Virulent Saxum (1st Place @ Enchanted Grounds)

CrimsonWraith 3643

I went 3-1 with this deck and won the Enchanted Grounds Store Championship in Denver with it.

I used to be the only player in my meta who consistently played Gabe; we're Shaper-heavy in Colorado and the few dedicated Criminal players were all-in on the Andromeda bandwagon. After Gabe had a great deal of success in the Store Championships (including my own Ser Gabriel build with which I won our first in-state Store Championship), it became all the rage here, so I started looking for something different to try out. I've always loved playing aggressive Criminal decks and always been awful at piloting Noise decks. I tend to sit back and try to set everything up far too much, and by the time I have the set up that I want, the game's usually over. I have had a good degree of success with an aggressive Whizzard deck, so I decided to try out that style with Noise. This is the first deck that things really started clicking for me with.

I'm afraid I don't have a name or username to provide a hat tip to for inspiring me on this one. I've seen SneakySly and a few others streaming this deck (or a very similar one), but I believe this deck first originated at the RIW Hobbies Store Championship in Michigan. My only tweak to that deck list was to swap one Knight out for a second Corroder.

It's a fast, aggressive deck that fits my usual Criminal style very well. I highly recommend trying it out if you're that sort of player who's had difficulty making Anarch decks click. =) Holler at me if you have any questions about the deck, feel free to discuss anything you think might make it better, and have fun trying it out!

18 comments
20 Apr 2014 KingOfOdonata

Very cool looking deck. I can tell you're a Criminal player by the way you build Noise ;) I'm the same way with Shaper. I'm not a big Anarch player nor have I done much with Noise, so I can't suggest too much. I am curious on the lack of Datasucker in the deck. I can see it so often around here and it works so well with Parasite, though it looks like MU could get tight then. I'm also not familiar with the big Tag-Me style decks like this one. But if you're wanting to get more use out of Data Leak Reversal or even Joshua B, I'd suggest bringing in some Fall Guy. Or for draw, maybe Lawyer Up?

20 Apr 2014 CrimsonWraith

I'm a big fan of Sucker/Parasite Gabe, but Datasuckers don't really seem to fit well in this deck. Without the usual Anarch rig of fixed strength breakers, they would exist in this deck almost solely to support the Parasites. The Parasites work well enough without them here, so I'm not sure they're worth the deck slots.

Memory's not too big of an issue. Your rig is Corroder, Crypsis, and Hemorrhage. Knight is very useful for ensuring a Siphon goes off or sniping a remote (or the Archives glory run), but smart players will trash them as soon as reasonable. More often than not, it seems more like an Inside Job that costs three clicks and serves as a quasi-Parasite after your run. Which is why it fits my playstyle so well, I suppose. Anyway, point being, you do not typically have to worry about Knight sticking around and hogging influence. Grimoire gives you the flexibility to have Gorman Drips, Parasites, and Imps bouncing in and out of your rig. So... I think the memory is there for Datasuckers, I'm just not sure they're worth the card slots with this particular build.

As with most tag-me decks, taking time to drop tags reduces the impact of the actions that gave you the tags in the first place. Plus, no tags = no DLR action. Fall Guy would certainly be a nice add.

I do have another version of this deck that drops the DLR suite and Crypsis to run the full fixed breaker suite with Suckers. If you want to try that, it's this list, but...

Remove: 3 x Data Leak Reversal, 3 x Joshua B., 2 x Crypsis

Add: 3 x Datasucker, 2 x Mimic, 2 x Yog.0, 1 x Knight

21 Apr 2014 partialcharge

Your deck, it speaks to me!

I have been trying really, really hard to put something together that uses DLR, and Joshua B/Vamp/Account Siphon for self-tagging. I don't feel like anyone but Anarch has the influence to make it happen, and within Anarch I always defaulted to Vamp because Account Siphon is so damn much influence. I see however that you've given the influence limit a great big middle finger and dropped 12/15 on AS. Which is understandable, it's a friggin' strong card!

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for dropping this here. I'm going to fiddle with it, put my own stamp on it, and inflict it on my friends in a couple of days. Joyous! =D

21 Apr 2014 CrimsonWraith

Enjoy! My limited success with Anarchs in the past has been Whizzard with two Siphons and two Vamps; but after playing this, I've decided I don't need the influence after all. :) Though I do want to try dropping down to two Siphons to free up influence for Fall Guy, definitely something to test and play around with in the future.

21 Apr 2014 partialcharge

Yeah, I always tried to squeeze in Fall Guy to protect DLR/JB. Also looked at John Masanori. Helps with card draw, and you don't hate the drawback self-tag so much with a DLR on the table.

21 Apr 2014 hypomodern

Heya! Glad to see this archetype working out for others as well, and congrats on your second SC! I only managed to bag the one, but my build of this took me to several top-4s.

The comments about it being a "Criminal Player's Noise" are spot-on :). I'm a long-time Criminal player. All of my builds are organized around controlled, criminal-style aggression :).

Datasucker is one of those cards that is so good everyone is always surprised when I don't run it. I'd love to, but it's not really necessary and I'm never sure how to fit it in.

One of the things I love is when decks manage to have multiple attack vectors, and I think that is what is so strong in this build. You've got Noise's ability, you've got the economic warfare of siphoning, you've got the Knights which are slow-moving Inside Job/Parasite-lights, you've got the resource package layered on that to the point where they have to vamp themselves trashing your masanori/josh-b/DLR stuff every single time or you mill like the dickens, and the cherry on top is the hemorrhage threat. If they build up agendas in hand, you hemo them and run HQ with knight/crypsis. Damned if they keep 'em, damned if they don't. Worst case the corp fears hemo enough to wipe tokens frequently, which is a-OK by me!

I can't take all the credit: SamRS, PeekaySK, and others (including myself) all talked through the implications of hemo pretty early on Stimhack. I think I took the AI-heavy breaker package from SamRS and added a corroder because of wraparound.

I called my deck Bleeding Out — your name is pretty awesome too ;).

21 Apr 2014 Ozvaldo

Bro looks like u will float tags - so what do u do if the corp closed accounts?

21 Apr 2014 CrimsonWraith

Ah, you're the person I have to thank! Thanks hypomodern. =) I'm regularly on the decklists portion of Stimhack's forum and completely missed that discussion. You're spot-on about having multiple attack vectors... It's something I enjoy so much about my Gabe builds, and am so glad to have finally found a similar methodology at work with Anarchs.

Barrier heavy decks with program destruction were all the rage in our area, which is why I went with the extra copy of Corroder in this list, and it proved handy in two of my matches.

Ozvaldo, the same thing you would do with any other tag-me decks, it's not exactly uncommon, even if more people are shying away from it these days. =) There's plenty of economy cards to dig out of the hole, and then you can hit the Corp with another Siphon to put them back in the hole. If they're spending their time clicking for credits (Gorman says thanks!), playing Closed Accounts, and trashing your economy resources; they're just as bankrupt as you, and the Corp is much more vulnerable with little to no credits than the Runner is.

22 Apr 2014 partialcharge

Crimson, I think you've nailed one of my favorite things about this kind of deck: the resistance to run-punishing meat damage. If they're down in a deep, deep money hole (where you put them, mwahaha!) and then they have to spend 1-2 turns clicking for enough creds just to get rid of your DLR, when are they going to have the time or money to blow you up?

I did squeeze in a single Networking in my recent version of this build. I'm waffling between it and an Infiltration, but just one Networking can really help get rid of a small number of tags if you decide you need to ditch them after your DLR gets burned.

22 Apr 2014 purpleshifted@gmail.com

Nice deck. Just one curiosity: how many credits does Gorman Drip give you on average?

22 Apr 2014 CrimsonWraith

Thanks! I normally cash it out once it hits 6+ counters. Any less and it's worth letting the Corp skip a turn to wipe viruses. Of course, it's situation dependent as well. If I'm 2-3 credits shy of a major move (say, credits necessary for a successful Siphon run), I'll pull a Gorman Drip pretty early to pull that off.

24 Apr 2014 bcavalier

How often do you find yourself using Hemorrhage? I'm just curious, since I don't see the rest of the build to be focused around running a ton.

24 Apr 2014 CrimsonWraith

It's rather hard to use Account Siphon or install Data Leak Reversal without running. ;) The point of the deck is to remain aggressive and pressure the Corp. While Siphon and DLR obviously pressure the Corp, a significant part of that is playing aggressively and running wherever the Corp gives you a window to do so. Throw in Hemorrhage and regular virus milling, you have even more pressure on the Corp. I use Hemorrhage quite often and you should be running a ton with this build. =)

25 Apr 2014 bcavalier

How would you feel about trading Grimore for Doppelganger, and taking out one AS? I've been trying to find a way to put Hemorrhage and Doppelganger together.

25 Apr 2014 CrimsonWraith

I don't think Doppelganger's benefits would be worth dropping Account Siphon or Gorman Drips. The extra virus token w/Grimoire is nice with Imp and a big deal with Parasite since you have no Datasuckers to drop ice's strength. If I were to switch out consoles, I think I'd try Spinal Modem out to more easily afford breaking ice with Crypsis and Knight. =)

25 Apr 2014 kollapse

I LOVE playing Anarch like I'm actually running Crim! Will definitely give this deck a go.

27 Apr 2014 hypomodern

I cash out Gorman at 4+, since people in my meta purge tokens like whoa :), and Hemo I only get to use in about 1/2 the games. It's there to pressure the corp to purge viruses or risk losing their hand, which is pretty great.

28 Apr 2014 CrimsonWraith

Yep, I'll cash out at 5 or less if I need the credits then and there to make a move that turn. Otherwise, I'm happy with them spending their turn purging. Exactly right with Hemo. I originally did not like it, but after playing the list for a while (and playing a few games against it with my Cerebral decks), I discovered it definitely has a place in the deck. There are some games where it's a dead card, but it flat out wins games for me when it works.