Banjo Kerblooie

What's Cooler Than Being Cool? ICE Cold! ══════════════════════════════════════════════════ This iteration of Thunderbolt Fantasy revolves around one simple, quirky design choice. These are all of these pieces of ice that I really like. I am going to use them.

So, as some forewarning, this is mostly being built more or less 'post-rotation brained', as that's more or less how I'm already playing with my beautiful wife (the only person I really play Netrunner with lmao). That being said, until the sacred number of April 32nd or whenever we have rotation this deck list will probably not be to par ( Rashida please come back ;^;).

That being said, the deck should hopefully still be somewhat functional even without the super cool stuff like Rashida and Gatekeep Gatekeep Gatekeep.

The Basic Strategy ══════════════════════════════════════════════════

Basic Strategy of this deck is more or less simple. Use some Click Compression to cheaply and/or efficiently go about your turn ( RLC to Draw Two and Install or Install Gain a Credit, Greasy Palms to Install Gain Credits etc). Try to get some mean spirited ice and an agenda down pretty quickly, and then just sit back and start scoring I guess.

Thunderbolt Fantasy does a LOT of work here in this scenario.

Tithe and Anemone is something that some other cool cat has done before ( With Teeth ). Honestly it's just so good to have pretty cheap ice, one of which is super impactful (Anemone) in putting the fear of god in the runner and also coming with a nice, conditional [End the Run] Subroutine to stop people from doing things ( This is not allowed ).

There's a decent enough splashing of low cost Agendas and Seamless Lunches that we can hopefully advance some things decently quickly. Alternatively, there's enough mean spirited ice in here that gets improved by Thunderbolt Fantasy that, unless shenanigans are abound, we can probably feel pretty safe in just being a silly little Glacier (the end goal anyway).

All of the Agendas that we score do things that move our gameplan forward. Midnight-3 Arcology refills the hand swiftly (something that we tend to run out of pretty fast, especially due to The Hansen Review). Alternatively, Stegodon MK IV let's us do the Thunderbolt thing of flipping Ice we want to continuously rez right back facedown while strengthening our other Ice. Project Vitruvius is just an all star, easy to advance and score, even better for recycling cards from Archives. And while Send a Message is a powerful card, and one that I'd like to run in higher numbers, it more or less exists to give a 10 Credit Discount on Tyr tbh. So for now it's at a solid one.

Besides that this is just an honest deck. Once you more or less have your setup of Install Ice Ice you can just start building up from there. Get a value server, ice up your Centrals, build up more Ice on your Scoring Server then just score score score.

The Ice Package ══════════════════════════════════════════════════

I know. I know. I'm sorry. I'm tired of being Bloop.

That being said, as much as it would probably be the right play to include the entire Harmonics Package in 2s and 3s, I'm just not a particularly big fan. The Harmonics Ice require clicks, and deck space, and and specific cards in hand, and flipping those Ice and dealing with weak subroutines and so on and so on and honestly

I'd rather just have Ice that gives me immediate payoff because that's just what I'm here for.

That being said, our Ice Package can be broken down into the following;

● Early Game Ice
► Anemone
► Tithe
► Saisentan

Saisentan is a pet card through and through. And I know what you must be thinking. Monica (you understand that this is my name implicitly), Saisentan is pretty expensive to be flipped turn one. Honestly, Saisentan is largely an early game Ice in my opinion and that's how I think it should be used in this deck. It's the worlds most violent facecheck, a 3 to 6 Net Damage Juggernaut that has 4 Subroutines (one of which ends the run). Without a doubt if someone tickles a Saisentan without proper protection they're in for a really bad time. Even if its a weak Ice overall, Saisentan still gets pretty solid improvements from Brasilia Government Grid and Stegodon so its not like its unusable late game, but it's definitely here to grind a facechecker's face into paste. With things like Greasing the Palm, Hedge Fun, RLC and Vovo, I can foresee us rolling a Saisentan over turn one without a /major/ economic loss.

The other early game Ice is really easy to explain. Tithe with a End the Run is just a decent facecheck that costs us basically nothing to flip and stop our opponent. If someone wants to sacrifice a piece of equipment for a /Tithe/ then they can be my guest.

Anemone as previously stated just puts the fear of God into someone. Cheap Ice, can be unrezzed and rerezzed for great value, it doesn't have to kill anyone even. Net Damage is Net Damage, its cards out of hand, disruption. Resources, somewhere, are spent. That's all that matters for a 3 Cost Ice as far as I'm concerned.

Both Tithe and Anemone also act as our 'Flip Fodder' later on as well. With both of them being supremely cheap to flip (especially with Grandad) and Anemone in particular having that very nasty effect on rez, it becomes easy to see Tithe and Anemone as investing in a value engine early game.

● Late Game Ice
► Tyr

I mean, come on.

That being said, with it being so disgustingly expensive to even rez we likely won't be doing so anytime early unless we pop off with an Architect Deployment Test or Send a Message. That's not to say we can't ever hard cast this guy though. I think we have enough tempo-based econ that I think we can wing it all things considered, especially as Threat increases thanks to Grandad.

It's also, of course, supremely worth it to rez with Thunderbolt as it gains even more Strength and an additional Subroutine, and can only stand to become even stronger with Stegodon and Brasilia.

● Value/Singles Ice
► Magnet
► Ansel
► Hagen
► Drafter

Magnet is just a nice one of honestly, nothing more complicated than that.

Ansel is another really expensive option, one that could be viewed as 'Late Game' but I don't know if it's going to be so impactful upon it flipping that I can say, hell yeah we're in late stage capitalism baby like I would with Tyr.

Hagen just feels like another nice, early game Ice that /can/ be used, although its not a part of the main strategy of either Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap or Suffer. It's not easily flippable multiple times and it has trouble keeping it up midway through the session. Loser behavior, but it beats Roto-Turret and it still gets a solid buff from Thunderbolt so we're fine with it I guess.

Drafter all in all is just good value. I wouldn't say it's Defensive Ice in the slightest honestly, but having face-bashed against Drafter over and over again I can definitely say even just flying by it once without breaking its subs can lead to some great value.

Even so I want to say that for Drafter and Hagen I'm in the maybe stage. I might replace either of them with more expensive, more productive Ice that HB has access to (like Bran or M.I.C). Maybe even another Ansel to keep up with the Thunderbutt synergy. Who knows!

On the subject of Maybes!

The Maybe Board ══════════════════════════════════════════════════
► The Hollow Man
► Charlotte Cacador
► The Bloop Package
► Spin Doctor
► Salvo Testing
► Archer/Hammer

Most of these are suggestions overall given to me by the wife. She knows best (objectively speaking), and honestly I know that whatever she cooks up is just better. She's an excellent player through and through, an expert at card evaluation and just anything she touches, and I always love and appreciate her insight and input.

That being said I decided not to go with the 'vast advance package' for now. Not because I think my way is better, I know it's worse. Really, it's just because I want to try and make this particular list work. I feel as though I'm more of a glacier player at heart.

My pride and joy, my Epiphany list (perhaps to be uploaded later) plays insane stuff like Tollbooths and Seraphs and likes sitting around 15 pieces of Ice rather than the usual like, 8 or 9 that most Epiphany or even just NBN Lists tend to run. I want to run big stupid ice. That's just what makes things work for me.

That being said, if I were to change things this would just about what I'd do, honestly!

Quoting the wife, "All of your Ice says f--- off twice" and "Since that only happens on Rez they'll lose value over the course of the game." The idea of fast advancing therefore seems very logical. Seamless Launching and Holo-Manning my way to easy victories with easy 3/1s like Stegodon or powerful tools like Architect Deployment Test all seem stellar! Having a value engine in Charlotte also makes a lot of sense all things considered!

Making this change will doubtlessly cripple my obscene ice package. Does that matter in the grand scheme of things? Probably not if we're advancing fast! Although obviously another way to go is employing the Bloop Package in terms of Ice. After all, that set of Ice was more or less made for Thunderbolt Fantasy. Flipping things up and down with Waves and Pulses, chaining sucky Ice together to bring out the Big Bloop, it's probably a worthwhile investment but not one I ultimately enjoyed tinkering with, at least not now. Who knows though, I may wake up to reason and change things later.

Spin Doctors are of course an obvious change from Sprint.

Spin Doctors are great for juking. Great for drawing. Great for shuffling key cards back into deck (especially Agendas). It's a good good good good card and there's a reason why it's a staple in everything.

Salvo Testing is another extreme angle. I know Sealab 2021 is the go to ID for that particular Agenda, but there's no denying that attacking the player's hand is kind of a subtheme of this deck, what with all the AP nonsense going on (especially with Saichan and Mememe). Therefore I think it feels somewhat reasonable to be heavy handed in that regard. Core Damage is solid, the less cards a Runner has in hand the more they have to draw to find answers, the more they have to draw the more resources they have to utilize to do so (Clicks being premium).

The obvious replacement for that would be Send a Message, which was another great suggestion from my beautiful wife. I do like Send a Message. It's a mean spirited 3 point Agenda. It feels bad when it whiffs, and god does it whiff often when I'm playing this deck in my dreams, but scoring or having a Send a Message stolen and flipping a Tyr for free is gangbusters.

Many of the choices I've made in this deck, as arbitrary as they may seem, really comes from an effort in exploration and discovery. I want to see what these cards can do, how they feel, what they offer this deck and how they affect the outcome. People far smarter and far more skilled than I have already made these discoveries, and as the saying goes "Learn from the mistakes of others, you don't have the time to make them all yourself."

But I dunno. Maybe a couple of mistakes is fine. Fun even! We'll just have to see.

Match Record ══════════════════════════════════════════════════ ► Vs A Make-Believe Praying Mantis (0-2)

It weighed over 250 kilgrams. Suffice it to say, while I did imagine this giant praying mantis into existence, it was a better card game player than I was. I'm hoping to have another rematch soon.

► Vs A Make-Believe Dinner at a Make-Believe Table that I Shared with my Father (0-2)

I flipped the table. This was a mistake. I really wish I slotted Spin Doctor for this one.

► Vs Literally Steely Dan from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 3 (0-Stardust Crusaders)

We just ended up playing Balatro.