This Old House

Walker Net Ranger 139

Hi, I'm Bob Vila and welcome home again to our little re-modeling project.

Today we are going to take a look at Oaktown and the Underway and really just question what the heck the original Architect's design philosophy really was even.

Now let's give you an update on our little Remodeling Project. You may be familiar with certain "Super modern" style neighborhoods, designed by the Weyland Consortium in recent years. These have become truly dated relics in such a short time, in large part due to shifting consumer demand. We feel confidently in saying, we have just the answers for our modern homeowner.

Our new state-of-the-art protocols enable your household to be perfectly secure from cyber attack. No more fear of Big Brother nor irritation from would-be Blackmailers trying to gain any advantage from your private moments. Enjoy the safety and security you deserve.

Next up, we will give you a little progress report on those Power Outages which some folks have been experiencing.

Stick around, it's good to have you home again!

10 comments
17 Oct 2016 dawciu

I like your idea. What about Kala Ghoda Real TV? For one influence it has nice synergy with Underway Renovation and Ark Lockdown ;)

17 Oct 2016 StarlightCrusade

I LOVE decks with a story subliminally embedded in them...and this one does a GREAT job on it. While you're at it...why not some pools and servants to go with the great neighborhood, or Elizabeth Mills to make sure that you actually own the land you're building on? By the way, in what region is this development being built? Is there any City Surveillance in your development? Unfortunatelly, I'm having trouble finding Ice that fits your theme, unless you want your neighborhood protected by children. XD!!!

17 Oct 2016 Arlong

For some reason i can't help to see how pointless are Ark lockdown and Power shutdown they seem very weak and risky to use (only PS for the risk part)

18 Oct 2016 Walker Net Ranger

@dawciu That is a pretty sweet idea. I might be tempted to make room for that, but it's tough to make cuts. I really dislike being a corp that is shut down by Account Siphon because the real estate business should be lucrative enough that you're able to weather those economic downturns, perhaps even co. Otherwise maybe some economy pieces could be taken out (maybe a Launch Campaign or two) and finding a couple influence could be an option.

@StarlightCrusade Thanks, it was some fun putting the story together! A bit short on time at the moment to put together a themed reply but I did quite enjoy the Subliminal Message story + actual card in the deck as well. If I had to devote my efforts toward a particular region, I think this one could be an interesting choice. Although I have not spent enough time in that area myself to say for certain. Elizabeth Mills could certainly help widen our focus here from building not only the cyber-secure household, to also sprucing up some seedy neighborhoods.

@Arlong The Ark Lockdown and [Power Shutdown}(/en/card/04058) are actually quite definitive of the deck. Usually you are trying to rush agendas behind some ICE, and rather than taxing the runner, we are trying to make the server just impenetrable. Here are some kinds of situations that can occur:

1) You Install-Advance-Advance an Underway Renovation. If the runner can't steal it, you Advance-Advance again, and you have tossed four runner cards into the heap. I played a game against my friend doing this, he was playing a Stealth rig and I put two of his Cloak into the trash can. My last click was to play the Ark Lockdown and target those Cloaks. Now he was in serious trouble trying to use a Dagger or Switchblade to try coming through an Archer.

2) You are playing against a runner who uses Faust and probably a Levy AR Lab Access. The Levy ends up in the runner's heap, maybe accidentally or maybe on purpose, and the runner thinks they can use a Same Old Thing later in the game to shuffle their heap back into their stack. Ark Lockdown stops that plan cold and now they only get to use their deck one time before they are out of cards. It can be a lot easier to win the game this way.

3) Runners put their Paperclip or Black Orchestra into the trash on purpose, because they can use the built-in ability to bring it in play whenever they need it, right? Wrong.

4) Ark Lockdown is also flexible against key cards like Blackmail in Valencia Estevez: The Angel of Cayambe. A lot of times the runner will only have drawn a single copy of the Blackmail but they will also have Déjà Vu and SoT to play the Blackmail again, and again, and again. Just use a Lockdown the first time this happens and enjoy the freedom to continue scoring agendas while Valencia Estevez: The Angel of Cayambe digs frantically to find another copy in her giant stack.

I think the Ark Lockdown is the best Weyland card to come out in a while now, even if we have to pay influence for it. Ironically enough it is actually harder to play their other new card in faction, which came out in the same pack.

19 Oct 2016 Manu l Humain

Hi ! I was looking for a Weyland rush deck without kill and I like your idea. What do you think of this one : netrunnerdb.com I prefer yours, more simple, compact, with good synergie by trashing cards and Lockdown, but maybe you can pick up some ideas, fot example, what do you think of remove the quandary to put some vanilla and focus on trashing corroders only ? The have cheap Code Gate make sense by yhe way to have more rush opportunities by stack two differents ice types on a remote... What do you you think of Will-o-the-whisp ? Thanks for sharing.

19 Oct 2016 Manu l Humain

I'm thinking to put some Changeling : great with the id and the rushy style.

20 Oct 2016 Walker Net Ranger

@Manu l Humain hello and thanks for the like!

So I haven't played with some of the cards in the other deck you referenced, I do like the Enforcing Loyalty but it seems very difficult to make good use of the card. The trash cost is not necessarily bad, but my two concerns are (1) as a trashable Operation and 1-of, you probably want to run Consulting Visit alongside it to play "on demand", but (2) I also think trace-based cards are fairly unreliable to use in a meta of rich runners.

Regarding Quandary, I like the added flexibility of different ice types besides barrier-only to keep the runner out. It is vulnerable to Parasite of course, but it does give extra rush opportunities as you pointed out. Ice Wall into Quandary can make a surprisingly good rush remote that doesn't get shut down by a single SMC. And the diversified ice-types give Power Shutdown more opportunity to hit key runner pieces for cheap. For example, a Stealth Shaper getting Refractor or Cloak sniped by a 1-card Shutdown feels pretty good. The Shutdown also is pretty great for hitting some of my personally Most-Wanted cards like Datasucker and Clone Chip.

To touch on the other cards, Changeling I like a lot but already have a relatively high sentry ice-count here, so wanted to diversify as much as possible. Fire Wall is also pretty strong against most non-D4v1d Fracters, especially with the BoN tax.

Will-o'-the-Wisp is a card I always want to try, but for the same cost I think usually a Snare! or something has a higher impact (influence aside). Cortex Lock I put in place of some Snare! here because it's a good/cheaper hybrid of Snare melded with Cobra (assuming you don't care about tagging the runner). And I wanted as many potential ways to put cards in the heap as possible, to disrupt the runner while giving open windows for the Lockdown. Face-checking ice, coming near any advanced ice, getting Shutdown, getting Renovated, or relying on recursion are all opportunities you can exploit.

But some of these cards I haven't tried, and certainly may prove stronger than I am giving them credit for. And in the deck you linked, with two copies of EBC I think Elizabeth Mills would be a good include to be able to hit installed Locations for the Lockdown.

Anyway I have rambled on a bit but hope this gives some good insights!

20 Oct 2016 Manu l Humain

Thanks for the detailed response, I agree with everything. I will try your deck tomorrow with some few changes : - 1 Lockdown, - 1 Lauch campaign, +2 Jackson because Jackson is our savior, don't be sad by the lost of 1 Lockdown, maybe you could take it back with Jackson... Some ices change but less important. I was not satisfied with the Launch Campaign : slow, easy to trash or need a second remote... so I hesitate between Housekeeping, wich fit well with your storytelling and gameplan or restructure or fast track... Here the deck :

netrunnerdb.com

I hope to have enough money with the agendas...

21 Oct 2016 Walker Net Ranger

@Manu l Humain that all sounds reasonable, Jackson of course is always a good choice of influence.

Launch Campaign I have mixed feelings about myself, I usually like to run more Restructure but I worry that this ID might not be able to keep that 10-credit threshold reliably enough to play that card 3-of. So these econ slots are still up for debate, but I do like the Launch Campaign in a couple scenarios. You can do a pretty solid opening turn 1 with say, ice HQ, Ice remote, Launch Campaign in remote. Turn 2 score the Hostile Takeover out of HQ while the Campaign ticks down, something like that. It can also give you the clickless econ to spend a turn advancing an ice on each server to turn on the ID ability if you aren't seeing your agendas. I probably would not do a 2nd remote for it though, just use it if the rush plan is not coming together, try and bluff it as an agenda to force early runs.

Housekeeping is quite thematic, I like it! Could be worth a try here as well.

13 Feb 2017 Soulcow

Hi, have you got any extra plays with this deck? I'm building a power shutdown + ark lockdown myself, with some extra preemptive action to shuffle everything back in. Your deck has 11 agenda's in 44 cards, that's a lot. I had 11 agenda's in 49, but I've managed to bring it back to 10. I really like the cortex lock. I had a DNA Tracker but that takes a lot of influence and credits, but 2 cortex lock really should do the trick.

But I gotta ask, how fares the id? I wouldn't see myself clicking to advance ICE. If you're advancing anything, it's agenda's. How much do you see yourself clicking to advance ICE?