Worlds Top 16: Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2

icecoldjazz 937

Liza is good, f*** the haters.

hot pursuit

The TL;DR version:
  1. Hot Pursuit is amazing.

  2. Mining Accident is even better.

  3. Who even needs a restricted card? Not me.

  4. Counter Surveillance isn't great, except when it is.

  5. Equivocation + Embezzle beats meat damage. Sometimes.

  6. Apocalypse sucks, pass it on.

I've got to start by saying this is the most fun Runner deck I've played in literally years. The ebb and flow of the game feels so similar to Andysucker, a deck I miss dearly. This is Criminal at its core. Liza was without a doubt the dark horse of the worlds meta and I'm beyond thrilled to have piloted her alongsize Mti to bring my favorite factions to the top of swiss and the top 16 cut at the world championship. I think the greatest compliment this deck could have gotten was Josh Wilson refusing to Corp against it in round one of the cut.

I had been playing variations of @maxey's Geist deck for the last year and a half and decided to put together Liza for King of Servers to see what it was all about. Turns out she's better than Geist, so I trashed him and starting jamming games with Liza full time.

Step 1: Apply pressure.
Liza has a fantastic ability to pressure all three central servers from turn one and an elegant solution to her faction's greatest weakness, drawing cards. If a server is weak, hit it. Stop worrying about facechecking ICE so much; Netrunner is a game of calculated risk. It is absolutely critical that you're forcing the Corp to spend their money. A Corp with 20 credits and no ICE rezzed may as well be broke.

highfive

Step 2: There is no step 2. Just keep the pressure on.
Remember, if you're removing tags, you're losing. Embrace them. Always challenge the remote. [Embezzle] money cards. Keep the Corp on their toes with Fisk. One or two of those bad boys while they're on low money will practically guarantee an HQ that's ripe for the picking. Generally you'll win off of single accesses because you'll be getting so many of them; Equivocation serves the dual purpose of multiaccess and pushing cards into HQ. Run R&D, see that Scorch, make the Corp draw it, then go get it with Embezzle.

M I N I N G A C C I D E N T
The tech card that nobody in Criminal is on and the real MVP in this deck. A bad publicity is exceptionally valuable; it makes the constant runs possible. It's easy to hit the Corp with this early game while they can't afford to pay for it. If they do, start pressuring a server with unrezzed ICE and make them double down on their losses.

How to make this deck better
I'd spent less than a week preparing for worlds so it's not perfect. It sounds counter-intuitive but Counter Surveillance needs to go; this is a remnant of the Mars for Martians days. While it can occasionally win games, it's more often dead than useful. By midgame you have far too many tags to actually use it and it's easy to get Counter Surveillance tunnel vision and spend all your time getting an excess of money when you need to be running. I won a game on day 1 with 74 (!!!) tags (by milling the Corp out, actually)! No way I could have used Counter Surveillance.

With it, "Freedom Through Equality" goes. With the influence we pick up a second Equivocation, a third Mining Accident, and probably a Stimhack, dropping Forged Activation Orders for the card slot. Don't play 51 cards. Worth noting that I'm not completely sold on Bankroll either but not sure what I'd replace it with.

As always, GL, HF, DD, DBL. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, Don't Be Lame. Words to live by.

runhq

12 comments
10 Sep 2018 whirrun

Tycoon?

10 Sep 2018 PureFlight

Tycoon is great 1 program that reads "Wraparound's str is 0. Go nuts, Aumakua".

Great job, Austin!!

10 Sep 2018 whirrun

Fair enough I guess. Cool deck!

11 Sep 2018 creditzathotmail

this must have been so fun to play

11 Sep 2018 wynalazca

6 free influence from dropping Counter Surveillance says 3rd Mining Accident, a Stamherk, and 3x E-Strike to me, my dude.

It was fun being in your corner for those two cut games. It was a shame you didn't get to run this vs Josh or Dien. Congrats again and good luck running OP with Nisei.

11 Sep 2018 icecoldjazz

@wynalazca Employee Strike is bad in this deck

We've had this conversation, I think

@whirrun Generally Aumakua is used early game and whenever the Corp is on low money. Tycoon's numbers are too good to not play and once you're set up with some money you can run anywhere with impunity so it's less important to deny them the 2 credits

11 Sep 2018 FreqKing

I played the corp deck you milled out in Swiss. I was not quite sure how to handle that deck. You played a really strong game, well done. Glad to hear that you made top 16.

11 Sep 2018 spags

Fuccing. Sick.

419 Apoc felt aggro af, too. Love that brash Crim feeling.

Nice job!

11 Sep 2018 anr_marsellus

Whoop Whoop! Liza is insanely fun to play. Apart from the Mining Accidents (which I love <3) comparatively similar to the Liza that got me to 2nd place on German Nats. I played Indexings + Mad Dash though for the inf. Congrats !!

12 Sep 2018 Crazimir

``@icecoldjazz` I wasn't in on the conversation about Employee Strike - why is it bad in this deck?

12 Sep 2018 icecoldjazz

@CrazimirNot bad necessarily but I think there is a better use of 3 influence and more importantly 3 card slots. The only matchups it's super relevant against are Mti and Azmari. Usually Mti isn't a big deal after the first few turns once your money is set up and so E Strike only helps you turn 1/2. Against Azmari it is admittedly difficult to keep them poor without it but play creatively and usually you can squeak out a win. I'd definitely say Azmari is the toughest non-meat-damage matchup without E Strike.

24 Sep 2018 koga

Would you rather play Bankroll or Crowdfunding (if you could play it)?