The Art of Intrusion 106: Extra-curricular

HolyMackerel 1496

"I'm so glad to see all of you back here in one piece. You're in a dangerous line of work. One error and you can have your brains fried by an errant energy spike. Nonetheless, I've been impressed with your work up until this point, and I can only imagne what you will achieve when you surpass me. But I'm not going to just roll over and die; prove you're worthy successors to my legacy."

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Building a Professor deck isn't a simple goal; it's a process.

First, do NOT simply netdeck this deck and take it to a tournament. By all means, copy it and play it. But don't expect it to work perfectly for you. You need to adjust the breaker suite, the support programs, and manage your deckslots very carefully. Use this as a shell, and rebuild it from there.

Latest changes to my deck are:

I've finally cut a "normal" decoder. Instead the package is 2x CyCy and a Yog.0, which is more than enough to deal with whatever you need. A single Gordian is good, but I've found the install cost clunky and the returns rather lacking. You rarely see too strong code gates these days, Tollbooth and Archangel excluded, so a CyCy is often enough to deal with it.

The return of Nerve Agent was very warranted, as I found that a single Imp simply wasn't good enough HQ pressure. The threat of Incubator or Sneakdoor Beta is real, as accessing the entirety of HQ is no joke if you time it right.

Paricia is being tested. It's useful to stem the tempo-loss of keeping assetspam decks in check, as you can spend your clicks on drawing and installing rather than clicking for Opus money all the time.

Deck space has been freed up, so a single, lonely Test Run has found it's way back into the deck. The 7th Magnum Opus more than anything else, it's also useful recursion if you're out of Clone Chips, or if you need to Femme some obnoxious ICE for a single turn.

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Matchup tips

Meat: Imp is your best friend ever ever. Trash Scorches with wild abandon. Magnum Opus is your second best friend ever if they try to trace you.

Cambridge Net Damage: Deus X is your best friend ever. Your second best friend ever is Keyhole. Dismantle their decks, run remotes only if absolutely necessary. Don't play the shell game. Pressure centrals, Parasite anklebiters, and Imp economy from their hand.

FastAdvance: #SlotTheClot is as true as ever. Learn the timing windows and snatch their agendas then. When you think they're getting ready to score, spring a Nerve Agent on them and snatch that from hand. Your win is probably going to come from abusing Medium and efficient runs, so build up to to that endgame.

Rush: Keep your SMC's ready until the last possible moment. They will try to sneak agendas out behind cheap gearchecks, thinking you're too slow to catch them. Use Nerve Agent to stop them from storing agendas in hand. Force them into remotes, and snipe 'em from your workshop.

Glacier: Run early and often. Glacier decks thrive on slow runners, but you are not one of them. With Opus up, you can force them to rez Ice with Faerie in play, and spread them thin. D4v1d is your best friend, Scavenge it often. Sneakdoor Beta can spread them too thin to properly protect themselves, and Opus economy beats them in the long run.

Combo: Look for the telltale signs (Jacksons in HQ, Power Shutdowns, Accelerated Diagnostics) If you can sniff them out as combo decks, you can get rid of their combo pieces with Imp and Keyhole, allowing you to stay alive until your lategame. If your opponent is playing Haarpsichord, Titan or Blue Sun, be on the lookout for the signs of combo.

Museum Assetspam: Shoot yourself in the mouth? No, we have game against them as well. Incubator is king here, as it provides passive pressure. Magnum Opus can keep you in cash to trash the most important Assets while your incubator builds. If they're not running Hostile Infrastructure, or you can trash them, Keyhole can take advantage of their low ICE count to shred R&D of recursion if there's no Museum out.

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"So, come on then! Prove to me that you're worthy to call yorselves Runners! You must be able to adapt, change, and build yourselves anew. The net is your playground, and anything can be done here. There will be those out there that will spit on your dreams, saying you are a fool for believing. But you are the future, they are the past. New technology destroys the old."

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