High Violet

I don’t normally bother publishing decklists, I’m usually playing other people’s good ideas or my own bad ones. I felt like I needed to write one for this list, not because it was the best deck but because of the journey making it (I’ll elaborate at the end).

This deck is fast as hell. It’s pretty fragile to boot, and it’s rare that a single mistake doesn’t cost you the game - but most importantly it’s really fun! It often wins by turn 7-8 and has a few tricks if the runner manages to get setup before you win. An added bonus is that most people are playing Employee Strike at the moment, which means it’s a level playing field of 12 influence each! Only they have 3 dead cards.

The deck started as an ETF rush deck that used Violet Level Clearance to overdraw, binning gear check ice then using FiHP the next turn to build a 1 click rush remote. It was fun, but a little too slow, then I remembered NEXT Design - so immediately shoehorned the list into there. I’m fairly happy with where the deck is now, and don’t really think I can take it any further with my deck building skills, I’m excited to see where the meta goes now that Moose is out, and with a potential new MWL I think the deck could be in a good place, especially if Andy is less prevalent.

There’s a few choices which might seem a little weird at first:

No Jackson - I tested a lot with Jackson, and in the games where you have time to use him you are probably losing either way, you have better options for finding agendas and if you’re flushing agendas from hand, it means you can’t score them and that means you’re gonna lose. Also influence is super tight in this deck and I wouldn’t drop a single pip elsewhere for Jackson.

VLC, UVC, Lateral Growth, and Advanced Assembly Lines - If you change anything in this deck, do not change the econ package without first playing it as is. When I first shifted the deck from ETF to Next I removed the Lateral Growths and AAL’s as they seemed bad without the ETF trigger, I was wrong. This deck wants to do 4 things, and only 4 things, install ice which is relevant, find agendas, install and advance agendas, and gain enough money to rez ice and score. All of these cards let you do 2 or more of these things, the deck wants to go as fast as possible and all these econ cards also gain you tempo, which in testing proved critical. When you combine these with NEXT you are often miles ahead by the end of turn 1. Seeing 12 cards and playing or installing 6 by the end of turn one is fairly common.

18 ICE - As a rule of thumb I am happy if I get 2 ice for my ability, trying to hit 3 Ice consistently turns the rest of your deck into a pile of garbage (I’m looking at you, Special Offer). 2 ICE is plenty, that’s 4 free clicks! 4! Imagine if I told you you could have 4 clicks before you took your first turn, - you don’t need to imagine, friend, just play NEXT Design. Now granted, it’s not really 4 clicks, but it kind of is, we’re playing NEXT so we need to find a silver lining of some kind. As an added bonus, when you get three, it’s like a nice bonus, rather than when you have 24 ICE and only get 1 and it’s the worst feeling ever.

No NEXT ICE - I found it expensive, it dies too easily, and didn’t provide enough value. Often this deck doesn’t rez more than 4 or 5 ice in a game, if half of these are NEXT they’re not doing enough. In short, the deck is too fast to reap the late game value of the NEXT ICE.

Playstyle: Be aggressive! In the early game, try to avoid going below 5 to score. Getting a turn 2 score is trivial in this deck and is often correct, but going below 5 can be crippling. If you waste a turn clicking for credits to play hedge/UVC etc you have wasted your ability. You start the game with a “click lead” and every turn in which you are not scoring, you are being caught up. Do not be afraid to throw cards away if you don’t need them now, the exception being Hunter Seeker and Ark Lockdown - you may need those later. Do not shy away from playing clearances, you need the econ - just throw away the worst cards. You need to be aware of agenda density most of the game, as with this deck you’ll often have to choose where you will allow accesses. Since you never shuffle agendas back into R&D, sometimes agendas will find their way into your hand faster than you can score them - this needs to be considered in your ice placement from the start of the game.

Match ups:

Andy - I have found Andy to be the most problematic match up, speed of setup and the inevitability of Siphon are a problem. I’ve come to the conclusion that letting them have a Temujin early is often correct, they waste 5 clicks getting cash instead of setting up and are more likely to pitch Siphon if you make landing it awkward (think double gearcheck Crisium on HQ). Hunter Seeker/Lockdown their Paperclip. Inversificator will ruin your day, so be frugal with code gate rezzes and consider overwriting Quandariess et al once Inversificator is installed. Despite Strike and Aeneas being redundant, this matchup can be rough.

Siphon Anarch - you have hate cards, so use them. Lockdown bin breakers, don’t get siphoned. Unless you are unlucky, you should be able to make it through the game without being siphoned.

Reg Anarch - You should be fast enough to beat them comfortably, Hunter Seeker/Lockdown their toys if they get set up fast.

Shaper: Go fast and try to figure out what kind of shaper they are. Be wary of throwing away anti-AI cards as they may be useful. Go fast enough that they don’t have time to install Film Critics and Sac Cons, then blow up their things. A triple gear check remote is the goal as quickly as possible. There have been games where I have chosen not to install 3 ICE with NEXT’s ability to get the ideal remote faster, admittedly this is rare. You should be able to race most Dyper decks, as this deck can easily win by turn 6/7 if unaccosted.

Finally I’ve had a real blast over the last few months refining this deck and taking it from a vague idea to what I think is the best I can make it. It’s something I haven’t really done for a while as the drive to (try to) be competitive has led me to mainly playing the decks of others. I wouldn’t say I’ve had burn out recently but when it feels like everyone is just talking about how broken all the best decks are it was refreshing to do something else that ended up being competitive, but not broken as heck. The deck went 4-1 at a regional and really should have gone 5-0 if I hadn’t made a mistake when playing my testing partner who already knew the list and was making unorthodox decisions to counter it. It’s beaten Worlds and Euro top 16 players playing tier 1 lists, which I’d probably struggle to do with most other decks, if I’m honest.

Spending weeks honing a list felt like when I first started playing all over again, but also reaffirmed for me how great this community is, sometimes after a game or sometimes out of the blue I’ve asked far better players than me what they think of the deck and they’ve all been super nice and helpful. If you don’t think the community is the best thing about this game then you’re doing something wrong, in my opinion!

Shoutouts to @Nemamiah, @Joseki, @Highwire and @Tr1s for their time and advice.

Special thanks to @Tolaasin for all the test games, advice and helping me to figure out and shore up weaknesses.

If you’re feeling a bit down on the meta lists, I would recommend giving this list a whirl it feels very “old school” Netrunner to me and you have a decent chance of beating most lists. I think it might be in a good place post rotation, it doesn’t lose many cards, and it doesn’t lean on Jackson.

Thanks,

Tom