Turn of the Sentry.

Heartthrob 2490

20 Sentry Ice. No, not kidding.

This is a concept icebreaker hell deck. With only 9 sentry breakers currently in the game and a lot of decks using tricks to get through those pesky sentry ice...I thought a deck only made up of sentry ice would present a unique problem for the runner.

You'll need money and you'll need to install a lot of ice...it's almost glacier-style HB but the ice are all just punishing. One-shot sentry breakers will not work against the deck, and you should have a Corporate Troubleshooter and cash ready if you see an AI-breaker deck or a Garrote. Pump something during the run to trash those suckers! Also, there are plenty of ETR sentries in here.

With NBN and Weyland sentries splashed, this becomes a very dangerous deck to run against. To give Mimic headaches there are sufficient 4+ strength ice. This is an ice-nightmare deck, so the win-strategy is to hurt them early and keep their rig too damaged to run or keep them scared so that you can quickly get your agendas through. Biotics for the fast end-game if they figure out a way through the sentry gauntlets...

In our current A:NR world of Fast Advance and Kill Combos this might be a different approach to corp shenanigans. A lot of decks will be left with lots of dead draws against this deck (code gate breakers, barrier breakers, and tutors.)

Also, I love decks that can use ABT's ability when they score it. 2x Jack Ho lets you get away with that safely.

22 comments
12 Mar 2014 yeoda

Holy Sentries...

That looks fun to play. I'm glad it's custom biotics. I've been working on building something for this ID.

12 Mar 2014 Jared Inc.

I actually like this idea a lot. Sentries have some teeth and include all of the destroyers so you can remove that killer once it hits the board. A lot of decks will spin their wheels digging for those killers and then lose their steam once you trash a couple of them ensuring they have a very small competitive lifetime.

Much like the professor I could see this getting a lot better with time. The deck will get better as more sentries get released -- for example guard. But what if the runner gets money and a breaker? Oh right, Will o' the Wisp : )

Thanks for sharing.

12 Mar 2014 DeMarko

I love this idea so much, going to have to find an excuse to try it out!

12 Mar 2014 steevo15

This idea is pretty awesome, however there is one thing that confuses me. You have ice that gives tags (notably data raven, muckraker, and to a lesser extent the ichis) but no way to punish the runner with them. Maybe consider finding room for closed accounts? If you don't want to go with any tag punishment I'd pull out the Data Ravens and Muckraker for Caduceus and Snoop (I know the influence doesn't quite work out, with Muckraker being 3 inf and Snoop and Caduceus being 2 inf, but that can be tooled around with)

Caduceus will help with econ, it's ETR, and it's cheap. Snoop can help you snipe out breakers or important econ cards from the runners hand.

12 Mar 2014 steevo15

This idea is pretty awesome, however there is one thing that confuses me. You have ice that gives tags (notably data raven, muckraker, and to a lesser extent the ichis) but no way to punish the runner with them. Maybe consider finding room for closed accounts? If you don't want to go with any tag punishment I'd pull out the Data Ravens and Muckraker for Caduceus and Snoop (I know the influence doesn't quite work out, with Muckraker being 3 inf and Snoop and Caduceus being 2 inf, but that can be tooled around with)

Caduceus will help with econ, it's ETR, and it's cheap. Snoop can help you snipe out breakers or important econ cards from the runners hand.

12 Mar 2014 Crunchums

This deck looks absurdly short on money; I would recommend swapping some ice with some economy cards.

13 Mar 2014 Heartthrob

@Jared, I like the idea of throwing runners off of their set strategies. By flipping archetypes and going against the meta you gain a free advantage in the game that other players are losing.

@Steevo15 I'm a believer in making your opponent believe you do things that you really don't. Tags are good without specific punishment because of the fear factor and the plethora of important resources out there. That said, I like your thinking with Snoop. Snipe those sentry breakers out of their hand right after they special order them! Love it! Snoop is in, maybe for a Data Raven or two.

@Crunchums I don't think it's money short at all, the ice is cheaper than the normal Bioroid suite and there are Econ cards enough to rez stuff. I wouldn't bother boosting very many of the traces, so that's not a factor. Money feels aight.

13 Mar 2014 Nushura

With 3 data raven and 1 Muckracker don't you want a way punish those tags? Psychographics maybe?

13 Mar 2014 HepatitvsJ

I like this idea...I've tinkered with a heavy Sentry deck before as a way to punish runners for using disposable/ineffiecient sentry breakers. (Faerie/Femme) I still recommend 3 barrier ICE and 3 Code gate ICE. the tempo loss of having to find the appropriate breaker for one or two ICE is worth the include. I would suggest 3 NEXT Bronze, and 3 Wraparound. Both are stupid cheap and require the runner to find solutions. NEXT is more succeptible to parasite silliness but wraparound isn't unless they dig for a breaker first. Corporate troubleshoter will make a program trash stick when the runner wasn't expecting it to and force them to dig another breaker back out. whether you trash sentry or not. (even better, a sentry AND a fractor/decoder) Here's what I would suggest for ICE (no snoop. it's a nice thought but troubleshotter is going to do more to trash programs than snoop at that 6 rez cost) 3 Wraparound (3INF), 3 NEXT Bronze, 3 Rototurret, 3 Caduceus (6INF), 2 ICHI 1.0, 3 Fenris (replace with guard when H&P drops), 3 Grim. plenty of pain in this build with vetrans program mitigating some BP. I would recommend -2 Profiteering for +2 Gila hands arcology. The 2click/3c economy will be more stable and lose less than a profiteering which is really only a win more type of card. I would also go -2 shipment from mirrormorph for +1 Jackho, and +1 Adonis campaign. -1 project ares for +1 project vitruvious. youwant to score as often as possible and over scoring an Ares requires telgraohing your agenda vs a bluff of no advance which could be a Jackho or Adonis and discourage a run absent an expose effect. I would also go -2 restructure for +2 Blue level clearance. like restructure, BLC isn' a card you want early game but will do a lot late game, with your gila arcology you should still have plenty of money. I know I've completely remade the deck but I think there's a lot of value in alternate ICE just to force a breaker. :)

13 Mar 2014 x3r0h0ur

I noticed long ago that sentries were always the least effective at stopping the runner. By themselves. What they are good at it costing cash. This should be hilarious fun, but I think it needs more cash. Let me see what I can do.

13 Mar 2014 Heartthrob

@HepatitvsJ, ...I actually did consider going with -3 ABT, -2 Vitruvius, -2 Ares, -2 CS, -2 Shipments, -2 Fenris, -4 Ichis, -2 Rototurrets, -2 Uro, -1 Flare, -2 Data Raven, -3 Adonis and adding +3 scorched, +2 SEA source, +3 Power Shutdown, +3 Accelerated Diagnostics, +3 Paper Wall, +1 Jack Ho, +2 Midseason and -1 HB Identity and +1 Weyland Identity and going for a kill deck...

...

@x3rOhOur I see your point. In order to maximize the fun-ness the econ may need some more love like @Crunchums said. Some options might be Subliminal Messaging, Celebrity Gift or another Asset economy set. I think Profiteering is out in favor of Gila Hands like @Hep suggested. Keep thinking on this. I know that the Gabe decks I've been playing against lately would struggle against this because a lot of them depend heavily on Faerie and Mimic as their sentry breakers.

13 Mar 2014 x3r0h0ur

So the issue I see is that sentries actually make other ice work/work better. I couldn't find enough low-cost ETR sentries to prevent an early game buttrape. But my changes included 3xFlare, 3x fenris, added 2 heimdalls defeating the theme, but still, having an ice that bites when they think "Okay this guy only has sentries" is hilarious.

My changes were to include 3 Oversight AI, 3 Bioroid Efficiency research to substitute for econ, and bumped to 3 green level 3 blue level and 3 hedge fund. GLC/BLC is to draw new ice to replace the 'temporary' or cheated ice, and draw more econ. Just a thought, see where it takes you.

13 Mar 2014 Heartthrob

Very very nice. If I go the Oversight/Bioroid Efficiency route I would consider more high-cost sentries as well...another Archer, Ichi 2.0 perhaps? A late game Barrier would be hilarious...and that's really the idea behind the sentry-only theme. I am resistant to anything non-sentry just because I want that notch in my belt for winning with no barriers or code gates haha!

The first version of this I had 3x of Blue and Green Level...I've never played Blue in a deck so I wasn't sure how it would play. I think I'll include those though.

Thx for the feedback bro!

14 Mar 2014 Fry

Hate the drawback on the ID...I keep thinking of Jinteki cards that would be perfect for the deck, argh. Swordsman to chop AIs or Chum as a super cheap non-sentry that makes your sentries way better...but nope. :/

Agreed with the comments that it looks light on economy. Also, Project Ares doesn't seem like it would ever hit anything useful, but maybe it's been working for you. If you're playing 4/2s in HB I like Efficiency Committee even if you don't have Shipment tricks to go with it, because in the worst case it gives you a refund of 3 credits after you score it.

16 Mar 2014 chiefyk

I've been playing this style of deck in Jinteki for months. It's very effective.

11 May 2014 GPWK

I'm a Dagger Runner personally, but I'd hate to come up against this. Such hate.

20 May 2014 Gondii

I really like this deck, though I have only played it once. I was wondering why you opted to use Corporate Troubleshooter instead of Tyr's Hand. In combination with Ichi 1.0 or Ichi 2.0 (and to some extent Sherlock 1.0) you could remove whatever program they used to break the sentry.

23 Jul 2014 gnouff

Hi Heartthrob,

I would like to thanks you to publish your deck, because I tweak your deck using the ID HB ETF with similar spirit of yours, see here: netrunnerdb.com

17 Sep 2014 Zepaw

I've only tried it a few times but I lost miserably each because I was flat broke. It only had a small amount of Econ cards so if they're in the bottom half of the deck I have a handful of ICE and agendas with no money!

13 Apr 2015 Lttlefoot

Will-o'-the-Wisp could be a good addition to this deck

30 May 2015 juliandark

There was this deck some time ago, called "uncorrodable" that run only barriers with will o wisp and power shutdown. But back then 90% people were running corroder as their barrier breaker and other breakers were quite often more expensive, so you jsut kept trashing those corroders and returning them back to stack if the runner did get through. You might want to try something simmilar with sentries, why not, but this janky deck won't be it. But I think the idea isn't a bad one, it will just be hard to execute, as sentries don't have a single focus (like ETR for barriers) so it's hard to base the deck on a single strategy.

30 May 2015 Heartthrob

@juliandark this deck is wayyyy old...and wasn't even playable then (look at all that Econ and BP!). People liked the idea at that time in the game and I think the deck name is pretty great so that helped it's popularity. But yeah...you're probably right.