Step Into My Parlor (1st- Store Championship Blakfyre Games)

Amakaze 444

Though very different, parts of this deck was influenced by https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/40277/in-corp-we-trust-1st-place-kay-jays-store-champs-melbourne-. This deck dropped 2 games in 4 rounds of swiss and a top 8 cut. There were 23 players in attendance.

Ahhh, core Weyland. This is a back to basics deck that outperformed my expectations on the day of the event, and signals to me that (if Terminal Directive shows the ol W some love) we should be seeing a Weyland resurgence in tournament play. It's extremely fast, fairly consistent, and will have the runner sweating bullets from word one.

I don't have much to say about how to run this deck, as its pretty much what you'd expect out of core weyland. The deck is packed with transactions, so you should come out of the gate swinging with money, while the runner has to set back their tempo by installing their economy and drawing for what they're missing. Once you have a credit lead, start jamming out agendas. Depending on the situation, I'd do this behind one piece of ice (Lotus, preferably, if the credit counts were close enough that they could sneak in a couple of sure gambles to catch up) or naked (If they went down so low they couldn't possibly catch up). Don't be afraid to do the first one before you have the midseasons in hand. It takes a runner with balls of steel to catch you, and most will let it go. Threaten the midseasons boom to score out. If they take you up on it, boom the hell out of them if you can. Don't give them time to breath, just roll the agendas one after the other until you've won or lost.

In general, it performed very well. Runners who had a particularly good economic start (Day job, liberated) could sometimes catch up if my start was a little slower. I had no trouble with the SIFR decks I encountered, just too slow. Obelus was more problematic, and both loses were to Val (One Keyhole, one Obelus medium).

Some specific card thoughts Global Food Initiative - Something I never thought I'd say, but I found myself repeatedly wishing these were high risk investments. I jammed them out as my first agenda repeatedly through the day, and almost never had a runner on 6 points (where the global saves you). The ability to keep the midseasons threat alive regardless of credit count would have been great.

IP Block - An inspired splash from the deck above, this thing was a monster against faust decks and actually did tons of work against everyone else too. Its a nasty set of subroutines for a kill deck, a taxing break for faust, and even a respectably cheap tax for paperclip (Three to break for two to rez). Highly Recommended.

Veritas - Solid. This little guy did work for me, though it was occasionally a liability. I put it on the level of Caeduceus, but not hosed by rabbit hole decks. It pays for itself often, is a punishing face check when they're poking your servers, and usually remains a reasonable tax. I had trouble with it against Val though, both of whom I dropped a ton of tags on before trying to find my Boom kill. Bad pub takes a lot of the bite out of letting it fire if they're medium running or doing keyhole, and I lost one game because it wasn't a strong enough stop. I might suggest going to 2 instead of 3.

Bryan Stinson - An absolute MVP, Stinson does a ton of work. You're pressuring the runners early, so its not uncommon for them to be gaining and reinvesting into economy for the first few turns, dropping things like daily casts, earthrise hotel, or their breaker suite. Nailing a restructure off a stinson rez feels amazing and puts you way, way ahead, allowing you to jam out agendas under the threat of annihilation. Even if the runner keeps their credits where you can't use him, don't underestimate his utility. Stinson sat on HQ for me a lot, masquerading as a crisium that hadn't yet shown up, and I'm certain he turned away a siphon or two. Additionally, he's enough of a threat that his five to trash happens a lot, even if the runner is flush with cash. He won't usually bail you out of a losing scenario, but he'll turn a close match into a win often enough to be worth it.

Other thoughts, Aaron wasn't much of a problem for this deck, because the midseasons isn't usually small enough to be aaroned out of, and the boom is frequently not on the same turn as the tags, making it hard to over draw. Classic plascrete stopped me once. Against Obelus I recommended trying to get the booms repeatedly if you can't actually kill them. Make them burn their deck and continuously draw instead of hammering you, if you can. Whizzard SIFR was no threat at all, setting up far too slowly and generally only able to parasite one or two ice, being forced by me to run before they're ready to, I was usually able to force out enough agendas while they were setting up to have an easy win.

A great night, and special thanks to the Blakfyre crew. A better group of players you will not find.

10 comments
29 Jan 2017 Crauseon

Nice. Been thinking of weyland again, going to sc soonish. Played titan toolbox, and its great fun but not really that good to be fair. Moneys an issue. I can't understand how people call weyland that much richer than the others - u still have only limited deck space and best economy are neutral...

Favorited and probably trying this out next week. :)

29 Jan 2017 Crauseon

If u change ur agenda package though, it'll free up inf for: What exactly?

Jackson, another midseason? It seems hard finding slots for Jackson though, and you have fine amounts of recursion. Deck slots are really an issue, aren't they.

29 Jan 2017 mate

awesome. have you tried out the Reversed accounts / dedication ceremony combo? How does it compare with HHN ?

29 Jan 2017 Myriad

Did you ever wish you could play Archer? I really have been enjoying Archer in my Weyland 1 builds.

You also are running x3 Preemptive as your Jackson replacement. Did you ever miss JHOW?

If you went all in on High Risk over GFI, would you swap JHOW back in?

Finally, what say you to the ice count of 16? It seems a little high to me given that my current build is packing 13-14.

So happy to see some Weyland discussion.

29 Jan 2017 Amakaze

@cruaseon I think people call Weyland rich for the speed at which they get a credit advantage more than sustained wealth (which they don't have). It wasn't uncommon for me to have ice down and be around 23-24 credits at the end of turn two, if I got a little lucky. Most runners have more set up time. An extra midseasons would probably feel pretty great with the extra influence if you could squeeze out one more influence, or I could see a one of of ash or caprice as an emergency backup.

@mate I had not! That does sound amazing, and being able to plink the runner down would help the main game plan a lot. I think slots would be the issue, as transactions really fill up your deck, and I wouldn't want to see dedication ceremony in my opening hand very much, though it would have a side benefit of buffing ice/fire walls against non ice destruction decks.

@myriad Tough to say on Archer. I only have the one hostile and I'm usually trying to win by scoring (under the threat of kill) rather than being a dedicated kill deck. The threat diminishes as the runner's money comes online, so I think the forfiet cost would set me back more than them. I never missed our lord and savior (In fact, the deck was fast enough I almost never recurred anything). The fact that preemptive doesn't have a drawing component is offset by the fact its not vulnerable to being trashed off RnD. Still, if I had nothing else to use influence, I might try him, but I feel like I could find better slots. Action does pretty well for what I'm doing.

I went a little heavy on ice for fear of SIFR parasite, which didn't end up being as much of a problem for this deck as I had an anticipated. Still, I'd be wary of going much lighter. Anarchs are still packing siphons here and there, and medium/keyhole will ruin your day if you're even a little slower on ice. I found 16 let me pretty consistently have an ice for both centrals early, with a third one to either double reinforce HQ or force out a scoring server. I occasionally drew more ice than I wanted, but I think overall the number did well for me.

30 Jan 2017 AkAnderson

Thoughts on perhaps -1 Veritas and +1 Mausolus? The fear of that code gate kept me from running early against you. It's such a hard face check and really, really taxing.

30 Jan 2017 Amakaze

@akanderson Probably a good plan. I was a little worried it would be able to pull its weight as another ice that doesn't stop the run (I do often need one for a remote) but if its replacing one Veritas, which also doesn't, I think it keeps the overall ETRs at the best ratio.

30 Jan 2017 thebriarfox

So if you go the investment route what do you do with the extra influence?

31 Jan 2017 Amakaze

I think I might drop the globals and perhaps one green level (or the HHN, which honestly I never used but I'm reluctant to drop without more testing) to bring in a one off caprice, just as a game closer if I can't threaten the kill.

1 Feb 2017 Myriad

Might Psycho be a better splash? Since midseason tends to not be a problem?

Or you could throw in Enforcing Loyalty. Almost all of the boom protection is neutral after all.