History First

Ever since I saw them, I have loved the independent factions. I love the theme and also the idea of playing with a unique game plan.

I tried Sunny first because Security Nexus seemed so cool. That deck quickly became boring, though. And in the end it turned out that Kate did it better.

Next I moved on to Apex. I loooove the theme of Apex. I tried so hard to make a competitive deck for him. But because a multitude of reasons, I just couldn't get anything really good working. And again, Kate does Apocalypse better!

I've known that I wanted to play Adam at King of Servers this year since last year. I've been playing him casually since then. Having moved in real life to nowheresville this year, I hadn't gotten much Netrunner in for a few months so didn't have a solid list for Adam.

So, a few days before Worlds I decided to have an Adam crunch day. I played around two dozen games of Adam on jinteki.net to figure out a deck. I tested many different variations and ideas. Special thanks to the adamlounge channel in Slack for ideas, feedback, and testing help. By the end of the day (a full day) I had something that I felt was ready for King of Servers.

Since I hadn't played much Netrunner for over three months, I was pretty much just going to Worlds to play casually. So I was just going to use a Dumblefork deck for the main event. However, @dtelad11 then suggested I just play Adam at the main event. It was such a good idea that I did it!

Adam went 4-2 on the first day and got me to the second day (with the help of Industrial Genomics). I went 1-2 with him on the second day, but man, my pilot mistakes were huge. I threw a game that I was in pretty good control of by forgetting that you can break Data Raven instead of letting the trace fire.

Someone said they made an announcement that I was the highest ranked Adam at Worlds, but I missed that. Shout out to @tundinator who also made it to second day with Adam, with I think the same win rate.

And finally, Adam went 4-1 at King of Servers. One of those games was on the stream. You can view it here.

How to Run

Getting to start the game with three directives in play (from a choice of four) is what makes Adam so unique. Not even Kate can steal this from him. I think it would be really awesome to make an Adam deck that can chose between them based on the matchup. However, I went with a static plan. The three directives you always start with for this deck are Find the Truth, Neutralize All Threats, and Safety First. You do not start the game with Always Be Running. The adamlounge guys insisted that Neutralize All Threats was the correct cut, but after testing I just couldn't agree. I feel like that card is a huge part of Adam's early game pressure. Also, without Always Be Running, you can minimize the early game setback that Neutralize All Threats used to cause.

Now, just because you don't start the game with Always Be Running does not mean that this isn't an aggro deck. You will often be running, and running aggressively. Adam is a snowball runner. You very much need an early game agenda in order to get rolling with Brainchip. You should be face checking in full force. I faced a ton of HB over the weekend. A lot of Architects fired. I also ran through a ton of Ichi 1.0 and Sherlock 2.0 for almost nothing. Do be aware of Fairchild 3.0 though. You want to try and run first click if you have no way to deal with that yet.

Early game you do want to focus on setting up. First turn is pretty important. You want Safety First to be triggering every turn if possible. That's your solo mini-game. This means you need to get down to two cards turn one. If you have a Dirty Laundry, perfect. Use it on an open server. If you see an agenda with Find the Truth you probably use second click to run R&D. Two clicks remain to play two more cards. Career Fair can help a lot with this too. If they leave HQ open or install an unprotected remote, play your econ first and then run. You want to be trashing their stuff in general, so I don't find Neutralize All Threats to be too much of a downside at this point, unless your econ is struggling. But this deck has a lot of econ, and also Scrubber to help with the trashing.

As the game goes on you want to keep pressure up as you continue to draw. Play the first Drug Dealer you find. Play those Earthrise Hotel. Keep playing econ. Play Temüjin Contract on archives. Find the Truth and steal it. Force them to shore up all servers so that you cannot Find the Truth. So that you cannot trash their stuff. So that you cannot keep stealing all their agendas from HQ.

By late game you have a ton of cards that you'll want to be installed, which is why it is important to keep your draw going the whole time. I'll go over individual cards in the next section.

Truth Behind the Cards

Find the Truth – This card is amazing. Really, really strong. I had someone Foxfire it during worlds. It is the priority trash when I get stuck with a tag. It is also the hardest downside to remember in the game! Tell your opponent at the beginning to help you remember to show them every card you draw, so they don't feel like you're trying to cheat. I forgot so many times... You do not have to reveal your opening hand or your mulligan.

Neutralize All Threats – I feel that this card is a good chunk of Adam's strength. A free HQ Interface is super strong when it is installed turn one. Single accesses on HQ early game? Eh. But double accesses, yes please! Combo-ing with Find the Truth just makes it better. This directive does have the most painful downside in the game, so you'll need to play around it. Sometimes you can use Dr. Lovegood to blank it early game (only if you aren't running HQ). Also a sneaky Adam trick is if you run archives first and access a card with a trash cost there, that consumes the ability.

Safety First – Amazing card draw. I tested some games leaving this one out of the starting lineup. It is just too important to keep your deck flowing. The downside is compensated with cards in your deck. I was never flatlined because of this card, but you will need to be careful. You get to chose when to run, though, so play smart.

Always Be running – We don't start with this card, but it is still really good! That's why it is in the deck. Late game when you are all set up, you will want this card out. You can use Dr. Lovegood to blank it if you need to. A nice Adam trick is to drop this click one, run click two and get into that server. Be careful about dropping this too early though if you don't have Dr. Lovegood out yet. I had multiple games where I would install this, cause havoc, and then let Fairchild 3.0 trash it. You have two in the deck, so one is disposable.

Economy - Sure Gamble can be played on turn one before you run now. Temüjin Contract because it is broken. Career Fair helps you dump your hand easier which is good for Adam, and also combos with the previous broken card. Dirty Laundry is pretty much the best neutral econ card in the game. Extra great with Adam to store some credits you don't have to spend trashing. Armitage Codebusting is decent for no influence. I often have a spare click or two I want to spend clicking for credits (to help allow Safety First to trigger). Daily Casts is good and works with Career Fair. Day Job is playable without Always Be Running and sometimes you just need more burst econ. You also usually get your Safety First draw after playing it. This deck has a ton of economy, but it is necessary with all the tracing and tagging stuff out there now, and also to power Overmind late game.

Draw – Most of your draw is coming through Safety First. You will still need to play supplemental draw and even click for cards. Drug Dealer is your second main drawing card. I used to hate this card, but in Adam it is solid and combos with Dr. Lovegood to prevent the credit loss. (Dr. Lovegood gets you the drugs for free!) Lastly you have Earthrise Hotel. Don't be afraid to possibly miss a Safety First trigger by playing this if you are missing important pieces. You need to dig through your deck often. Combo with Career Fair if you can.

Dr. Lovegood – This dude is really important. I considered running three. Mostly he is worth a credit a turn with Drug Dealer. But he can also turn off Neutralize All Threats or Always Be Running. He also combos with New Angeles City Hall to let you steal agendas without trashing it. If he weren't unique, I'd install more than one. If you don't want to use him, he can blank himself.

Brain Chip – This is how you snowball. Three of for sure. Keeps your Safety First rocking. Makes your Overmind massive. Keeps you alive versus kill.

Public Sympathy – Sometimes you can't find your Brain Chip or can't steal that early agenda. This card picks up the slack. Definitely worth the slots in the deck.

e3 Feedback Implants – Extremely important in Adam. Combos with Overmind and Always Be Running. In addition HB is the second most popular corp faction and this is amazing in that matchup. Plus it is probably my favorite Criminal card. I splash it in Anarch too. This card helps to ensure that Adam is the ultimate bioroid.

R&D Interface – I would never drop this and often want two in the deck. Eventually the corp will shore up all servers to shut off easy Find the Truth triggers. That's when you drop this and just start hitting R&D directly.

Scrubber – This helps with Neutralize All Threats and assets are a big part of the meta right now. You can also install it on turn one before running now.

New Angeles City Hall – This is to prevent Breaking News shenanigans. Also help deal with Hard Hitting News and Controlling the Message. The idea is to combo with Dr. Strangelove so you don't have to trash it.

Beth Kilrain-Chang – Over the weekend she often gave me money, sometimes gave me cards, sometimes gave me nothing, and every once in a while gave me clicks.

Overmind – This is your main program. You've only got one other, which you install only conditionally, so you almost always get max counters on here. Combo it with e3 Feedback Implants for more value. It's a little expensive early, and you sometimes have to play around destroyers. But since it is disposable, you can do occasional tricky things like let it be trashed by a destroyer or Fairchild 3.0 after you've used it up.

Inti – I knew there would be a lot of NBN tagging, which means Resistor everywhere and probably some Wraparound. Vanilla is also popular. This did pretty good work over the weekend.

“Freedom Through Equality” - This card is always amazing in a deck that gets to peek at R&D. I would also sometimes play it before running in for an HQ double access to try and close out the game. Especially good versus 10 x 2 agenda corps. I'd kind of like a second one. I even used it to get rid of Scarcity of Resources, which hurts Adam pretty good.

What to Neutralize

I feel like the deck ended up really good. If I were a better pilot, I could have won another two games over the weekend I think. There is probably some room for changes in the deck, though.

Beth Kilrain-Chang is a perfectly good card, but three influence is expensive. She would probably get pulled in future version.

New Angeles City Hall didn't really do what I had expected it to do. Often I would lose it because I hadn't drawn Dr. Strangelove yet. The deck can't afford to stop stealing agendas. And the good doctor is already stretched thin anyways. I think maybe there could be a spot for Film Critic to use that combo instead.

This deck has no solution to double Turing. I only had this come up a single time over the weekend during King of Servers. It locked me out of R&D, which let him hang in there longer. I had tested with a Zu.13 Key Master, but decided to cut it for the final version. Apparently many HB aren't even running Turing right now.

And that's it! I'm super proud of how this deck turned out and performed. I think it is a lot of fun too. I think I did just as good with this deck as I would have done with Whizzard. The lesson I learn every year at worlds is just not simply play what is good, but to play what you enjoy. You'll have way more fun that way. =-)