Maxximum Punk Rock. My favorite identity in the game of Netrunner. I have experimented with all flavors of MaxX, and placed high at some tournaments with my BarnacleShop and Devil's Food Cake lists. Those decks, however powerful they may be, are characterized as “nice” decks, because they play the traditional game on Netrunner. This is no “nice” deck. This is a winning deck.

Minh MaxX has been a thing for a while now, but after Worlds it kind of petered off due to the prevalence of DLR Val, and then it was ignored after the WNP nerf.

I was trying to think of a new MaxX build to play this SC season, and I looked at Data Leak Reversal and thought “Why doesn't this still work?”

Turns out, it still works.

Mean MaxX will make your opponents rage. It will crush your opponent into a pulp. But most of all it will win you games.

I piloted to Mean MaxX 1st place at the Mox Boarding House Store Championship on 2/6/16 in a 27 player field. I played it alongside my NEH list, which you can find a report on all my games with that deck here .

Strategy is simple: Keep your opponent off their money and DLR them into the ground. Mill is your primary win condition, points is second. You may have to steal some points just so your opponent doesn't, but at that point, you can just mill them out.

Some of the card choices are pretty self explanatory. Here are some that are not:

Scrubber: Provides sustainable Econ for money asset trashing throughout the game. More long term than Imp.

Morning Star: You have a lot of free memory in this deck, and the only barrier post MWL that has seen play that is out of Morning Star’s range is Curtain Wall. Also, Eli and Spiderweb are super annoying, NEXT is super prevalent.

Femme: A Siphon enabler plus Swordsman protection. A home run here.

Sure Gamble: A underused economy card. If you run the numbers it's actually pretty good!

Possible Changes: I would take out the Day Jobs and put in 2 Armitage Codebusting because I never want to Day Job first turn but I still want to put pressure on. I would also slot a Force of Nature to contest remotes with code gates. This burned me in the top 8 when an opponent knew I this and proceeded to score behind a Lotus Field.

The day of:

Round 1: Ben (Sync PsychoBiotics Blehhh) Ben and I play each other all the time, and had just done some testing on Jinteki.net the night before, so we were both slightly perturbed that we got paired up round 1. I get a mediocre starting hand and keep it, proceeding to mill a lot of my DLR pieces. I spent a lot of time trying to set up for the first Siphon, and he knew it was coming. I started to DLR him, and an opportune Fall Guy got drawn with MaxX right after he flipped his identity, and that put the stopping me milling him plan to a stop. I pressured him heavily, but couldn't get in, and then tried to mill out, but he had already got 2 Kitties and an Astro, and he draws into his second Psycho and uses it on a 3 point Beale. Overall Prestige: 0

Round 2: Bye I came to play netrunner and I get to sit around pretending like I'm not scouting the bottom table. How fun. Overall Prestige: 4

Round 3: Ryan D. (Psi Medtech) Again, paired up with someone from my local store, we both know each others decks. Ryan is playing his signature Psi 6-agenda Medtech where he basically makes you play a ton of Psi games to try and get into his remote using Caprice, Batty, and Interns. I do my best to ignore his gameplan and kill a early Crisium behind a Wraparound. And then the Siphons start chaining out, Morning Star turns off the Wraparound, and I am able to keep him in the 5-7 credit range, and he is smart enough to know not to try and trash my DLR pieces, but instead digs for an agenda. He finally scores a Food out, but a 44 card deck makes me happy, and I mill him out, whilst keeping the Jacksons off the board. Overall Prestige: 6

Round 4: Paul (Foodcoats) This one calms me down after my infuriating corp loss against Ryan. I don't see a Siphon early, and am unable to put pressure on, but am able to set up the DLR pieces and get a Scrubber on the board, which kept his asset econ off the board for the entire game. He sneaks out a early Vitruvius, but stretches himself a little too thin and creates an opening for me to Siphon, and I take it. At this point the whole DLR machine is set up, and the rest is just a formality as I remote camp and mill with Joshua B. + DLR. Mill victory. Overall Prestige: 8

Round 5: Alex (NEXT Rush) This was the scariest match I had with this deck all day. He tries to rush behind a early Bronze, and I make him rez all of his ice on his board, forcing him to take 3 credits. Turn 3 a ABT gets scored, hitting some mediocre ice. I can't find a Siphon, so I decide to try and remote camp him. I Femme the Bronze, Retrieval Run Morning Star, then go for it. He rezzes, breaking himself economically, and I am able to get in and prevent a Vitruvius. He tries again and I can't get past a second Bronze, which locks me out. However, he is so low on money and Morning Star thinks Silver is a joke so I plow into HQ, keeping him off money, and start milling him out. Another Mill victory one turn before he can score a Food. Overall Prestige: 12

At this point, I’ve accepted that I have not made it to top 8, but at least 5 of my friends had! As time winds down, my one competitor for the who has 10 prestige at this point and is on his second game with 5 points and an Astro counter, but can't find an agenda to make quick work of the Noise player he was facing. He ends at 11, Im at twelve, my SoS is terrible, but that doesn't matter now, I was the only player with 12 prestige, so I snuck into the top 8. Yay!

Top 8 Game 1: Ryan B. @theRyanBurke

Corp loss.

Top 8 Losers Bracket Game 2: Ryan D. (Psi Medtech)

This was the closest game this deck had all day. Honestly, I don't remember much of it. He scores behind a Lotus Field that he knows I can't get through and he has tons of money but is unwilling to trash my DLR-Fall Guy-WNP rig. Ryan makes some smart Jackson plays and install-advance-advance’s into a remote that I can't get into. I had scored a Food and a Future Perfect early, and he had a Food scored. I DLR his 17 card deck 4 times and run archives, hoping to hit the last Food (which was on the table) and instead hit 2 TFP’s. Ryan has 4 credits, and in a 5 minute Psi game, I bid 0 a bunch, he bids one, and after he ices archives he is unable to rez and I bid 0 until he has no money, and go in for the score. Super lucky, but I guess it was redemption from my corp game from the swiss rounds.

Top 8 Losers Bracket Game 3: Ben (Sync PsychoBiotics Blehhh)

Another game against my worst matchup. Blehh. Anyways, I get all the pieces really fast with 2 Injects, and I am able to pull a couple off the top of R&D in the first couple turns. I Siphon him to 0 through a Raven, and proceed to go tag me. I mill a bunch and am not able to get any agendas besides Kitties when I check it, but I do hit a Psycho, which might have been his only one. My turns are fairly quick, DLRing five times, and sites there and thinks, drawing desperately for an recursion piece. He is unable to do anything, being at too low money the whole game and concedes by clicking to draw 2 times with one card in R&D.

Top 8 Losers Bracket Game 4: Kyle

Corp win.

Top 8 Losers Bracket Game 5: Zach

Corp win

Top 8 Finals Game 6: Ryan B. @theRyanBurke

When I see Ryan pull out that PE identity, I know what I am going to do. I am going to ignore remotes, and Siphon him into oblivion, then get tunnel visioned on DLR. He scored a Chronos Project three turns before I was going to Levy, and I realized I had 4 cards for the rest of the game. I realized the threat of Ronin was strong, because he had a Mushined remote, but between clicking for credits, and advancing two other agendas to kill me, I did the math and figured that he could not do it unless he had the right combination of operation econ and one point agendas. Another mill victory.

Top 8 Grand Finals Game 7: Ryan B. @theRyanBurke

Corp win

Big thanks to Frank for running the tournament, to everyone I played for withstanding their desire to choke me with my DLRing and AstroTraining them. And big thanks to Ryan for a set of intense finals games.