Reversed Accounts is a worse crypto crash, meh. I just don't know what to replace it with. It's the 50th card in a 49 card list.

You can switch the Beales for Send a Message which is the version I played with the most. It's strong, that being said I've had better results since switching for Beales. Send a Message might be better but more swingy. (Runner not needing 4 agendas)

14 comments
12 Jan 2023 Satoshi

Very solid rush deck. Congrats

15 Jan 2023 Cobalt

I love it when the write-up is almost better than the deck itself. One question - when you say your Regoliths are also Seamless Launch, how do you figure that one?

18 Jan 2023 Carki

Thanks! Should have made it clearer. This refer to having a unadvanced 4/2 in your scoring server and installing a naked regolith at the same time. This is to bait the runner into trashing it to trigger the id. This is mostly a side-effect, the most important tip here is to not clog your scoring remote with it.

24 Jan 2023 Satoshi

Having played this deck and variations, I think the interaction of Gaslight and Seamless Launch is really what makes this deck sing. As the writeup mentions, scoring a big beale for 3 points is a great way to win the game.

One way that I find I can consistently do this is the following:

  1. Assume you have Project Beale, 1x Seamless Launch in hand, and Gaslight in hand or on the board.
  2. Install and never advance Project Beale in the scoring remote. (Also install Gaslight also if it isn't installed.) Use your last click casually, avoiding suspicion.
  3. At this point the runner has a difficult fork. There's no indication it's a Project Beale in the remote, and running it may be a costly bait. But if they don't run it, you can fetch a second Seamless Launch with Gaslight and put 5 advancement counters on the Beale, likely winning you the game. If they DO run and trash Gaslight but not the Beale, you can use Pravdivost Consulting: Political Solutions to put a counter on the Project Beale anyway, for the same outcome. If they run the Beale but not the Gaslight, hopefully they are poor enough now that you can fetch Public Trail with Gaslight and do some damage. So they have bad outcomes unless they get both the Project Beale and the Gaslight.

I really like also that in this analysis, you threaten to score the Project Beale as a 3 pointer, but it's only worth 2 points to the runner. Making Global Food Initiative at home.

14 Feb 2023 DeeR

This deck is absolutely sick.

18 Feb 2023 Rainbow_Monkey

I used your deck at a startup tournament and ended up 2nd so thanks for that ! I managed to score a Beale for 5 points.

I tweaked it a bit since, removing Rototurret and Reversed account for Unsimling Tsarevna and Urtica Cipher.

3 Mar 2023 Carki

Glad to see you had success! Both Roto-turret and Reversed account can definitely be cut. I can see Unsmiling Tsarevna being a a great ice for the remove. I did not consider Urtica, but anything that slows down the runner could be great did you get value out of it?

3 Mar 2023 Carki

This is great analysis @Satoshi. This deck in general made Beale click for me, I've used it a lot as a blank 2/3 in the past.

@Rainbow_Monkey Glad to see you had success! Both Roto-turret and Reversed account can definitely be cut. I can see Unsmiling Tsarevna being a good taxing ice for the remote. Rototurret did save me a few time with retribution, but it's really only useful if the game is not going right for you.

I did not consider Urtica, anything that slows down the runner could be great, did you get value out of it?

30 Mar 2023 exzo777

What do you think about netrunnerdb.com and netrunnerdb.com as replacements for the reversed acc and regolith?

1 Apr 2023 codychilton13

Have you considered finding room for trick of light? I played in a SU+SG tourney today and trick of light plus anything that can be advanced for free put in work. Vlad plus trick of light off of an ice wall seems kinda sick.

6 Apr 2023 Carki

@exzo777 I am not big on ubiquitous vig, mainly because of how slowly it pays off for how speedy this deck is. It's definitely playable if you get it early but could be dead later on in the game.

Chekist I think works as a replacement for reverse account. Unless it is open decklist, as I would float tags against this deck.

@codychilton13 yes it has everything this deck wants. Being cheap is huge. I never tested it but probably should have after switching to Beal. Scoring one could be big for the last points.

Influence is a concern, but Pharos is cuttable, it is heavily meta dependent. Even removing a seamless launch would be justifiable since it fills the same role.

My gut feeling is 1 copy would be enough, still is a lot because of gaslight. Early on in the game you probably would rather have seamless.

24 Apr 2023 Tinweazel

What is the game plan against Nyusha? I find leaving centrals open gives her 20+ creds easily and icing centrals slows me waaaay down.

I'm getting a 25% win rate with this design right now, mainly playing against her.

I can't find agenda fast enough or consistently enough because gaslight and biz show just get insta trashed.

Only game I could find enough agendas was with 4 in hand after a Mulligan:)

I'm not getting good mileage out of Gaslight either but I can see how that card is strong in this archetype. How -exactly- are you using it?

24 Apr 2023 Tinweazel

I mean, how -exactly- are you using Gaslight (Not the deck archetype) :D

27 Apr 2023 Carki

@Tinweazel Hmm, the meta might have changed quite a bit since I played this deck heavily. Interestingly enough back then I found criminal to be the easiest, as they tend to play into the id. With Esa (making very fewer, higher quality runs) and Boat being trickier.

Not sure how helpful it will be, but you want to ice up the centrals with cheap ice early against crim to deny them value, (Vasilia is the perfect ice to do so). And then stop if possible. The later you set up an ice, the worse it gets. When you have too much cards in hand, typically you discard the ices. You should be comfortable letting them access the centrals as long as you offset the additional value they get from it with chips etc.

Unfortunately there is no other trick to Gaslight than what Satoshi described. Normally it installed at the same time as an agenda and is used to fetch seamless launch if the runner does not trash it. (If he does, then you don't need seamless launch). In specific circumstance, I have installed it in the main remote to tax the runner (has it never has the drawback of clogging the server). It can be useful if the game goes longer and you need some specific tech (like retribution against boat or specific braker) but this is rarer and the game is already not going well for you.

You might not be playing aggressively enough, especially if you are used to glacier or kill deck. Do not wait until it is safe to play an agenda, try setting multiple threats at the same time, not leaving the runner time to breathe. Use planogram to draw cards. And plan on scoring a 3 pts Beal, it makes a huge speed difference. If you get agenda flooded, installing 2 (one naked) is often safer than leaving it in your hand.

I will say that if you don't score a crypto crash or a Offworld Office early, the deck can have trouble keeping up with the runner.

Finally if you are playing against the same opponent often, maybe there is a surprise factor that makes it less reliable than other deck for repeat play.

Good luck!