It's different, I swear!

payprplayn 15

Here's the thing: I'm not a competitive player. In fact, no-one in my area really plays, so I basically only play online off and on. Likewise with looking at netrunnerDB-- I'll be all about it one week, and then not look at all for months. I get the new data packs every month, though, and when business first came out, I took one look at the political assets and wanted to build this deck. It seems I wasn't the only one. So a lot of people are apparently running these horizontal IG kill decks lately. CodeMarvelous recently posted one that's deck of the week right now. I'll admit to glancing at his list (and at least one other) before putting mine together, but apart from a card here or there, the choices were either obvious (shock, snare, mushin, ronin, hostile, bio-ethics, etc.) or different than what I wanted (CO vs junebug, psychic field vs clone suffrage, etc) so for the most part I built this deck myself. And I was proud of it, because it performed way better than any deck I'd ever built. I cought some flak, though, for just playing the flavor of the week. which felt unfair to me, since I had the idea independently, so I just wanted to post my list to demonstrate what I think is at least a somewhat different approach to this archetype. For the most part, I'll only mention the differences I see between this deck and some others I've seen. It's worth noting that this list is still in flux, and some of the changes are new. I'd welcome any suggestions, except for "just run this other guy's list"

First up, Clone Suffrage: I love this card in this deck. First of all, it allows more reckless drawing and discarding, since you can feel free to trash operations you're not ready to use right away (and this list uses more of those than many of this archetype) to keep archives full of facedown cards. Secondly it adds a card to your hand without spending a click, meaning you can discard more at end of turn, keeping the Archives pressure up. Even if you're not going to play it this turn, you might as well grab any face up operation in archives just to drop it back face down at end of turn. Finally, it's just so versatile. Need money? grab a diversified, need cards? grab a heritage. have a ronin? grab a mushin this turn and a neural next to pile on when you pop it. None of the above? grab a precog and immunize against R&D runs. Super useful card.

Next up: Sensie Actors Union. Another great card imo. The biggest problem I tend to have piloting this deck, especially early game, is that it wants to do two things which run counter to one another: spread out horizontally, and fill archives with facedown cards. With only 3 clicks, it's hard to do both of these in a single turn, and early on, doing either one without the other can be ineffictive. Jackson helps, of course, but he costs clicks, so you still have to decide between drawing and playing to some extent, plus you need him to snatch back agendas. SAU is a net +2 cards with no click cost. With one of these and one suffrage, you're starting each turn with 9 cards in hand, so you can play three and still drop one in archives. The ability to add a card to bottom means many runners will soon be locked out almost completely. Keyhole gets around it of course, but even then, it's as good as Museum for keeping agendas from stacking up in archives, and letting you hang on to those jacksons. There is an anti-synergy with museum (and jackson) though, which is why I only have two MoH in my deck, and tend to use them more judiciously once SAU hits the board.

Precognition & Heritage: These cards both help you dig, and defend R&D/HQ, which are your biggest vulnerabilities. They also synergize well with each other. Precog+Heritage lets you pick three cards out of five and then drop a snare on R&D. Heritage+Precog lets you bury the GFI in your hand 5 cards deep. Being able to grab either of them with clone suffrage is all the better.

Predictive Algorithm was initially an afterthought. I had one extra influence, and since this deck likes hard-to-steal agendas, this seemed like a decent way to spend it. After playing the deck a while, I really like it. The tax means runners can't just sink all their credits into trashing your stuff (which they otherwise can, since they don't need to build a rig or break subroutines). The best thing about it though is that it clears runner currents, which can be annoying in a deck that so rarely scores agendas. With clone suffrage, you can wipe as many currents as they want to play, and reinstate the tax when they do get an agenda.

This brings us to Hades Shard. Truth is, I'm not sure about this one. It used to be a third GFI, but I wanted the influence for a second Predictive, which was proving super useful when I found it, but inconsistent as a one-of. I didn't want to cut another card, so I needed a 3-pointer, and this one seemed the most natural. Yet more deck manipulation if you can score it, which should be possible with an savvy mushin, but I haven't really tried it enough to decide whether it's worth it.

All in all, this deck tends to rez assets more frequently than I suspect some others of this archetype would. Snares are usually kept in hand or put on r&d with heritage (Exception: Whizzard and other early trashers). Shocks and Shi.kyus go in archives (of course), so the only things that stay face down more than a turn or two are usually Hostiles or junebugs, plus the occational jackson. Sometimes I'll hang an agenda out there too, and I'll sometimes put off rezzing things to discourage running at them before I have Archives built up. Once the engine gets going, it's really neat, though. You keep your agendas out of sight and recur your operations until you find your kill combo.

Admittedly, I don't have quite the record with this as some other lists claim, but I suspect that's due at least as much to my inferior piloting skills as it is to deck construction, and probably moreso. Even with me as it's pilot, though, this deck wins at least 3 times as much as it looses, once again probably significantly more, but I'm estimating conservatively since I haven't kept diligent track. Also, since the list is always evolving, I can't give a reliable W/L ratio for this incarnations since I've only played like 4 games since adding the Shi.kyus (when I realized they worked from archives- like I said not a competitive player), the Hades Fragment, and the second Predictive

1 comments
13 Apr 2016 LazerDoofus

Looks really good, I Top 8'ed a regional with a very similar list. My only suggestions would be -1 crick for +1 chairman hiro for more murder, and -2 predictive algorithm for +2 Targeted Marketing for better siphon/vamp defense, and maybe find room for a 3rd ronin to increase your speed a bit