Necessary Evil

Card draw simulator
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None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Necessary Evil v3
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zithith 45

A brief breakdown of how the deck is meant to play:

Trying to keep a low agenda count where I can, unfortunately the need for smaller scores to use for archer mean that I don't think the number can truly go lower than it is. Another possibility I'm playing with are Pri Req instead of Gov Contracts, but the deck really needs 2 things - Money and Meat damage so the current agendas help with that.

Off the Grids are meant to be used to lock out 3 remotes, 2 for Dedicated Response Teams and 1 for scoring in. This leaves the runner 3 servers to run on and one that we certainly don't want them running. Due to what I said above they have generally a low chance of hitting Agendas so using R&D as the cheese for the trap. I've tried to have a mix of both Tax/Tag Ice for that reason and EtR hard Ice for HQ (and archives where sneakdoor is installed). The idea is 2 ICE towers, where HQ they can't really get through and then R&D is much more appealing but both topped with Ireress to strip them of the BP (at least until Yog hits the table - but you want to keep a killer unrezzed then).

R&D needs a Data Raven or a Bernice at least to give out tags as we don't really mind them being successful, and in fact want them to be sometime. DRT/Cleaners can tax, hurt badly, or if played well in surprise can flatline. if they hit an agenda there's hopefully a Punitive Counterstrike in hand. HQ is to be blocked up as big as possible obviously and then generally leave Archives relatively open as the idea is unless they have Sneakdoor we can let them decide whether charging Datasucker is worth the meat damage.

Of course there are problems: Yog mashes the Ireress and then servers will be free. I often feel I need 10+ credits and can't come back when I've been bankrupted, and as x3r0h0ur mentions below there needs to be a fair order to how you draw. I think that about covers it.

5 comments
30 Apr 2014 bubo

Overall, I believe that this is a good build for GRNDL. My GRNDL: Quick as a Corpse deck actually looked very similar to this during an early stage. I opted to move towards a faster game, but that was a personal preference.

I am confused about your inclusion of Data Raven and Bernice Mai. Draco has an ETR routine in the tagging trace, which is why I used it in GRNDL: QaaC, but what is the point of the Data Raven and Bernice Mai tags? It seems they are only feeding the Dedicated Response Team, and this deck does not feel like it would utilize DRT very efficiently. Between DRT's requirement for a successful run, Off the Grid, and your ICE selection the Runner is being actively discouraged from making runs. 5 card slots dedicated to a good combo undermined by the deck structure just feels wrong. It feels like this deck should have a Scorched Earth or two in here, or possibly a Private Security Force as a more pro-active version of DRT.

I like the inclusion of Off the Grid here, and I see what you are doing with Shipment from Kaguya and the various advanceable ICE. However, I wonder if Shipment from Kaguya is sufficient to slow down the Bad Publicity race with the Runner. When I constructed GRNDL: QaaC I realized that the Bad Publicity was creating a race between my turbo economy and the Runner's capability to efficiently use the Bad Publicity credits. There is no way that any Corporate economy can keep pace over large Bad Publicity credits in the long run so I ended up with a Rush design to try to end the race before the Runner finishes. When I made that realization, I also realized that I could not spare the clicks to advance my ICE. That was when I cut my GRNDL Refinery, Swarm, Tyrant, and Woodcutter. Shipment from Kaguya can help aleviate this pressure, but I wonder if it's effect is enough to dedicate card slots to.

With that being said, Archer in GRNDL: QaaC has regularly created conditions where the Runner could not use the Bad Publicity at all, so I whole heartedly approve of Ichi 1.0 in this deck. I woud recommend reviewing Grim for inclusion, although I think Rototurret is too weak to make the cut under GRNDL.

30 Apr 2014 x3r0h0ur

putting DRT's off the grid makes the runner suffer meat damage just to break in if you have data ravens on both servers, or two on HQ. Very combo-y though, I'm not a huge fan of it. I feel like this is too expensive to be viable, in addition to it's necessity to draw the cards in a certain order. Ireress is worthless until is Yog is dead and buried.

30 Apr 2014 bubo

I've been playing around with Shipment from Kaguya on my rebuild of GRNDL:QaaC and I have to say, I'm pleasantly suprised. One issue that I had with GRNDL:QaaC is that I could never spare the click to advance Hadrian's Wall. Shipment from Kaguya allows me to advance both my Agenda and ICE at the same time for the same click. It also slots in well with Swarm, which may end up being a surprise counter to Bad Publicity.

30 Apr 2014 zithith

Wow, never thought I'd get comments on this! Thanks guys.

Bubo, I should probably have put QaaC down as an influence to this, but I was just posting this to show a friend. I used your write-ups on GRNDL and Eric's House of Cards article to feed some ideas I had of my own.

X3ro's got the gist of it though. The main idea I had was to OtG the DRTs with one scoring remote (for The Cleaners etc.) then force the tags on the runner last minute through Data Ravens and Bernice. Hence the naming as (Yog notwithstanding) the deck heaps on the BP, but the runner has nowhere to use it. He's also right in that it is more combo than synergy and costs a bomb so I'm really struggling.

Shipments, I just included because I could really. I've long preferred Weyland and having (at least until recently) been building decks with my limited physical card pool I dragged it in because I've found them to be very worthwhile from the core set, saving 1 click and 2 creds seems a no-brainer even if it's not a power-play. Getting a Swarm sub/ice wall/hadrians token is nice when it's free, and you can do 2 ice if you're in a pinch/don't have an agenda to score.

Not sure about the Draco's from the last couple of games I've played, I can see they work well in QaaC or HoC but I just seem to need an exponential amount of credits to boost it to a strength where it's costly to break - but that might be a failing of the deck as a whole. The other options are shadow/hunter.

Once I'm home with some time I'll edit the Deck to include a write up of my imagined playstyle.

30 Apr 2014 bubo

@zithith: I feel flattered that others are expanding on my ideas. As I said, this is definitely a solid build, especially since I'm finding myself wrong about Shipment from Kaguya. The OtG and DRT combo with Cleaners has high potential, but x3r0h0ur said it best that this feels combo-y and expensive with an order requirement. That's not to say it won't have a place here, but my opinion is that you can supplement the base with some additional pieces to take advantage of the tags.