'Unbroken' - No Icebreakers

RetVersus 589

Recently in my local meta theres been a jank achievement league set up. One of the achievements was to win a game with no icebreakers. This deck is the result of that and has far exceeded expectations, becoming a force in its own right, winning without a single icebreakers and only 2 programs: keyhole and sneakdoor beta.

Early strategy is simple: draw and get the gang signs, spoilers and HQI's down. Any economy that turns up on the way go for. Any board state opportunities to siphon or forged/muertos/shutdown go ahead. But play very passive and let them rez NO ice you can't immediately shutdown. Inside job any cheeky single ice attempts to score.

Then wait for them to score, open up a weak spot and capitalise massively, keyhole if possible. Because when they score you can: Trash top two of RnD, Access up to 4 HQ cards up to 3 times, and bounce ice. If they score and you score off Gangsign thats 2 bounces. If you spoilers another agenda thats 3 and the board is near wiped.

Late game is to maintain this as much as possible and watch them blow through their jacksons trying not to have agendas in hand when they do score. Also install turntable in case they've scored a 3 pointer and get ready to spin a 1 pointer. Voila! You win with no breakers.

There are caveats and things to remember. Do not install gang sign against Jinteki, keyhole is the win here. Pay attention to scorch response like normal, though I slotted a Plascrete as my meta is notoriously aggressive. The decoy is to prevent the corp from offensively killing you with breaking/posted/gang sign into a snare/scorch. The unscheduled maintenance is to prevent Cerebral static which kills this deck, and to play click 3/4 after scoring 1-3 agendas and wiping the ice off the board. The hades is your secret win condition when they double ice archives.

There you go. Try it and enjoy the frustration of your opponents.

14 comments
17 Aug 2015 Lttlefoot

My idea for a no icebreakers deck is Quetzal, e3, paintbrush, snitch, surfer, blackguard. But this is cool too (-:

17 Aug 2015 anr_marsellus

Awesome stuff going on there. But how do you get all the draws?? I see only symmetrical visage?! And do you need Kati? Given that you are not running anyway, what do you need eco for?

17 Aug 2015 RetVersus

You rarely run so you draw instead. Econ is for trashing assets and installing, especially HQIs, Sneakdoor and Keyhole.

17 Aug 2015 RetVersus

@anr_marsellus You rarely run so you draw instead. Econ is for trashing assets and installing, especially HQIs, Sneakdoor and Keyhole.

17 Aug 2015 Andannius

Keepin' it classy, Gainesville.

18 Aug 2015 dante77

Very good deck.

18 Aug 2015 dante77

I play very similiar deck with Quatzal. netrunnerdb.com

19 Aug 2015 greylin

You get a favorite and my respect. This is the kind of deck that keeps the game alive when all the Tier 1 exhaustion sets in. Looks like a ton of fun. Thanks for sharing!

23 Aug 2015 Spica

Played it 2x tonight against Jinteki PE. Won both games. Drive By was the MVP of the last game. It showed me that a 2x advanced card in a remote server was a Fetal AI. Corp had scored 2x House of Knives, so - thanks to Drive By - I knew to make sure I had 5 cards in hand before stealing that Fetal AI and winning the game.

26 Aug 2015 Dr Bees

Played this deck against Blue Sun, was lots of fun - MGM derezzed an oversight AI/Archer, leading to multiple free keyholes, and 4 agendas accessed at once to bounce every single unrezzed card to HQ, well into the midgame.

27 Aug 2015 Mechanoise

Have had the pleasure of playing against this with the original deck author, I ran an IG trap / kill deck and thought I had an advantage - nope, it's pretty amazing how this deck functions, and it's scary to see the layers of destruction it creates.

27 Aug 2015 LynxMegaCorp

Since its not an icebreaker, have you considered Grappling Hook (possibly with e3)? Just throwing the question out there.

2 Oct 2015 superstar22

I love this deck, I have made some slight changes myself, put in a DDoS for one Keyhole, 3 Same Old Thing in place of a Kraken and the Cortez Chips. Played the other night and I found the DDoS to be the match winner, helping me Inside Job both archives and his one scoring server where he managed to get 2 deep ice.

14 Jun 2016 Dr Bees

Can we try updating this deck? Pol op and some other new cards?