DO YOU WANT TO TURN NETRUNNER INTO A SERIES OF BINARY DECISIONS?

"No?"

THEN THIS IS THE DECK FOR YOU!

"But I said I didn't want—"

After losing to the sixth big rig Lat in a row, I was a-thinkin'...

"Lat has so many programs, and so much hardware...but his brain is as squishy as anyone else's!"

With that in mind, I set to work crafting this deck. First, I chose Thule, because duh. Then, I went and added a tagging suite. Although Hypoxia is great and all, I needed a killing blow, one last coup de grâce that would give those dirty Lats the sweet release of death. The answer, of course, was End of the Line. Unfortunately for me, End of the Line has one major caveat that big daddy Scorched doesn't: it removes the tag. Sure, could I have used HHN but legal instead of Distributed Tracing and Public Trail so that I could double EOTL? Yeah, but at that point I might as well play NBN or Weyland. I don't do that normie shit, so I needed to kill the runner in one shot. That's where core damage comes in. The plan is to get 2 core damage so the runner's hand size is less than 4, then use a single EOTL to finish the runner off faster than a seedy massage parlor.

The beauty of this deck is that it is less susceptible to big rig bullshit because it taxes resources that runners typically neglect: clicks and hand size. I'm well aware that Synthgland exists, but that gives 2 cores, which sets me up for a kill. Increasing hand size is a bit more common with Marrow and Hippocampic Mechanocytes in the mix, but I haven't seen big riggers run either one.

The end result is a series of tough choices:
- Pay the Thule tax to protect your noggin, or risk the core damage to save on clicks?
- Lose the rest of your turn to Mr. Hendrik, or get your brain bonked?
- Run the advanced card and risk hitting a Cerebral Overwriter, or risk an agenda being scored?
- Take the -1 agenda point from Nightmare Archive, or take the core?
- Pay 8 to avoid Public Trail, or hope my only tag punishment is Hypoxia? (hehe)
- Steal Ikawah Project and take core damage if you don't have enough remaining clicks to pay the Thule tax, or let me have 3 agenda points?

This deck is optimized to go fast. The ice is all gear checks, and Red Level Clearance and Sprint let you find combo pieces quickly. Regolith Mining License is there as a quick source of money, and can provoke runs that turn on your Public Trails. False Lead is great since it can ensure the runner won't have the clicks to pay for Thule or Ikawah. I've actually flatlined runners who ran archives by taking away their clicks with False Lead then bonking their brains to death with dumped False Leads and Ontologicals.

The biggest issue I've ran into is No Free Lunch. It's possible to chew through a single copy with the 5 tagging cards in the deck, but if the runner has multiple you're probably better off getting your cores in and FAing Ontologicals. Personally, I think that No Free Lunch should be a virtual resource (and thus targetable by Scapenet) but whatever.

TLDR Fork the Lats.

EDIT: I swapped out the Rototurrets due to a preponderance of turtles. I added a second Drafter and an additional Hypoxia so I could more consistently punish tags. I'm still torn over whether to ditch a Public Trail for a Mavirus and something else. EDIT 2, ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: I switched the Regoliths for NGO Fronts at the suggestion of Diogene. It works better in terms of one turn money bursts so I'd recommend the switch.