The Devil Wears Prāna (1st @ NANPC Montéal 2024)

(Thank you to 0thmxma for the gifs)

I’ve been putting off writing this decklist. Mostly because I’ve been sick, but also because I know as soon as I post it, JNet casual will be once again jammed with broken Hiros giving Personal Evolution a last chance power drive. In fact, I started making this deck because I got so frustrated at 59 “every card that says net damage” PE, back at the beginning of the year. So, here, I’m going to teach y’all how to play PE properly. Sorry, not sorry. I’m also going to teach y’all how to play against PE and other trap decks, so that should hopefully balance my karma out.

A fundamental truth of Netrunner is that the corp player sets the tempo of the game. Runners may try and disrupt that tempo, but it is up to the corp to set it in the first place. So, when playing trap decks, the onus is on the corp to force the runner to run. This is true of all corp decks, but trap decks especially (also, I know they're technically ambush decks, but trap deck is the common parlance.) Corps’ win conditions are scoring 7 points or flatlining the runner; only the runner wins by decking out the corp. If you can’t threaten to win on points, the runner can just sit back and click for 4c every turn until you deck yourself out. This means that if you want the runner to run into a Snare! it’s on you to force them to do so.

So, how do you force the runner to run? The best way is by threatening to score out. To that end, you’ll note that my PE has an aggressively score-oriented (scoriented?) agenda suite. Namely, 3x Blood in the Water, 2x Fujii Asset Retrieval, and 2x Regenesis. As well as doubling as kill pieces if the runner ends at 0 or 1 cards in grip, the BitWs let me punish low grip size by scoring 2 points. I’ll gladly spend a turn IAA a 2/2 BitW, even if it doesn't flatline the runner. It pushes me closer to winning, it puts one of my most vulnerable agendas in the safest place in the game, and it pings a damage. Likewise with Regenesis. While the ideal scenario is to use a Regenesis to score a Fujii, even a Sting! or BitW are good targets. Remember, the more points you have in your score area, the fewer you have in your deck, and the more desperate the runner is going to be.

The other way to force the runner to run is high-threat assets. In this deck, that’s Prana Condenser, Bladderwort, and Reaper Function. Prana Condenser is great because it allows you to score agendas with neutral or even positive tempo, while still threatening to flatline them. That it prevents the damage is irrelevant, because your primary goal is forcing the runner to run, not attritioning them. Bladderwort is one of the most annoying cards ever printed and demands the runner’s attention. And Reaper Function can set up all kinds of kill combos.

Let’s talk about kill combos. With a deck like this, there isn’t one guaranteed kill combo. Instead, you’re cobbling together threats as best you can with whatever you have on hand. You’ll often kill with a 4 or 5 card combo. Always be aware of how much damage you can do on your turn.

The rest of the assets are ones that accelerate my plan of scoring out. Cohort Guidance Program both draws you cards and gains credits, but it can also be used to help advance and score out agendas (Two Cohorts and two facedowns in archives threatens to score a Fujii for example). Cohort is also great at putting facedown agendas in archives for Regenesis to score. Rashida Jaheem is the best threat a facedown card can be. And Regolith is just good money.

That leaves us with two splash cards, Hostile Architecture and Angelique Garza Correa. Both of these do roughly the same thing, which is leave the runner in a vulnerable state if they trash your assets. A server that’s Bladderwort and Angelique behind an Anemone with a Hostile Architecture naked beside it, is minimum 6 damage to disassemble, which usually leaves the runner vulnerable to score or kill combos.

Lastly, I want to talk about ice. I’ve often said, “Corps lose on centrals and win on remotes,” and that’s especially true for trap decks. If your remote game becomes too dangerous for them to play, the runner is instead going to focus on centrals. The ice for this deck is dirt cheap, mostly in the 1-3 credit range, while still being annoying to deal with. This is to help keep us in Bladderwort range, while still being able to rez threats. The only one out of that range are the Saisentans, which I think I would cut. They used to be an Anansis, but the credits of the deck were too inconsistent for Anansi. I might experiment with other ice in this slot, or Snare!s even.

So, how do you play against PE? Well, the first step is to assess your decklist and ask yourself what are the bare minimum cards you need to play the game. Usually, that’ll be your breakers, and some form of Slow money. Dig for those cards and get them down as soon as you draw them. That will give you the ability to treat everything else in your deck as precious hit points.

The other things you want to look at your decklist for are Draw More cards (i.e. cards that will draw you cards at a better rate than clicking to draw), recursion, multiaccess and disruption. Draw More cards will let you draw back up to a safe grip after being aggressive or overdrawing in order to be aggressive. Cards that let you draw on the corp’s turn are especially valuable, like Anicam or Stoneship Chart Room. Multi-access, especially multi-access that looks but doesn’t touch (like Deep Dive or Stargate), will let you avoid traps and hammer centrals better (which is again, where you’ll win). Disruption will help you disarm death servers easier and better, Cupellation to deal with Hostile Architecture or Pinhole Threading to dodge an Angelique for example. Lastly, recursion, especially recursion that puts cards back in your grip or heap, will give you more hit points to avoid being ground out.

That’s just looking at your deck. There’s also changing how you play to deal with trap decks. Firstly, curb your aggression. As a runner, you might be used to being aggressive early game, especially while you don’t have a rig down, but let the corp come to you. Focus on setting up first. One you don’t want to lose key cards from your grip before you get started – you want to attack from a place of strength. And two, corps will typically put down “feeler” cards first to gauge your playstyle, Sting!s, Hyperloops, etc. that will either slow you down or speed them up. Don’t run until you have to, and then, make your runs impactful.

Okay, you’re ready to run, but where and how? You’re going to want to focus on aggressing centrals first rather than playing their remote game. Make R&D and HQ feel vulnerable to the corp. One, there’s a lot fewer things that can hurt you in centrals. You can disarm ambushes like Cerebral Overwriter or Angelique. You can also dig for and use your disruption cards here. You can’t hit a Snare! during a Diversion of Funds or Burner. Two, if HQ feels vulnerable and you’ve been ignoring the remotes, then the corp’s going to start playing their most highest value agendas into the remotes. Only once the fear of losing on centrals is in the corp’s mind are you’re going to want to start hitting remotes.

How you run is just as important. Take it slow, trap decks are often not great at scoring out, so you’ve got time. Against PE, say, if you start the turn on 5 cards in grip, make your risky runs click one or two. That gives you enough time to draw back up and clear tags in case you hit a bad Snare! or Sting! If you don’t hit anything good in those first two runs, it might be tempting to run on the back two clicks, that’s the devil talking. As long as the corp isn’t threatening to win next turn, you don’t need to be super aggressive. Back off and either make safe runs (running rezzed assets that won’t hurt you) or just click for creds and bide your time.

Speaking of threatening to win, try to keep in mind how the trap deck could win, and play around those specifically. If the corp has 3 facedowns they haven’t rezzed for a long time and at least 9 credits, they could be threatening triple Reaper Function, so it might be good to check one of them. You only need to check one remote (a moderately risky play) not all three of them in one turn (very high risk). This is obviously much easier in the cut, when decklists are open and you can see whether or not the corp is on See How They Run and End of the Line or not. But accessing centrals is a great way of gleaning what kill lines the corp will be trying to force.

Also keep in mind how your meta cards and disruption can counteract their win conditions. If you’ve got a No Free Lunch and PE has been Mitosising a bunch of double advanced cards and you’ve seen an EotL, keep that NFL on the board and don’t pop it for the money. If you’ve got Clot, use that to prevent BitW kills. And so on.

Alright, hopefully you’ve learned something from all that! If not, well just go back to playing every net damage card in one bad deck and frustrating everyone on JNet. And you may as well just wear a burlap sack while you’re doing it.