A Batty Friendship- 1st @ Stratagem, Perth, Australia SC

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Anzekay 388

Took this deck to the 16-person SC at Stratagem Games in Perth, Western Australia and went undefeated to win the entire tournament!

Late last year I'd been trying out batty in AoT for a laugh and remembered how much fun Batty actually is. I kinda put it aside to focus on playing Sync and Friends FA HB for a while, until our good friend Aaron Marrow was released. That, coupled with FiHP made me consider trying Batty out of HB again, that and it helped that Rumor Mill wasn't as prevalent. At first I tried just slotting batty into my Friends HB deck but wasn't having amazing luck with it, and deck slots felt way too tight.

Then lo and behold it turns out @BeNNyBiLL had already had some success with this sort of deck the other week (https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/40332/batty-s-vindaloo-special-1st-place-wrexham-chester-sc-s). The AAL > Hedge Fund idea was a big epiphany for me and I was suddenly able to cut some card slots and refine the deck down a bit while also fitting in the tech cards I needed to deal with the current Anarch archetypes.

The deck went undefeated the entire day, beating Reina, Null, Ken and Whizzard in swiss and then Noise in the top 4.

Probably the biggest thing I enjoyed about the deck is that every card pulled its weight (sans one) and I felt like I was in some sort of harmony with the deck all day. The only regret was the CVS, which I think I only used once to reset a parasite ticking down on a FC3. It probably should've been Eve or BBG number 3, or maybe an Archived Memories.

2 Batty and 3 Architects turned out to be the perfect choice on the day, as I got enormous amounts of value out of the untrashable ice that costs 3 to break with MKUltra. ELP helped make FC3 a hard ETR in the early game and Ark Lockdown was an integral part of my "Sifr decks will run out of parasites eventually" strategy.

Full props to @BeNNyBiLL because without their deck being published I probably wouldn't have refined my own attempt down as effectively!

7 comments
30 Jan 2017 Netrunnerunner

Congratulations! Without Hedge Fund, it seems like this deck might have a hard time establishing economy against Whizzard decks that are really insistent on trashing your Campaigns (especially those with Slums), especially since they might be able to hit the AALs out of centrals before you draw them. Did you ever run into any problems with that in testing?

30 Jan 2017 Anzekay

@Netrunnerunner Probably the only issue I had with AAL on the day was not having anything in hand to install with it, and purely would drop it down to bait a run (esp with ELP up at the time), that's a 1c loss there which sucks. I also tended to do burst installing, since my primary gameplan on the day was to rush out as many points as possible so I could rely on the rigshooting in the mid game to open a window for scoring out the last 3/4 points, so it made the 1c from installing AAL not always applicable. Also employee strike makes it 2c which is... not great.

I got to juke a Temujin with it though (dropped a second piece of ice on an archives the runner could get into already with yog and denied the whole temu), and there were other times I found it super useful. Also dropping it onto a BBG and then popping a campaign onto it during the runner's turn is pretty great. but I think I will test the deck with Hedge instead if I plan on playing it again in the future.

30 Jan 2017 Netrunnerunner

Oh, AAL is definitely an amazing card in the deck; I wouldn't recommend cutting all of them. But I didn't know if you might want to cut something else for Hedge Funds (Hellion Beta Test, the Cyberdex) for some Hedge Funds to make your econ a little more robust to trashing/Employee Strike. You might also cut those two cards and go to three Hedge Fund, two AAL.

30 Jan 2017 Anzekay

I wouldn't cut the Hellion Beta Test, it's absolutely a big deal card. I fired in once in every game on the day, and twice in one match. Against Sifr it's always relevant, and its flexibility to take out other key runner pieces is pretty potent. I wasn't so sure when I first tried it out, but it's really very good!

If I did try to squeeze hedge funds in I'd be tempted to drop the CVS and one AAL for two of them. Maybe, dunno, perhaps the third BBG is still just better.

30 Jan 2017 AkAnderson

Is Lab Dog a thing with these Batty decks?

31 Jan 2017 BeNNyBiLL

@Anzekaywell played. A testament to this archetype vs an unprepared meta.

In my opinion, I think dropping a Batty has diluted the potency of your build if your expecting a Rumor Mill free environment. Getting 1 Batty installed is strong, getting 2 and the odds of winning the game have swung heavily in your favour.

For the non-believers, AAL > HF has a lot more to it.

CONS

  • Can be trashed from R&D/HQ at relatively low cost to the Runner
  • "If" the runner has Slums and "if" they have managed to draw it and install it, AAL can be removed from the game. (But!... Slums is a once per turn effect. If my opponent is trashing multiple assets, AAL is the card I want them to remove from the game. It is the least important asset/upgrade in the deck. So in a way, this is kind of a PRO)

PROS

  • By abusing ETF's ability, we can net 4 from a single AAL in addition to the bonus install, by using AAL install ability on the Runner's turn.
  • HF costs 5 to play. Therefore HF is useless after siphon/vamp. On the other hand, installing an AAL instantly puts you on 3 (ETF ability for 1 then rez for 2 more)
  • AAL is a FIHP target. HF is not. If you FIHP 2 copies of AAL you basically have a biotic labour that made you money instead of costing you an arm. (well not excatly, you gained 2 clicks that you can install with but you get the idea)
  • AAL supports the never advance strategy. there are 6 3/2's in the deck that like to pretend to be assets/upgrades until the following turn you just score out. Having more cards to bluff as agendas is a big deal.
  • AAL can counter the most popular econ card of the moment, Temujin. If you can get the Runner to install Temujin before you reveal AAL, you can install ICE in front of their chosen server and laugh at how miserable their economy has become.
  • AAL can obscure your true credit count. Vs NEXT Gold, a runner will happily run your servers all day if you only have 7 credits. But you don't have 7 credits, with AAL on the board you looking at a very deadly 9.
  • AAL can be installed on Breaker Bay Grid for even more value.

I think its undeniable that AAL > HF in this deck by a rather large margin!

1 Feb 2017 Anzekay

@beNNyBiLL You could be right about cutting the 1 batty being a dilution, but on the day I found the 3x architect so invaluable that is was absolutely worth doing so. At least several times I got to fetch a batty from R&D or back from archives, too!

I think 3 of the anarch decks I played were running at least one rumor mill, but none of them were able to keep one up before I got to fire a batty. Sometimes you just gotta save the ELP for them, or sneak out an ABT :D