Gentrification, Renovation, and Compensation

shadygrove 7

This is a deck I made because I love the flavor and mechanics of the Renovation agendas, and wanted to combine that with the transaction bonus from the Core set ID. I didn't see a similar deck listed here, and I would love if some more experienced players could test this deck and put it through its rigors. Most of my group is pretty new to Netrunner, and we have a super-wacky, non-representative meta. So that said, welcome to:

Gentrification, Renovation, and Compensation: Building a Better World (Right on top of the old one)

This deck is all about immediate satisfaction. The agendas all have potential to affect the board state, and all become very powerful if you manage to protect them well enough to over-advance them. I think it's been well demonstrated how good Oaktown Renovations is, but its older brother Hollywood Renovations is even better. Overadvanced, you can score out 4/2 agendas in a single turn, you can give your Fire Wall +6 strength in a single turn, or you can make an immense amount of money by trashing a Project Junebug with a Back Channels.

Since your cash generation is all transaction-based, all you have to ice up are two remote servers. Ideally, one will end up with a Hollywood Renovation, and one will probably hold Jackson Howard or The Root (or a Project Junebug). Speaking of the junebug, the playset exists in this deck to protect the one face-down agenda (Hades Shard in my list, but FarCryFromHuman pointed out that Utopia Shard would almost certainly be better. I agree, but I haven't switched mine out because I play against tons of Noise, but if I were to play a tournament elsewhere, I certainly would.)

Flavor-wise, I think this deck is awesome. The flavor on each of the main agendas bleeds into the gameplay in a really appreciable way. With Underway Renovation, Weyland pours tons of money into buying up huge chunks of the old city, capturing contacts and confiscating hardware, and forcing runners to abandon carefully-laid plans in a former sanctuary. Oaktown is pretty obvious: pave the ghettos and bring the money in, SanSan's a Big City and Big People want to move in, regardless of who already lives there!

The deck also completely rejects resorting to any violence or illegal activity, and focuses on building a strong defense and getting value out of over-advancing the agendas. If your hand is right, you can sometimes score out really quickly using Hollywood Renovations, or you can advance your many advancable ice for really appreciable advantage. There are enough transactions that you really do make enough money, even against tons of Account Syphons. Not having to put out assets to make money (Besides The Root, but honestly you can take that out, I just love the flavor of the card and how central it is to the Android settings. Plus you can net tons of money with Oakland Renovations and those recurring credits.).

I've talked more about my card choices and the deck strategy in the comments, and I regret that I couldn't link the cards in my description. I'm editing a previous description, and I'm unable to access the markup shortcuts. If someone can point out to me how to do so, I would gladly go back and link cards up.

8 comments
19 Aug 2015 aermet69

Right off the bat, I think I'd cut the Junebugs for something else. Anything really. Perhaps some stronger ICE. Since almost all your Agenda play face-up, a face-down advanced card look quite supicious. It might work early, but if I've already seen you advance an Oaktown and stole a Hollywood and/or an Underway Renovation then I might not jump your Junebug.

19 Aug 2015 LynxMegaCorp

Casting Call is your friend here!

19 Aug 2015 FarCryFromHuman

@Lynx Kuroneko Why would he want Casting Call? He has no tag punishment at all... And he'd be better off running Corporate Town for asset trashing. That would be wonderful punishment for letting an Underway Renovation score if it wasn't practical to over-advance it.

I'd strongly consider Utopia Fragment over Hades Fragment. When scored it makes your over-advanced agendas rather unassailable. If you run Media Blitz, you can even use the ability when the runner scores the fragment!

19 Aug 2015 shadygrove

Thank you all for your comments!:

@aermet69 I know that the junebugs are kind of bad, and I was going to mention that you can pretty much cut the playset of junebugs and the 1 back channels and have a much more optimized deck. I run them to support the hades fragment, because I really want to score it, because I play against a lot of noise.I actually think the ice are pretty strong, but I do think they have room to be optimized. I've only played it against like 5 different decks or so, and I would like to get many more games in against noise, and really everything.

Also: The Root is because I am bad, and I think it's the best. I want to put it in every Weyland deck because it's the space elevator. Other than those cards, I think the deck runs very well, and has a lot of strengths (it's really easy to come back from account syphons, or spending lots of money to rez ice in a turn. All the benefits associated with having a mostly untrashable deck.

@Lynx Kuroneko Casting call is cool but I need all my influence for j-how and all the transactions and all that.

@FarCryFromHumanOh my god Utopia Fragment is so amazing, and it's probably way better if I'm going to stick with the bugs. Like I said, deep down in my heart I know that Hades Fragment is kind of weak as my only face-down agenda, I just play against a ton of noise. Utopia fragment seems very strong, and I think I will consider running it in the future.

Sorry my initial comments weren't more thorough, I was (and continue to be) really excited about the deck.

19 Aug 2015 shadygrove

The general strategy with the deck is two maintain two remote servers, install things like junebugs or j-hows (or maybe The Root,). Sometimes you can start out with an aggressive face-up Hollywood Renovation, if you have an advancable ice to put in front of it (or a Spiderweb, or an Enigma). This deck intentionally competely eschews damage-dealing and tag-giving, in favor of focusing on intensive defense of your two remote servers. The large deck size and point-density of the agendas mean that HQ and R&D runs are less fruitful (but much swingier), and the density of operations and ice make disruption strategies difficult. There's plenty of ice to protect 4-5 servers, especially if you use Meru Mati in appropriate slot.

I've played this deck mostly against decks with very powerful breakers (Torch, and Garrote, and Battering Ram), and it was still prohibitively expensive to get through, and I was able to get the Hollywood Renovations up past 20 counters.

The mechanic of the face-up agendas is very novel to me (especially as a newer player), and that's why I want to play a ton of games with it and share it with you guys to critique.

19 Aug 2015 LynxMegaCorp

I am simply pointing out that Casting Call is a natural fit for this deck (having mostly public agendas). You'd only need to get rid of the Junebugs, and 1 of each Clearance. The threat of Scorched is enough to deter runs and you can actually include one or two for punishment.

Its called considering the alternatives / options, FarCry.

20 Aug 2015 FarCryFromHuman

@Lynx Kuroneko This was a rather hostile response. Maybe if you'd chosen to explain why Casting Call was a good option (Scorched Earth vs Project Junebug) you'd be within your rights to be short. Even then, I feel you could be more gracious. This is a discussion space. Please try to be more courteous. Your language is callous.

21 Aug 2015 shadygrove

Thanks for both of your input, and I'm sure nobody was trying to upset anyone. I've actually thought a bit about the junebugs (as well as played the deck more), and I think they (together with the back channel) are actually good. Protecting the face-down agenda (Hades or Utopia Shard, depending on how you want to go) is a huge advantage and I don't think a ton of people run expose cards. So if they know about my junebugs, it actually gives me a potential advantage in scoring out Hades. Plus, the Back Channels (I might make room for another one) allows you to pull a ton of money off a junebug once it has outlived its usefulness.

I think Scorched Earth could be a fine choice to switch out and present a similar threat (although it wouldn't protect your agenda, and you would have to switch out ice to add tags probably), but it would be super hard to make influence room for SEA Source or whatever. Blue Level Clearance looks rough (and it can be), but I'm always quite happy with it. I could see knocking down the number to 2, but I like it at 3 for now. One thing about Casting Call: This deck was actually initially going to be built around it, but I wanted to do the transaction ID so the influence was too restrictive.

Keep in mind this deck is all about preparing two remote servers and getting them iced up, so junebug keeps the seat warm and provides cover for what is an integral card in my meta (Hades Shard). Three people play noise out of the 6 most frequent players. As an aside, I know about Cyberdex Virus Suite, I just hate dead cards (in corp especially, I feel it is more forgivable with runners to run 'silver bullets') and can't bring myself to do it.

I'm really pumped about this deck, I just don't live in a region/live a lifestyle where I can get to a tournament with more than 8 people. I'm hoping someone in a more entrenched group could test it out, and maybe run it (or a version optimized for a different meta, probably) and do well. Just because Netrunner is a really awesome card game with a great community from what I've seen so far, and I feel like the more decks are viable in the most competitive events, the more that speaks for the strength of the game.