I am one with everything (1st at Summer Showdown)

State of the Meta

To understand why I’m playing shaper in what I have been informed is not a shaper meta, it’s worth going into what I was expecting at the Summer Showdown (or more exactly, what I wasn’t expecting). This comes from the strengths and weaknesses of the sides. The corp controls the flow of the game — they can choose a short game, a long game, or any number of permutations in between. But in response, the runner can do ANYTHING. All cards can be accessed, all remotes can be trashed, all combos can be disrupted. This is the flow of netrunner: the challenge of the corp is to take this infinite decision space and create defenses that exceed the runner’s potential.

But, what happens when the corp cannot defend? What happens when the runner can reliably land 2x deep dives or set up a complete and unassailable rig before the corp even gets to game point? Losing Border Control is huge — that card is an incredibly versatile and powerful tool the corp can use to control the flow of the game (play fast? It gives you a window to score, play slow? Hold it until the runner goes for a massive turn). But it’s not just border control, it’s Bio Vault, it’s MCA, it’s Amani. It’s Ikawah, Bacterial, and Degree Mill. What remains for corps defensively is a set of very powerful damage cards, Anemone, Oppo/End of the Line, Traps. All decks need to be running some of them. And once you have some damage, you’re in for a penny — you’d be a fool not to go in for a pound.

So I brought Lilypad Maggie, because I wanted Stoneship, I wanted fast and card efficient draw from Nuka, and I wanted to end every turn on 6 cards. I think shaper is not meaningfully worse than the other factions — Deep Dive is good in Shaper too, Azimat is lovely and shaper has the memory to make it work. But against the kill decks I was expecting it is such a beast. It was a gambit which worked — I played against 4 scoring decks (going 3-1, though my game against Rotom was purely a luck-based win), and against 3 kill decks (going 3-0). And this paid off.

Unlike some of my peers, I am not a complete doomer for scoring corp — I lost to a well-piloted RH, and I think LEO has a lot of potential. But when, in order to properly defend, scoring decks need to move from proactive shells like PD or Asa to defensive shells like LEO, a lot lot lot is lost. I am hopeful NSG takes the steps in the next sets to help corp better play defense.

How to Play this Deck

Mill for draw, or the essential cards for the matchup (Lilypad, SMC, Hannah against asset spam). This is a control deck — force ice rezzes so you can better plan, but never run servers which cost more than 5-6c to get through unless it’s for an obvious agenda or the deep dive. Try to make sure you install hardware before programs so you can always have 6 cards in hand. Try to always have a fermenter ticking — this is why I really like the influence spend on 3x. Install all your programs, they’re cheap, draw a card and boost Unity/Echelon. Gauss is a flex, own it; I will know if you switched to Pressure Spike.

I’ve heard some suggestions to add cards like Rigging Up or Knickknack, and while I do think they add a new dimension, one of the key reasons I think shaper sometimes fails where crim and anarch don’t is an over reliance on multi card synergies — especially in a deck like Maggie where I want a plump grip, I’d prefer if every card stands close to its own. I also dropped some draw at the last minute after a bunch of games where I was way overdrawing. I personally think since corp is slower, every runner should also have a little less draw and a little more "punishment", but time will tell whether this is true.

I ran Harmony at the last minute because I was concerned about the glacier matchup and think Ashen is the epitome of a deck needing to rely on multi-card synergies. I thought it did me well, it’s sort of a 3rd deep dive and it makes it a lot hard to run out of gas against a deck that makes you pop fermenters early.

How to Beat this Deck

Score by turn 8-9. Your time starts now.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Maninthemoon, azuredarkness, and OF15-15 for organizing a lovely tournament, to xdg, ysengrin, and evie for their support during the tournament, and the lovely comms team for truly turning a low-ish stakes casual tournament into an EVENT.

Thank you to all my testing partners (locally, as well as in QtM and Snarebears) for helping me iterate on this deck. A special shoutout to the NJ community, who showed me the light on Basilar during a GNK a week or two ago (as well as for the lovely dumplings!).

Thank you to my opponents for some really unforgettable games, especially for their patience this tournament where I very aggressively ‘played with my food’, as it were.

And thank you to everyone who has supported me during my job search and the end of my PhD journey. I’m excited to announce I will be moving to Southern Massachusetts to be a teaching professor in the fall (very much my top choice sort of job). I look forward to reconnecting with that community, and not being very far from my Philly/NJ/NY friends!

CheeRs!