Refining the Valley

Yubinshan 4

This is my first published decklist. I am relatively new to Netrunner, but here are my thoughts. Any advice would be appreciated.

I wanted to make a deck based around Valley Grid. After thinking about it for a bit, I realized that Valley Grid can make a server un-runnable, provided the runner 1) is forced to break every subroutine he encounters; and 2) would have to encounter more ice than his hand size.

To accomplish my goals I originally went to Jinteki (so I wouldn't have to spend the influence for Valley Grid), but found their ice to be too porous and/or too expensive. I felt that the option of taking a single net damage, for example, to ignore Valley Grid's effect defeated the point of the deck. This meant that I needed a lot of cheap ice that ended the run, so it would NEED to be broken. HB offered me this, with a large number of low-cost ETR ice (and Gyri Labyrinth, which is just as good for my purposes).

At this point, I had two pretty obvious weaknesses.

The first weakness was that the Valley Grid kills that I wanted required either 6+ ice in the same server (minus any outstanding brain damage), or required a way of "sealing the deal" if I could only get them as far as -3 or -4 hand size on their turn. There's also no surprise factor to a Valley Grid kill (unless they walk into something that does brain damage), because they can always voluntarily jack out. I considered the options, deciding that Scorched Earth&Tags is too much influence, and Punitive Counterstrike is costly, circumstantial and weak when unsupported. I settled on Neural EMP, which I reasoned works well with HB staples Efficiency Committee and Project Vitruvius.

The second weakness was the sheer amount of card draw required to rapidly lay down enough ice to make Valley Grid worthwhile. For this, I decided on The Foundry: Refining the Process, reasoning that its ability would most quickly allow me to get my ice in hand. From there, I realized that needed some way to engage The Foundry: Refining the Process if I was matched against an infrequently-running runner. I decided on Executive Boot Camp over Amazon Industrial Zone, because the latter is a region.

I selected an ice suite all costing 3 or less (except the occasional IQ), only keeping ice that had no optional subroutines. I put a couple of traps (Cerebral Overwriter) that support Valley Grid, some drip economy (since I suspect that this deck runs cheaply enough that the trash costs, and a couple of currents (Lag Time) that both tax the runner and overwrite any problematic current they would play.

That's about it. I haven't played this yet; I'm piloting it for the first time on this coming Monday. If you have any advice for changes before then, I'd much appreciate it.

2 comments
17 Apr 2015 EmJayBee83

@Yubinshan, have you considered using Ash or Caprice Nissei to force the runner to make multiple runs on your remote if he/she wants to steal an agenda? That would mean you only need to have 3 pieces of ICE protecting.

18 Apr 2015 Yubinshan

@EmJayBee83 - I've tried piloting the deck a few times now. In its current state it doesn't really function properly. I think it has too many working parts, and its wins had nothing to do with Valley Grid.

When I first designed it I considered Ash 2X3ZB9CY and Caprice Nisei, but money and influence were both really tight. I couldn't picture winning the Trace and didn't want to give up any copies of Valley Grid or Neural EMP.

When HB gets Cybernetics Division: Humanity Upgraded, Self-Destruct Chips and Defective Brainchips, a purple Valley Grid deck may work, but at present I'm unconvinced.

I'm gonna go back to the drawing board and see if I can make a Jinteki version with Cell Portal. Stay tuned...