Ransomware

Vermilious 108

Noise has finally come into his own again. For a long time, competitive Noise lists have been about reg-ass Anarch, playing the most effective breakers and making runs to score agendas. But there's always been a subtle push for Noise, to simply burn your opponent's deck to the ground. After all, you know what makes runs easier? Denying your opponent half the cards in their deck. Just play and install viruses.

This list runs very low to the ground. There are 17 1 viruses in the deck, and another 4 that only cost 2. That's 21 cards your opponent has to work to see. Drop a Scheherazade early, or draw into your Aesop's Pawnshop, or simply rely on your Cache and Gorman Drip to keep you rolling in the 2-3 that you need to function each turn, while slowly building up. Even when you don't find any of these cards until late, your opponent's built up board state won't really stand a chance.

As soon as your opponent installs and advances, especially if the server looks secure, your deck becomes a real threat. After all, this is Netrunner and occasionally you should run. Corporate Scandal and Blackmail forms a two card, 4 credit, mega-Inside Job, allowing you free access to any server of your choice. Use it to swipe remotes, exclusively. There's no need to run HQ unless you've got Lamprey and Ixodidae up, and Blackmail has better uses than making that move efficient. Threaten every remote without installing a single breaker, and slowly grind the rest of R&D away into Archives.

But Vermilious, you say, they have Jackson Howard, and Museum of History, and Archived Memories. And you are absolutely correct. You still have Imp for those Museums, and you've got staying power over Jackson. 21 viruses is a lot of cards, and Déjà Vu makes it 25 (save one Déjà Vu for the second Hades Shard use). You can even go up to 29 if you dedicate your Same Old Thing to the task. But that really isn't necessary. In 10 games, I have yet to Levy before seeing enough agendas in Archives to win. You'll need it, but not as often as you think you do.

It's true, Chronos Project makes you cry. But you're all skilled players, and you know how to read a board. But that's one or two cards, against the might of your viruses. It's not a sure gamble by any means, but I'd take those odds any day of the week. Learn your Archives timings, learn your Councilman targets, and this deck will reward you time and again, mostly in the falling faces of your opponents as they realize what you are capable of.

12 comments
20 Apr 2016 FunkeXMix

What are your thoughts on exchanging one Councilman with Political Operative instead?

20 Apr 2016 Vermilious

@FunkeXMix the fact that Political Operative requires HQ success is promblematic. Also, your main Councilman target is Jackson Howard, which means you really need a prevent effect.

20 Apr 2016 FunkeXMix

Sorry, I'm a new player and trying to get my head around the timing against Jackson and what it is I'm trying to prevent. If they see you have the Councilman out they can simply rez Jackson on their turn own turn, you have to prevent it and trash Councilman. Then it's your turn and they can rez Jackson again and there's nothing you can do. How should I use Councilman?

I can make some more guesses but I'd rather just ask the pro :)

21 Apr 2016 Vermilious

@FunkeXMix No worries, this is why I stressed that figuring out timing was essential. Ideally, you want to use Councilman the second they try to rez Jackson, with a Hades Shard or Blackmail up. If it's on your turn, you prevent the use, and then access archives. If it's on their turn, you spend your first click to try and trash Jackson. You're playing a somewhat long game, and when you're fully set up the corp starts only seeing somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of their deck. If you allow them to Jackson back in 3 agendas, they will come up again, so it's not super urgent.

21 Apr 2016 FunkeXMix

It seems this deck works against the meta really well right now except perhaps for IG net damage decks. Tech Startup and Hostile Infrastructure and the slow braindamage/net damage, ouch...

21 Apr 2016 FunkeXMix

Got any ideas for an action plan against this deck? netrunnerdb.com Would love to find a way to fit Employee Strike in there. Maybe even one is enough, Imp can do work until you get it. IG does not pack many currents and it can stay there until you want to run on archives.

Hate this deck, want to find a cheap counter with little sacrifice against other matchups.

21 Apr 2016 Vermilious

Yeah, that IG matchup is definitely bad. Employee Strike is a solid 46th card, but you can't have it and Corporate Scandal up at the same time, which can be problematic.

It helps that IG isn't trying to score out, and will pitch cards into their Archives to keep Archives relatively full. You should try to keep it relatively empty, and remember that if you're feeling like you can't have enough cards, Deja Vu lets you trade one card for two without counting as a draw.

24 Apr 2016 FunkeXMix

How do you deal with rezzed ice on a scoring remote and archives?

26 Apr 2016 FunkeXMix

This deck is good as long as the opponent: * Does not know your decks plan, in other words, that you don't have ICE breakers. * Does not rez ice on archives and scoring remotes

So if you join a tournament with only new players, it can get your pretty far. Unless your upcoming opponents start to watch your current games and can figure out you don't have ICE breakers.

26 Apr 2016 Vermilious

I'm not sure I agree. I took this up to Madison for the regional last weekend, and it went 3-3, with two games lost at 6 points. You don't actually need to run agendas in a scoring remote, as long as you can trash enough cards off of R&D. Vs Fastro, you just spend effort on keeping clot on the board, and that buys you enough time. Councilman can shut down CVS too, which helps maintain clot. You don't need to run Archives, which is what Hades Shard is for.

It's worth pointing out that absent Surat, Oversight AI, and EBC, there isn't really a common card that gets played to rez ICE outside of runs. Against those three, you double down on milling, and appreciate that the corp is spending a lot of credits on things you'll never interact with.

26 Apr 2016 FunkeXMix

I am only arguing against the decks viability when the opponent knows he can simply rez an ICE before you run to stop your Blackmail shenaningans. Your only chance then is if you are lucky and get that 1x Hades installed early.

Against people who don't know you only rely on Hades and Blackmail. Then the deck is doing very well. So, like I said, great when your opponents does not know your deck style. No chance if they do (unless you get a early Hades,)

27 Apr 2016 FunkeXMix

Sorry if I sounded harsh. I wanted to start a dialog with you because I would like to find an improvement.