Haarpsichord Quantum Doomsday

This deck is actually a modification of the original Haarpsichord Doomsday deck published by @Isvan which can be found here http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/24236/haarpsichord-doomsday.

I played this deck a lot, went through some revisions and I can say that the release of Data and Destiny made it even more fun to play and more effective to boot.

The goal

This deck heavily revolves around the Haarpsichord ability exploiting the classic Diagnostics combo to screw the runner out of their game plan.

What we're trying to do is dig through the deck as fast as possible until we have Accelerated Diagnostics, Power Shutdown and Jackson Howard in hand. Playing any economy cards and installing some ICE over HQ and R&D to inconvenience them as much as possible. A wise move would be to drop a Data Raven on Archives for later use.

Once the runner makes a run during their turn we can fire off our combo as follows:

• : Install Howard
• (1): Play Power Shutdown, toss your whole R&D into the Archives. (Bonus points - your opponents expression)
• Use Howard to shuffle Biotic Labor, Interns and Reclamation Order into your R&D.
• (1): Play Accelerated Diagnostics to play the three operations you just shuffled into your R&D:
  • (4)Biotic gives you back
  • (1)Reclamation Order allows you to collect 2 copies of Accelerated Diagnostics back into your hand
  • Interns installs a second Howard
• Use your second Howard to shuffle Interns and 2x Shipment from SanSan into your R&D.
• (1): Play Accelerated Diagnostics to play:
  • Interns to install Hades Fragment
  • 2x Shipment from SanSan to 4-advance the Hades
• (1): Advance Hades one last time.

Normally you would lose the game next turn, but Haarpsichord Studios ability prevents the runner from picking up all those juicy agendas in your archives. Also, Hades Fragment prevents the other loss condition (the corp loses the game when they are forced to draw a card from an empty R&D) simultaneously giving you the ability to draw any card you want at the beginning of your turn.

Pretty well spent 9 I'd say :)

Post-combo play

So what now? The most important thing is you can safely predict how many turns the runner needs to win the game based on the current score. They're pretty much f@#$ed since all (or most) of your agendas are sitting comfortably in one place, only they cannot steal all of them at once.

In an ideal scenario you have Data Raven over Archives and they run there. What can happen is:

• You get up to 15 for them accessing multiple copies of Explode-a-palooza
• You score up to 3 points because they had to take a tag from Raven and access Quantum Predictive Model
• They access multiple copies of News Team which forces them to chose between upwards of 6 tags or -3 points.

Depending on what the situation is you can do a few things:

• You still have one Jackson Howard left, draw it and play one of the two combos:
  • Interns and 2x Shipment from SanSan for that AstroScript Pilot Program if they left it. If you did that, just draw Project Beale next turn and you win.
  • Interns, Midseason Replacements, Psychographics to score a Project Beale for the win.
• If they decide to ignore Archives just draw Biotic Labor and click for credits. You'll probably have enough to score next turn.
• Draw Data Raven and ICE up Archives prepping for their eventual run there.

Counterplay

Being so heavily specialised in our cute little combo leaves quite a lot of ways for the opponent to play around us:

• Employee Strike is instant Game Over. :(
• Turntable allows them to steal Hades Fragment from us and is an insta-win for the runner if they pull it after our combo.
• ID Laramy Fisk and Fisk Investment Seminar trigger a loss condition for us since we can't draw a card therefore we lose.
• Same goes for Utopia Shard but I haven't seen anyone play that in a loong time.
• Hades Shard is an interesting one because it allows the runner to cut 1 turn from the race because they can steal an agenda during our turn!
• Film Critic serves a similar role, they help the runner shorten the agenda race and prevent some when accessed effects on our stuff. They can steal our Quantum Predictive Model for example.
• Runner stealing Hades Fragment early is a major pain since our main game plan revolves around scoring that. There are ways to still win a game like that now that Data and Destiny is out, but it's still a very hard task.
• A smart runner can run HQ and toss Jackson Howard since it's the only trashable element of our combo :(
• Hacktivist Meeting is another annoying card that can break our combo since we have to discard a card for rezzing Howard, which means we can lose Accelerated Diagnostics. We can always try to dig until we have two.
• Speaking of annoying, Noise and Edward Kim are the toughest matchups for us since they can break our combo easily. Kim can just run HQ and toss those operations into the bin. Noise apart from being Noise can install a virus during our turn (for example using Clone Chip) once we shuffle 3 cards into R&D forcing us to discard one and breaking our combo. Against Noise we can try to rush something before he sets up shop, or wait for him to use that clone chip for something else.
• Clot forces us to use up all 3 Jacksons to combo which makes the 'after' part a bit harder to play. To do that just the third Jackson Howard during your second Accelerated Diagnostics play and shuffle Cyberdex Trial and 2x SanSan to score that Hades anyway :)

Final Words

Despite all those hard counters this deck does really well because it can flourish off of creative plays. It does not look it at first glance but there are a lot of things you can do to win besides the combo or despite the runner playing the cards that counter your strategy.

You'll be digging through your deck quite fast so coming up with that single copy of Biotic Labor or Midseason Replacements is actually pretty likely while setting up for the combo.

You'll also be pretty rich between playing Hedge Fund, Sweeps Week and the runner accessing a random Explode-a-palooza you might have tossed into the archives early. Since you don't generally rez a lot of ICE the money can be well spent to stick a bunch of tags on the runner.

All of this means you don't really have to combo for Hades (especially in those harder matchups). You can easily score a 4-point Project Beale for a triple Howard combo instead to close a game. It's surprisingly easy to get those 3 points earlier between Biotic Labor, Psychographics or Quantum Predictive Model arrogantly scored behind a Raven.

Generally speaking now that News Team is out people will be very cautions and likely not run Archives for a while fearing a Scorched Earth which can give you more time to set up. Also, early game people tend to take those negative points even if they know you're not running Scorched because Psychographics is a thing.

Honestly, this deck changes the game radically and I cannot even begin to describe the unusual and funny things that happened during my games with it. I definitely encourage everyone to give it a go.