Loving the Unloved [NYC CO]

Overview

This deck has racked up the most jnet casual games I've played on any deck and has been a blast to play!

Loving the Unloved

I love exploring new spaces within deck-building to discover what might be possible. I feel there's been a lot of unexplored cards, and interesting fun patterns still to try.

• So, if you are looking for a bad publicity removal Earth Station, and something unique in this rather long meta, I think I have this fairly refined!
  • Valentão is a pretty good ICE if it doesn't give you a bad pub! Hostile Takeover, and Too Big to Fail are alright too 😝

Card Reviews:

• Agendas:
  
  • Transport Monopoly
  • Slash and Burn Agriculture
    • I think this agenda is particularly interesting. Its been something in the back of my mind I've been wanting to explore for a long time.
      • Initially my mind went towards the idea of some sort of Punitive Counterstrike defense, which didn't pan out. Maybe there is still some punishing approach on steals. However, the reasoning on the inclusion here is far different.
      • Firstly, any when scored abilities on a final agenda don't matter. Jamming a Slash and Burn Agriculture as your last 2 points is the same as an Offworld Office/Transport Monopoly.
      • Additionally, this allows you to fast advance another 4/2 with either an Audacity, or 2nd Slash and Burn Agriculture in hand, which at times can be necessary if the Border Controls on the remote have been used up, and it's too porous for scoring.
      • Finally, with so much HQ protection and the fact this deck doesn't have a real way to deal with flood I found the ability to reuse the agendas in different ways rather interesting.
• Bad Pub Removal?
  
  • Roughneck Repair Squad
    • This card provides the biggest variation on game play depending upon if you get it, and decide to jam for the longer, grindy game. It opens up a far different playstyle if you navigate the balance of using the cards in your hand as to not overdraw, while also smashing the Roughneck. Just Extract it at the end :)
  • Increased Drop Rates
    • This card is mostly a minor nuisance. However, as this triggers in archives, if you are playing against someone who wants to continually run archives like a Sable mark its semi-expected to remove the bad pub. With no real tag punishment on open deck-lists that might not be right. However, with Twinning tag me isn't really an option, and in the case of Valentão you could always rez it without costing a bad pub, still removing it in the long run.
• Earth Station
  • Love this ID!
  • Fun fact Big Deal Outfit originally started as a Sandburg Earth Station deck before many versions later where it moved to Outfit, dropped Sandburg and got a lot better 😝
  • I do actually think Earth Station is in an interesting place atm with these "free" breaker strategies, and particularly Loup running so low on credits. Does that make up for the difference in the deck's power level? Not really. Loup is still very good, but a fun time to explore Earth Station.
  • An additional fun fact of combo'ing the ID with bad pub is that since the credit cost of Earth Station has to be paid before the run starts bad pub cannot be used.

Additional Considerations

• NGO Front
  • Pretty decent as a bounce back tool, and being jammy, but within the final list I had found it didn't make the cut.
• La Costa Grid
  • I previously had thought 2x La Costa Grid was better than the 3x Seamless Launch. It still allowed you to NA, but in a repeatable manor. However, since this deck already balances the cost of scoring agendas, and econ gain I found the cost of La Costa Grid eventually outweighed just using Seamless Launch.
• Oaktown Renovation
  • I tried this in place of the Slash and Burn Agricultures for awhile. While it helped with the issue of running low on money while scoring, it was far more situational on when I could jam, while you also can't secretly never advance it.
  • Additionally, in the spirit of loving the unloved, I wanted to play Slash and Burn Agriculture.
• Attitude Adjustment
  • I had previously tried cutting Attitude Adjustment. However, found that particularly against Esâ, but also Maw having the ability to recur agendas from archives was rather valuable.
• Trust Operation
  • I wanted some form of tag punishment if the runner went tag me from Increased Drop Rates. However, at least within closed lists, plus the basic resource trash and Valentão I decided there wasn't a slot replacement for this.

Playstyle

The scoring patterns, and ICE can be valuable to go over.

ICE

• HQ
  • Load up HQ with Afshar, and Winchester.
  • If no specialized HQ ICE is drawn, I might leave HQ un-ICE in the opening turns, depending upon what is in HQ, and the matchup. ICE'ing HQ with a non-HQ specialized ICE is a bigger concern/consideration for this list as its quite limited. You also do have a minor base protection with the 1 credit cost on the Earth Station ID ability.
• Remote
  • You typically want to put as many Border Controls here, as each one should fully require a run + the Earth Station ID 6 credit cost. Note: this is typically not enough to fully tax out the remote, so you'll typically want one Valentão, or Brân 1.0 as well.
• R&D
  • This deck runs a large % of agendas. Due to that you typically want to place an early Valentão, or Brân 1.0 there, and follow up with at least one more, either before or after you slot one on the remote depending upon how the game is going.

Agendas

• The scoring pattern you typically want is Transport Monopoly 1st to secure your scoring remote, followed by an Offworld Office. Obviously, with a Hostile Takeover at some point.
• The balance of scoring out agendas is typically not quite as jammy as others, since when scoring a Transport Monopoly, while it secures the remote it is a negative tempo hit beyond that. This means you typically have to bounce back economically afterwards.

Tournament [6th/17]

Little disappointed in how the tournament played out, as I felt like with the games I played this list should have gone 2-1, with a possible cut placement.

• The tie was a bummer as I felt like without the timed pressure I'd have likely won, which removed the eventual option of an ID into the cut. Although, pairings would have been different too 🤷‍♂️

Went 1-1-1 on the day:
- R2: loss vs Loup Mulch
- R3: Tie vs Hosh Mulch
- R5: Win vs Sable Twinning

Overall, I had a wonderful time at the event, and very glad to have selected this list!

Would I take this to a big competitive event? No. However, it was really fun to bring out to a casual level event, and I've been having a blast with it on jnet!

Thanks!

• Bost Bost Bost TEAM MUNTAL BOST!
• Thanks @Kysra for supplying, and setting up the CO!
• Thanks @Radiant for TO'ing & Judging the event!
• Thanks @RotomAppliance for saving me time on the Transport Monopoly review :)
• It was great meeting more of the New York netrunner scene! I look forward to seeing you all again and playing in the future! :)