1st Place Medical Research Fundraiser 2015 - Textbook Hayley

Shmeguy 1595

1st out of 28 players at Gaming vs. Cancer's first Netrunner tournament, 'Medical Research Fundraiser 2015' held in Southampton UK, on the 7th of November. Thank you CodeMarvelous for the name.

This is my most successful attempt at a Haley deck so far, with an over 80% win rate. It can be up and running deceptively quickly, despite all the pieces like Aesop's Pawnshop and Technical Writer that help if they are installed early, thanks to cards like professional contacts and Hayley's ability. I call her the 5-click runner because you will ALWAYS trigger the ability, sometimes in the corp's turn as well.

You want to be constantly installing and building a massive rig, and not losing tempo by doing so. A very common turn structure is Pro-Co x3, installing 2 cards of the same type, and ditching that one card left that you don't really need, leading to a very consistent build up and your credit pool gradually overflowing. The 'dream click' is to install 2 harbingers/2 cache/1 harbinger + 1 cache on Scheherazade, instantly gaining 4 credits, placing a total of 6 credits on the Writers, and pawning over the next 3 turns for 9 more credits, resulting in an 18-20 credit gain. One of the reasons this is so ridiculous is that you are often getting a clot out in the corp's turn at a profit. Another neat trick with Hayley that will completely invalidate what the corp thought you were capable of, is Clone Chipping or SMCing a cache mid-run, to get that breaker you need from your grip.

Keep for: -Pro-co -Scheherazade/cache, aesops -Most hands with diesel

The MVP is obviously Technical Writer- this card is ridiculous, and mitigates the late game weakness of pawnshop decks, once you've run out of things to sell. I almost always pull 10-25 credits off EACH of these. However one of the real unexpected game winners in this deck is legwork; if you are able to maintain pressure on remotes and R&D, the corp will mostly forget about HQ, and divert its resources to keep you out of the former. This means that if you cook the legwork in your hand just right, it can close out a game very suddenly.

The latest version of this deck has some changes that have been suggested by other users: - 1 Imp -3 Hedge Fund (!) -1 Gordian Blade -1 Film Critic +1 Parasite +1 R&D Interface +1 Cyber Cypher +1 Zu.13 +1 Scavenge +1 Stimhack

If anyone is still reading, this is just a copy of a deck I posted a while back, but I thought I would remake it to mention the tournament results, and Gaming vs. Cancer. This is a really awesome charity that supports a great cause, and they worked extra hard to deliver an amazing event this year. For anyone that lives in the UK follow them on facebook https://www.facebook.com/gamingvscancer/?fref=nf to stay updated on where next year's event will be held, I recommend everyone to try make it.

http://www.gamingvscancer.com/ 'Gaming vs. Cancer is an annual charitable tabletop gaming tournament founded in 2013. So far we have contributed £1,173.78 to Cancer Research UK and we aim to grow that significantly in the years to come.' Tournament results: http://www.acoo.net/anr-tournament/813/gaming-vs-cancer-2015/

21 comments
20 Nov 2015 CodeMarvelous

This basic Hayley archetype has been percolating for so long but Technical Writer really makes it shine 10/10 would install again.

20 Nov 2015 Shmeguy

If anyone can think of a better name please let me know, its not my strong suit :)

20 Nov 2015 Iron_Soul

How about "Technical Hayley is the Best Kind of Hayley"?

20 Nov 2015 CodeMarvelous

"Textbook Hayley". Since technical writers tend to make textbooks and Kaplan is a popular brand of textbooks.

20 Nov 2015 Shmeguy

@Iron_Soul I like it but its too long to fit :( @CodeMarvelous Thanks you're the best, I might go with that :) I was trying to brainstorm something along the lines of Hayley plagiarising her thesis because of her professional contacts and technical writers doing all the work for her, but I was completely overthinking it and didn't find anything lol.

20 Nov 2015 Iron_Soul

Haha, well in that case you could do something like "Plagiarize this, motherf*****!" Then have Hayley Rebirth into MaxX (not that it's actually possible, just a funny image).

20 Nov 2015 Shmeguy

Haha that would be hilarious :) I feel thematically obligated to slot in Rebirth so she can turn into The Professor once I've gone through my stack and pawned Pro-Co.

21 Nov 2015 SlayerCNV

I'm actually playing this on she and it's 4-0. And I had won against a top 16 at world's!

21 Nov 2015 SlayerCNV

She = SHL.... EHM. OPS.

21 Nov 2015 Shmeguy

Yeah its so strong :) I'd like to highlight the changes I made, that make the deck more aggressive and work on less money. -1 imp -3 hedge fund - 1 Gordian -1 film critic. I threw imp in initially because of the synergy with Aesop's and Scheherazade, however it usually turns out to be an economy card 95% of the time, which this deck does not want to spend 3 influence to import. Hedge Funds were taking up too many deck slots, and its abit like drawing a hedgefund in a magnum opus deck, Hayley would much rather just Pro-Co. Gordian was abit too expensive, and bad against tollbooth. Finally film critic can be a good include but you generally want it turn 1 against a Haarp deck, and this doesn't happen often as its a 1-of. I added +1 Parasite +1 Scavenge +1 Zu.13 +1 Cy-cy +1 R&DI + 1 Stimhack. Parasite is great for dealing with spiderweb that will otherwise drain your lady counters, and yeah we all know its good beside a datasucker. Gordian was replaced with Zu.13 and Cy-Cy, both very cheap installs that Hayley loves, Cy-Cy deals with wormhole and tollbooth, and Zu.13 is just there in case of enigma, but is otherwise solid Aesop's food. Scavenge is there to support Cy-Cy and Lady, really should not be used on cache for money, useful for the Weyland matchups where you can easily get locked out. The 3rd R&DI is very important for finding one in the mid-game, and for ridiculous late-game R&D lock. Stimhack is just ridiculous with Hayley, if the corp tries to be clever and not rez anything on a stimhack run, you can always SMC or Clone chip something in, and then get another free install from your grip, enables all kinds of Shaper bullshit :)

21 Nov 2015 Preachieved

Doesn't using Aesop's on Harbinger ruin Hayley's ability for the turn?

21 Nov 2015 Iron_Soul

@Preachieved yes it does, so I swapped out the harbingers in my play testing for an extra datasucker and a scheherezade. I found the extra money from harbinger to be worth less than the click compression.

21 Nov 2015 Shmeguy

Unfortunately I think it does. This is one of the reasons I went from 3 to 2. It remains a very good card, I work around it by taking that turn as an opportunity to install a card when its the only of its type in the grip. Still very solid economy, though cache is undisputedly the best Aesop's food, which is why I have 3.

21 Nov 2015 Shmeguy

Forgot to mention it can be vital power shutdown protection since you're running Scheherazade;.

22 Nov 2015 SlayerCNV

Now I'll consider 1 parasite over 2 Harbinger and a Rd interface for 2nd slot.

22 Nov 2015 Iron_Soul

Ran the deck in a small tournament today, took third with my only losses coming from my corp deck. Replaced the harbingers with an extra scheherezade and datasucker and I was very pleased with the result.

22 Nov 2015 Shmeguy

Great to see everyone having success with the deck. If I had to switch out Harbinger, it would have to be for a Vamp and a Paricia (just as profitable as cache if used once then pawned). I would not recommend a second Scheherazade, if you become too dependent on it you will get wrekt by batty-program trash, and you can't pawn the second one as its unique. Though if it worked for you then fair enough. netrunnerdb.com latest version.

23 Nov 2015 el-zilcho

On a turn you plan to sell a face up Harbinger, you could leverage Hayley's ability during the paid ability window (step 1.1) that happens directly before your start of turn triggers (step 1.2) by using an installed SMC or Clone Chip.

24 Nov 2015 Shmeguy

Yeah, you could always just do that in the corp's turn. You bring up a good point though, before starting your turn its worth considering whether or not you want to start digging R&D, in that case its efficient to SMC/clone a program and use Hayley to install another, and then on your first click install 2 RDIs and go ham. A bit of an edge-case scenario but its that sort of Shaper bullshit you want to try maximise with Haley :)

14 Dec 2015 jwilks

Could you explain the use of harbinger? Would that trigger Harleys ability for the turn and because facedown cards are untyped, you're unable to do anything.

14 Dec 2015 jwilks

Ah, just noticed it's already been discussed.