Surf's Up!

Zouavez 156

This deck has allowed for the most fun I've had while playing Netrunner. It's a crazy, out-of-the-box, breakerless deck that makes corp heads spin. What this deck enables is essentially a once-per-turn AI breaker that is more economically efficient than most specialized breakers and avoids AI-hate like Swordsman and Turing.

The main strategy is composed of four cards:

  • Surfer

  • Paintbrush

  • Quetzal

  • e3 Feedback Implants

Considering Quetzal is an ID and can easily include x3 Surfer as an Anarch, it's not that difficult or slow to set up.

The basic approach is to first make the corp rez ice by facechecking. This works even better with Medium and Imp. Don't forget to use Quetzal's ability and keep in mind that the corp is more likely to bluff with near-useless ice (read: barriers) to prevent you from running in the first place. You should be using enough economy to stay around 8 creds or so and saving Forged Activation Orders and DDos for later. Once the corp gets enough relevant ice out (and you hopefully have an agenda or two!), you can finish setting up your rig. Once you have installed Surfer, Paintbrush, and e3, you are ready to run some more! Apply barrier paint to the outer rezzed ice of a server then run. Use Surfer to surf past the corp's ice until you are in the innermost layer of the server. Then, use Quetzal + e3 to break the newly painted barrier and you're in!

If the server you want to run on is protected by an outermost unrezzed ice, you have several options:

  • Paint the ice behind it (if it isn't already a barrier) in order to facecheck the unrezzed ice.

  • Play/SOT/DejaVu Forged Activation Orders to force the corp to rez or destroy the unrezzed ice (either is fine!).

  • Trash DDos to prevent them from rezzing it and paint the ice behind it (you can surprise them by playing DDos from hand too).

  • Pressure other servers

As for the rest of the cards, play them as you normally would. For example, keep IHW in-hand against meat and net damage. The deck has plenty of economy considering the low setup and icebreaking costs. If you want to sacrifice the breakerless gimmick on the altar of competitive play, I would add in x2 Faust.

Be wary of damage preventing you from playing your rig and keep track of your recursion cards. Be careful of other corp support cards that can prevent you from scoring in one run like RP, Caprice Nisei, Marcus Batty, and Ash. Finally, Blue Sun will be a touch matchup because they have a never-ending supply of unrezzed ice, though they do tend to run plenty of barriers.

I hope you have as much fun playing this crazy deck as I do! May the Jank be with you!

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