Takeshi's Castle (1st Bromley SC)

I like this faster take on Nexus Andy. What do you think of The Supplier?

Supplier is really really slow

@rojazu congrats on the win! Ever since you commented on my list, I've been thinking of how to ditch the Nexus and just focus on locking down corps with 6 inf worth of better breakers and an extra 8c available for pressure instead of setup. I got hung up on Rabbit Hole for no good reason.

Thanks for sharing your list!

Now this version I can get behind

Thank you. Finally a power tapper with some common Criminal sense.

This I have faith in.

Any reason you have 3 Casts over 3 Testing? I always want testing in my opener.

This is a cool deck. I just played the citadel deck by @bubbathegoatat a store champ and it felt like a good enough deck that just had the worst speed. This feels so much faster and much more reliable.

The most striking exclusion to me was On the Lam. Was Martial Law not legal for this tournament? It was for our's and when I installed it vs two of my opponents it was extremely valuable. I went -1 Dirty Laundry -1 Daily Casts to add a couple and didn't feel like I was missing too much. Thoughts?

@TheBigBoyI found 3x Casts to be vital in the glacier matchup as Kati Jones has been dropped to make room for the castles/taps. Masonori can also be used as a late game Kati (with wheel synergy), but the casts are needed to tie you over once they ice up all 4 servers.

@inniscor On the Lam is a silver bullet card with broad application so it has to be worthy of consideration, however in this deck I don't think it is solving any problems that good play cannot, whilst removing econ from the deck is weakening its key strengths (remote lock, ability to control corp board state). 24/7 -> Boom is already countered by the excellent castle, checking remotes for naked BN/Astro and sansans will neuter CTMs main threats, you are rich enough to avoid HHN (especially as you have a spare click on the turn you need to clear), rogue net damage is mitigated by thoughtful running. Furthermore On the Lam's existence could well lead to a decrease of certain strategies (such as 24/7) at the theory crafting / deckbuilding stage. For me, Criminals biggest weakness, and the one they have no influence free answer to is program destruction. That really ruins your day - at the moment my only answer to batty/keegan is to not run that server. If they could get some recursion or trash prevention that's the silver bullet they most need, I think On the Lam is a good card, but doesn't solve the problems this deck has.

Damon if you reading my worlds winning card design would have been a data dealer style resource that says "Sac an agenda, install a program from your heap ignoring all costs". It would help spikes play criminal given we now have to deal with Batty/Keegan, random Potato (stack) damage and the upcoming Hunter Seeker. It also gives them a instant speed clone chip with an extreme cost. It will give the jonnys some fun to build with Fan sites who want to build a Morningstar/Torch/Femme rig on the cheap. Its something for everyone.

@rojazuThen why not have the Kati over the 3rd Casts. I ask because in our worlds testing we had an Andy that felt strongly favored vs CtM, but the EtF match-up kept most people from bringing it. Having all these mostly blanks slots for that MU would seem to make things worse. I can't imagine being favored against EtF with this, but since you are on Gordo a Kati would certainly help.

Ideally we want Kati & 3xCasts but slots are tight and she became the Fall Guy. Also we kind of want hostage to find Kati reliably.

If I refer back to my Worlds Andy deck (https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/38844/andy-strikes-back-21st-worlds-3rd-icebreaker-) we did a ton of testing against Foodcoats and found the matchup to be 80% in our favour. The problem was CTM was only 55-60% and these changes to the deck were made to respond to the heavily populated CTM meta. This deck is approx. 85% vs CTM, but has lost a little bit of its edge vs Foodcoats (~65% now).

I prefer 3x casts because they are useful in all matchups, whilst I often think its a bit too slow vs yellow to be worth the install. Against ETF specifically, you still want to install the powertaps because they do great work vs Ichi (which mongoose isn't great at breaking), blank Ash/Vikram/Sherlock, make money from tag clearance (often I will fire all the siphons in one go vs ETF and whilst they are defending the RnD onslaught they will not have time/money to bother with the citadel clearing all the tags over multiple turns), can be used as a pseudo Kati in the late game with Masonori. Against Jinteki they are used as hit points.

for reference, some further discussion about Andy vs CTM/ETF including testing data can be found here

forum.stimhack.com

@rojazu Thanks for the pointer, I'll take a look at that article. Just because it seems like the most glaring omissions - what are the answers to 24/7 Closed Accounts followed by other stuff or Shutdown Boom? Those seem like the most powerful (vs convenient) uses of On The Lam.

Vs shutdown boom you need to be hyper agressive in the opening and try to snag at least 4 points. If you can charge the wheel during this period you will be well set. You need to read your opponent and determine when it is not safe to continue running. At that point dig through your entire deck, discard everything you dont need until you get to legwork and medium to set yourself up for a Power turn. You should either win or flush out all the jacksons bying some time.

vs sync, its really quote hard for them to kill you. 24/7 boom doesnt work, whilst the 24/7 closed HHN combo will land 6 tags but takes ages to setup. If they do land the combo have a strike in play (so its 2 to clear a tag and they cannot flip), you wont be totally broke due to powertap, get some money via temujin/sectesting, siphon if it gets them to zero, and legwork + wheel to get rid of the boom from hand. All this will buy you enough time to clear.

I know this deck is teched up vs. NBN (and it did an awesome job for me last night vs. NBN) but it dies in a fire against any deck that packs Mother Goddess and Excalibur. All the s in the world do not help you if you are locked out of the scoring server and cannot make more than 1 run a turn on R&D. If you are up against Blue Sun: Powering the Future, it is even worse.

@saracenus with any deck, there is likely to be a counter that can beat it. Packing 2x estrike, this deck is pretty well suited to deal with Blue Sun, as they will build their servers in the early game with a plan to be dynamic with their ICE, but can abruptly have their ICE and economy locked into position.

Frankly, this deck will look at least superficially similar to Nexus Andy, which can deal with Mother Goddess and Excalibur rather easily, so it would seem risky to be so dependent on those as the only two ICE to lock a runner out.

Also, who isn't putting ICE on HQ against a criminal? if you need to rez HQ ICE, Legwork and Siphon tend to be very effective.

@bubbathegoat sure I rez taxing ICE during the early game but I can shut down Employee Strike pretty easily in my Blue Sun Deck and start picking up ICE when it is time to close things out.

For markus / caprice, what about interdiction? (maybe replacing an employee strike and freeing an inf for something like a sucker?)

Any ideas how to make room for Rebirth?

the flex influence in the deck is the Wheel, however I would put Datasucker, Film critic or even DLR above Rebirth as a potential use for it. Rebirth is a great card for Anarch, in Criminal your realistic targets are Iain & Leela, neither of which advance your game plan massively as you are already loaded (Iain) and losing the link (Leela) is a big deal in this deck.

Hunting Grounds seems like it could also be a potential useful card for that flex influence. Most of the time taking a tag from a Raven or something isn't a big deal because you clear it at tend of turn, but Data Ward is a thing, as are QPM. Ducking the hit from Tollbooth or Turnpike is a nice bonus.

I have thought about before and femme does fill that role. However it would certainly be worth testing and is a great suggestion. I do like the multi access however.

I like the turning wheel, but have been trying out data suckers over the strikes. Thoughts on this change?

strikes are pretty important vs CTM and the field generally, datasuckers are economy that were gradually dropped from the deck

Is there a particular reason why you only run 2 Citadel Sanctuaries? It seems like having so much centered around it would merit 3-of.

You have to weigh up how quickly you want to see it on average vs redundant deck slots. Strikes tie you over until you can find it.

@rojazu If you want Kati and 3 casts, what about swapping the Passport for Kati?

@magikot Gordian Blade is pretty expensive and sometimes you just need to install passport to safely check unrezzed ice or Siphon through a Quandary. Plus, a little bit a redundancy is not bad. Paperclip is only one copy, but losing it to net damage or Ichi doesn't hurt that much.

Passport is just really handy, even though it can be redundant in some games.

@rojazu Oh yeah, I forgot about the link. I don't really want to cut the turning wheel, but Film critic could be pretty good, if not necessary. Hostage is in faction, so that could be nice.

I have considered Film Critic, but it is a narrow and defensive card, whilst the Wheel is broad and attacking, which is what Andy wants to be doing. Also 1 medium is not really enough.

Really liking this deck. I think I've found my store champ runner.

Really nice deck and will try it. I must say that your answers to counter Blue Sun are unconvincing. I have 3 Hostile Takeover, 2 currents, to which your answer is Employee Strike. I'm just saying.

Maybe consider an extra Mongoose? I've played handfuls of decks built around setting up a server with 2 destroyer ice. In this Blue Sun deck I'm packing Sapper which could surprise you in multi access runs.

Also, your mental model of Blue Sun doesn't match mine. Mother Goddess is a problem for you, once your Syphons are done. Going for multi-access R&D when the Corp is scoring behind that Goddess is your best bet, but you would have to have either Medium or Turning Wheel set up which isn't obvious since you need your tutors to get breakers set up.

I took this deck and blue sun to brighton ending up 3rd with it with a 4-1 record. The blue sun deck i brought lost 3 times to laurie playing this deck on the day, and he took down the event. I think this is the strongest runner deck at this time.

My meta has less CTM than other things. PU is pretty common here, and I expect Blue Sun and Jammy HB. How does this fare against those?

At brighton, we had 20 players no CTM, and the field was made up mostly of Blue Sun and IG/PU kill. Laurie took 1st and myself 3rd with this deck, the rest of the field were not on Andy. I dont think CTM is actually dead, but im starting to test variants as the meta evolves such as this netrunnerdb.com

The connection version of this deck took me to third in our store champ today. The only changes I made were -1 Film Critic and -1 Dirty Laundry +1 The Turning Wheel and +1 On the Lam.

Film critic felt like it hadn't done enough for me and I predicted less match ups would depend on it. It turned out that was wrong as there was plenty of Jinteki, but I managed to dodge those match ups. It was replaced by Turning Wheel as a way to cheat out wins early vs those Sandvich decks as the late game is incredibly difficult. It was solid.

On the Lam is a pet card that I know you're not a fan of. It 100% got me into the cut saving me from an awkwardly timed Hard-Hitting News and bringing the credit disparity between my opponent on NBN: Controlling the Message and myself to 0. Otherwise it didn't do much, but I didn't see it. Admittedly I went down to only 1 in deck.

Thanks for the list. I managed to play all the CTMs in the room. Doing my duty!

Im currently on -3 casts -1 wheel +1 legwork +2 kati +1 sucker. Got me to 3rd at Reading (56 players) where I played some guy called Chris Dyer who is quite good apparently, but I was forced to corp instead of run against his CTM :(

@rojazu I like the sucker, figured that was something you probably tested with and barely didn't make it. I went to 2 Kati in a version since I found that hostage was only fetching that but ultimately went back to hostage so it was a more versatile slot. Thanks for sharing!

When Aaron comes out, the CtM matchup will be so over the top, I think the Strikes are influence you can cut.

I'm thinking about strengthening the deck against HB, Palana and Blue Sun. All matchups where Mongoose is really awkward to use (I really hate that breaker).

Thinking about cutting the Strikes, Medium and Gordo for a Yog Mimic Sucker breaker package, supplemented by RDI in order to get your multi-access faster.

Interdiction goes into the current slot as to make your Siphons better and as Batty hate.

Thoughts?

Strikes are amazing against HB, Palana & BS, why would you cut them? Changes Im currently testing are Paperclip to Corroder and Medium to 2x RDi.