The Psychopath

Card draw simulator
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Nordrunner 4158

I have been playing this deck for quite awhile, and I would say it has stood the test of time in being able to pull out wins on a consistent basis. For a full explanation of the deck go here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj94DCNkBhg

You pretty much need to abolish traditional corp strategies when playing this deck. It is a different animal.

Here is the focus of the deck. Make them lose their cards anyway possible. Once runners hand is low on cards, use these as windows to score agendas, especially Fetal AI. Otherwise you can Trick of Light easily for points, and also play the game of laying 3 remotes in a turn, one(usually) being an agenda. I prefer not to do that, but often times it is very effective, and you need to be ready to do it if the timing is right. That is the benefit of playing ***Braintrust, and other 3/X agendas.

Knowing how to read your opponent is very important to make this deck work optimally. Use their tendencies against them. This is where the name of the deck comes from. Find their soft spot and exploit them. If they are checking every face down card, play a lot of assets in remotes. If they are timid, casually score in empty remotes. Most runners will be somewhere in between, and will fluctuate within the game. Find the "rhythm" of the game, and stay one step ahead of the runner. As an example, some players have a tendency to run HQ a lot, or are inexplicably in love with playing Legwork against this deck. I will make sure I keep traps in hand versus archives or remotes to ensure I will punish them. Additionally, I might do things like advance an ICE wall twice just so they think I might be getting ready to fast advance, but really it's baiting them to run and hopefully Legwork the hand. There are a lot of "plays" in the "playbook". It's very sadistic and fun to toy with the runner.

House of Knives just compounds all of this, opens up more scoring windows, and has the enormous benefit of flexibility of when you want to use it. No need to be reckless with the counters if you can use them to help score you more points.

Once you master finding or creating windows to score, you can be deadly with this deck. You will always be a threat to flatline, and scoring will obviously just force the runner to take more risks. This is when the deck shines the most, as there is a small margin of error for the runner.

I think this deck is all the mind games without a lot risk of losing time and money into wasted traps. All and all, it is a very fun and competitive deck. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I have.

***Important to note that I think the deck is better with Braintrust instead of Medical Breakthrough. Some would argue differently, but I prefer the the ease always being able to score a Braintrust. I just am not sure how to make any changes to the deck once it's published, otherwise I would change that.

18 comments
10 Jul 2014 fateswanderer

Comparing to the Youtube video it seems you went back to Medical Breakthrough (from Braintrust) and replaced Neural EMP with Shock! (which your Youtube comment implies is about cost, multiple uses, and deterrence).

10 Jul 2014 Nordrunner

I think I was using an old deck list and forgot to change back to Braintrust. Medical Breakthrough works also quite well, but am partial to braintrust for how easy it is to score.

10 Jul 2014 hi_impact

After you talked about this deck on that BadPubs livecast, I was always curious about it. Thanks for posting.

10 Jul 2014 Sojourne

Highly fun, highly approved!

11 Jul 2014 Alsciende

You can't change a decklist once it's published, but the difference is somewhat minor and anybody reading your description will get it.

Nice deck. Very interesting. It must lead to very tense games!

11 Jul 2014 CodeMarvelous

This deck is amazing. I am 6/0 with it on octgn. it doesnt look like much but its fun to play

11 Jul 2014 Nordrunner

@scourgedGlad you checked out the livecast, I was pretty excited to finally publish it.

@SojourneThanks! Glad you like it :)

@AlsciendeThanks for the info, and ya, very tense! Considering how much I dislike playing agsaint Jinteki PE, the interesting thing is that a lot of runners have commented how fun it was to play against as well. I found that pretty cool! Must be that psychopath charm. >:)

@CodeMarvelous Good call, it really doesn't look like much. I think what makes it so fun is the high number of "plays" and combinations you can make. with only 10 ICE, it opens it up for other fun cards to play around with. You can play it super tricky, or pretty tight to the chest. It is very unpredictable as to what will be the best play or strategy in a game, have to be flexible and ready to do anything. Glad you're having success with it too! :)

12 Jul 2014 Ajar

If you update your private version of the decklist and then publish it again with a revised name (e.g. The Psychopath v1.1), the new list will include a link to the previous version under "descended from."

16 Jul 2014 Baotus

@Nordrunner — How do you handle the economy in this deck? Not a rhetorical question at all; it seems like you might be able to run pretty low on credits here. I'm looking forward to trying your deck out, maybe swapping in a Subliminal somewhere — do you think that would jibe with your typical game plan?

17 Jul 2014 MEGAREKT

This deck wrecks. I'm 3/0 with it right now. As a side note, I find that the deck that don't look particularly awesome are the best decks. That probably just means that I'm bad at judging what is good in a Netrunner deck. Anyway, megaprops to you, @Nordrunner, this deck is beastly.

17 Jul 2014 Nordrunner

@Baotus A lot of clicking for credits. Which is actually fine. 4-6 credits is optimal and even after a siphon it's not that hard to get back to. A lot of times the deck will do just fun even with 2-3 credits depending on the situation. I have been meaning to add a Subliminal Messaging, I think it would probably be pretty good.

@MEGAREKT Thanks a lot! I am really glad you enjoy it. :)

17 Jul 2014 Nordrunner

@Baotus A lot of clicking for credits. Which is actually fine. 4-6 credits is optimal and even after a siphon it's not that hard to get back to. A lot of times the deck will do just fun even with 2-3 credits depending on the situation. I have been meaning to add a Subliminal Messaging, I think it would probably be pretty good.

@MEGAREKT Thanks a lot! I am really glad you enjoy it. :)

17 Jul 2014 Baotus

Yeah, it does seem like clicking for credits would often be fine with such cheap ice.

Now that I have your blessing, I'm going to sub in one Subliminal (going down to 2 Shi-Kyu) and take it to league tonight. :D

I was thinking about taking out a Snare but then I watched your video about the deck and felt kinda dumb about it. You can often "sell" the runner net damage for pretty cheap with Shi-Kyu, though — both are good cards.

31 Jul 2014 w1kk

Have you played against net shield? Seems like it should destroy your plan pretty heavily, since tori hanzo becomes blank and you cant give them a flatline as easily (it seems really hard actually). I know it's not really played in the meta, but if this kind of deck prospers, it just seems to wreck you

3 Aug 2014 DarkPeon

I have found this deck pretty awesome. As far as Net shield, I played against it and it didn't really nullify Tori, since there are usually multiple sources of net damage: ICE, Hokusai, House of Knives', PE Identity. With this deck, I'm almost guaranteed to give the runner 1 or 2 brain damage. Seems like DeusX and Public Sympathy can give me a hard time.

3 Aug 2014 w1kk

The thing is Tori only activates on the first net damage, if they prevent it, then you cant activate Tori, ever, because it's not the first net damage, it's the second. That's why I ask, I find it hard to deal with Net Shield. I know nobosy plays it, but if PE gets popular, it might appear more often.

3 Aug 2014 DarkPeon

I think you may be right. The text on Tori reads "The first time you WOULD do any amount of net damage during each run on this server, instead you may pay 2cr to DO 1 brain damage" I misread as the "first time you DO any amount of net damage during.."

However, even tho the first net damage is prevented isn't it still damage I WOULD have done, so why doesn't Tori still trigger the DO 1 brain damage still trigger?

3 Aug 2014 w1kk

It's in the FAQ, but since it's the runners turn, they get priority in activation, so they prevent it before you turn it into brain damage. It's a bummer, but you would need to do 2 net damage to make it work, so they prevent one, but you would still do 1.