Replicating Kills - Honor's edition! (BETA)

Very interesting! I'm picking up H&P today.

Some quick thoughts: 1) What's economy like? The ICE in here is relatively expensive and only have Sundew and Private Contracts to count on, maybe a diversified portfolio.

2) Considered throwing in a Ronin? Another card with solid synergy with Mushin No Shin

3) Another great card I see for this deck would be Encryption Protocol. Again, what to drop though... ;)

Mushin no Shin to GRNDL sounds awesome. Need to protect the GRNDL until next turn of course. And then need to find the influence/deckspace. ;)

I've been doing a lot of contemplating on Susanoo-no-Mikoto, and how to make its effects work most effective. I think the most surface level play is to just play it actually over archives. It still forces an access if you only want to layer 1 deep, or you can use it as a big whirlpool to get them to slam into an interior ICE you've been saving?

Second option would be to protect archives with himitsu-bako early (I'm not sure how quickly you get painful ICE over archives, but himitsu-bako will allow you to pool the painful stuff in there a bit, or you could use trashing ICE like data mines (or just a whirlpool). And I hate to use the security subcontract word, but you could definitely play security subcontract when you want to "open the floodgates" so to speak.

I've been using Mushin no Shin into GRNDL Refinery with my Finger Snap V.3 and GRNDL Wet Works decks for a little over a month, and can testify to the strength of this combo.

Keep in mind that if you're not running advancable traps, then the odds of keeping GRNDL Refinery for a third turn is very low. My typical play is Mushin + Advance for 4 tokens, next turn 2 more Advances for 6 tokens then I use my last click to turn in the GRNDL Refinery for 24 credits.

@Dydra: Proxy cards. There is no game at all in my area, with the nearest tournament a 20 hour drive away. As such, I have a very small group playing which leads to relatively inbred builds. We incorporate spoilered cards to help keep our variety up, and because we recognized that spending time with sub-optimal cards in a future release helps with our understanding of it. Hence how we identified the GRNDL Refinery and Mushin no Shin combo as well as Mushin no Shin's full potential back in March.

@Dydra, I think that we have different viewpoints on the "problem of proxying cards ahead of time". Meta is the interaction between different cards and is an incredibly important aspect of a game such as Netrunner. However, meta is an extension of understanding the foundation of the subject. I learn the meta at the same rate as people like you, who start working with it as release. However, I begin to learn the foundation at the point that it is spoiled, and the meta as it applies to past releases.

I'm not saying that mine is a better way, it is merely a different approach than you utilize. In this particular instance, I was able to identify potential usage of Mushin No Shin in conjunction with past releases, such as the GRNDL / Mushin combo that started our discussion. My group allowed me to theory test this combo and start practical application in the meta as it existed at the time. You are correct, these "things" do not reflect the full meta of the full release (for example, Shiro and Susanoo-No-Mikoto are true game changers for Jinteki). However just because the meta that we have theory tested is incomplete does not mean that understanding the meta with past releases is not fact. If this were the case, then how did we manage to identify the GRNDL / Mushin combo back in March with enough confidence that we incorporated it in most of my published decks (I'm the oddball builder for my group, and usually introduce concepts that are refined by the others)?

Again, I'm not saying that mine is a better way than yours. Rather, it is like different schools of martial arts. Your method contains many strengths that mine does not, but your strength does not mean that my way has no strength at all. Part of what makes sites such as this great is because people utilizing different methodology can posit their results and solicit feedback from others applying their own methodology. In that process, we create a meta of building here that hopefully helps all of us grow in our build skill.

Probably a good example is your popular Replicating Kills v1.0 (a guide how to play RP properly) deck.

• Is it a good deck? Absolutely.

• Is it a good write up of how to play RP properly? It's a great write up! I've referred quite a few others to your discourse on why Wall of Thorns is a bad card.

• Is it the best way to play RP? It is the best way for you to play RP. It is a great way for the majority of people to play RP. However, it is not the best way for everybody to play RP. Not because of anything inherently wrong with your build, but because different people have different mind sets. There will never be a best method for everyone to play any particular concept because of their differences. Which leads to my next item:

• Does Bubo like this deck? Not particularly. As I've said elsewhere, I feel that Neural EMP is dropping out of the meta and I dislike the requirement of losing an Agenda to the Runner to trigger Punitive Counterstrike. For me, this would not be a good deck to play because I will struggle with the tempo and mind set.

• Is this a waste of time because Bubo doesn't like it? Absolutely not! Again, Replicating Kills v1.0 (a guide how to play RP properly) is a great deck! Just because I dislike playing it does not mean that I did not learn from it, and from your write up!

Getting back to our particular discussion over spoilers versus released cards, why don't you consider my process before you pass judgement on it. Now, I've learned that unfortunately I just don't have the proper skill and/or mindset to build a great Runner deck. I try, but I always find myself looking at other builds and realizing early that they are superior to whatever I'm attempting. However, I have found that I have an affinity for Corporate decks with a particular interest in Jinteki (and GRNDL: Power Unleashed for some weird reason). As I mentioned earlier, I'm the oddball builder of my small group in all of the games we play. When I find new spoiler cards in my forte, I make it a goal to build a deck highlighting each particular card in each of the four factions. It doesn't matter how terrible the card is at face value (ugh, Restoring Face), I work out some method to build a deck around it. Most of these decks are just Goldfished and deconstructed, but the ones that have a mechanic that catches my attention is reviewed and rebuilt. I have proxies of concept decks from the Hall of Fame here which I grind these rebuilds against to determine low count statistics. Anything that gets at least a 15% pass rate is then rebuilt again for facing my group. I intentionally shape this rebuild to address the Hall of Fame meta that I find here out of recognition that my group uses inbred decks. After I play the decks to the point of boredom (which is fairly fast for me), I perform a final analysis of combinations that worked and didn't work, and then retire the build. Out of those varied analysis, I then construct the few decks that I have posted here.

Is this the best way to go about this? Probably not. It's very wasteful in time and energy, and only spots around 25%-40% of the discoveries made by the group here. Am I a great player for doing this? Again, probably not. I've still got a lot to learn and have been schooled by quite a few of you on card nuances that I did not understand (although I still don't really like Yagura). However, are my efforts a waste of time? Absolutely not. I like to think that it provides an insight that's unique to myself, which others can glean at least some data for their own methodologies.

Finally, getting back to the original statement that you made, why do you assume that because I follow my way of building that I do not also perform a similar analysis of "new cards that will come together with it and the meta that they will bring" that you do at release?

.... I must be in a bad mood, I can't believe that I'm replying to this argument.

@Dydra, In regards to your first and second point, again that's just a matter of difference in methodology, although your imagined "get too jacked in" does not happen with me. Applying that statement without spending time with me is simply projecting imagined faults onto me.

I believe that you are missing the context of my statement. The phrase "full potential, back in March" with an added comma would indicate full knowledge attained in March. The actual statement of "full potential back in March" includes a delimiter indicating that the context is as it stood in the time frame of March (specifically referring to the March meta). On the other hand, if we are not working with time frame delimiters like that, then even your "maybe after 1 month" statement is erroneous as well, since the potential will change with every release (just like Cerebral Imaging) and we have high confidence of more than 3 releases in the future. The whole thing is such a minor point, though, and hardly worth a "bone to pick".

To be fair, "full" potential was probably too strong a word choice. I only collected data on and identified strong combos in GRNDL (and Thomas Haas to a lesser extent), Trick of Light, Phase 1 and Phase 3 Project Junebug / Cerebral Overwriter, and hiding non-advancement traps (plus spending time measuring out weaker combos such as Plan B or other Phase 2/3 advancement traps), but I hardly think using too strong a word is enough to warrant a "bone to pick".

Regardless of the context or bone picking, my ire is up simply because you have dismissed my month worth of experience with the GRNDL / Mushin combo specifically as not " 'things' like they are facts". I have been working with that combo for a month prior to release and I offered my experiences with that combo in agreement with your own statements regarding the same combo plus added minor additional data regarding risk timing in and out of a heavy trapping context, but somehow they are not fact because I spent time with it before the release and your data is fact because you did not spend time with it. At the very least you could spend more than a few days testing it before telling me that I'm wrong (or point out where I misunderstood the card, if you determine that is the case).

To be clear, differences in our methodology is encouraged and will likely provide different results and disagreements between us, but calling my contributions false only because I don't follow your methodology is rather offensive. Provide an explanation showing why I'm wrong and I'll thank you for the correction, but all you have said here is that I'm wrong only because I worked with the card when it was just a spoiler and then attacked my methodology and the semantics of "full potential".