MaxX , SC 1st place Highlander Games (Boonton , NJ)

I'm happy that this very closely matches the MaxX deck I'm planning to take to our SC in a couple weeks. I threw in an Archive Interface just in case Jinteki shows up in force, but that's really just me being overly cautious, I think. I just don't want to see 3 Shocks and 3 Shi-Kyu in Archives against Keyhole.

Don't even bother with the archives interface , honestly. I played against a Genomics deck 2 times during the tournament (one in swiss , and one in winners semifinals). They were packing shocks and whatnot as well.

All you need to do against that is to just keep keyholing them until the win is in archives. Just make sure you clear jacksons off the board. Honestly , if you keyhole and see a jackson , pick that over anything that you see (agendas included).

If you put 7 points into archives that aren't Future Perfects , then it doesn't matter what else is in archives. You access the cards in archives in the order of your choosing. Just access the agendas first.

Singularity will also help you in the Jinteki matchup. Just singularity their advanced stuff , so it becomes irrelevant if the card is a trap or not. Just go into archives to find out later.

Also , some useful knowledge : If you run archives and use eater to break ice , you still flip the cards. This becomes relevant against a jinteki player after you wanton destruction their hand and don't want to deal with shocks/shi kyus , but still want to know what you've destroyed.

I tried out a very similar MaxX build and the aggression is real. I just can't imagine why you would put Utopia Shard for your last influence

It would be nice if you linked my deck to this, it's almost card for card my build netrunnerdb.com , not trying to discourage you at all, but a little credit would be nice =)...

So you did what I've been mulling over for a wile and dropped Box-E for Singularity, I'm glad to see it work well, have you thought about finding room for Utopia Shard now that you have the influince...?

Also did you see much MaxX hate? Like Swordsman and Crisium Grids...? If so, how did you find the match? I personally don't think that help but if like to hear your thoughts...

Crisium crushes MaxX. Have any issues with Caprice on HQ in RP?

@SlySquid , Yeah.. I totally got this deck from you , but I didn't put you in the "inspired from" list because... (embarisingly enough) , I don't know how to link it in there in the editor.

I don't mind not filling up my influence. I honestly feel like you don't have to use all of your influence when deckbuilding. Some players tend to want to fill it up , but there is just about nothing that the influence would add that would directly help the deck.

I saw a lot of MaxX/Anarch hate in that tournament as well. Crisium Grid/Swordsman/Wraparound/Chronos Project , and even Will O'Wisp were being used. Still powered through it though. I got a lot of practice games in against Anti-MaxX tech beforehand , so I knew what to do in the the situations presented. Those matches took longer than the 10 minutes that other MaxX games did (lol). Swordsman isn't a big deal , even if your Eater gets trashed. Just go get a femme , and reinstall Eater somehow. I would try to hold onto a second Eater for as long as I could if I was sniffing out a swordsman. Pitching events just to keep the extra Eater for safety is perfectly fine , because of all the event recursion you have access to.

@spags : Caprice on HQ is probably one of the best answers out there against MaxX/Anarch. It's rough , until RP tries to make a play into their remote to score. Then you can just burn your Singularity on the remote to force RP to rez another Caprice (trashing the one on HQ). It's one way around it. I'll gladly give up an agenda , 4 credits (+ the run cost) , plus 2 clicks to get Caprice off of HQ , if it means I can start going off on RP. Even if the agenda they score is a Nisei (worst case scenerio) , it's not sooo bad. It's not the greatest.. but it's not bad either.

Crisium Grid does NOT crush a properly piloted MaxX list. It's little more than a speedbump if anything. Femme and knight will get you access where the Crisium grid is to dig it out. If the corp had time to triple ice the central that the grid is on , then one out of three things happened :

You didn't disrupt the corp enough as MaxX , and gave them time to be able to set up ice that deep.

You haven't put out a keyhole yet , but you already have an eater out.

The corp is running some list that's like 21-23 ice that's all really cheap.

2 of those three outcomes are on you , not because of the corp.

@SlySquid

I'm a total idiot and didn't realize that you do just post the link in the "inspired by" when you click on edit. Derp. I feel SOOOO stupid right now.

My bad. Yeah.. I'll totally give credit where credit is due broseidon. This was pretty much your design

Any thoughts about Parasite to help deal with small annoying ice?

@ncaron : No room for it. Plus , I don't have the extra memory to support it. I want to minimize dead draws as much as possible.

Parasite is definitely a way you could go in MaxX lists if you want to though. But that's a very different style of deck.

I'd sooner look for slots for a Spinal Modem though. That card is really good in keyhole/eater lists.

By the way, nice run. I was going to run a similar build last weekend, but the hate seemed really high. I should have. I also run no Hardware. More punk rawk.

@spags Thanks bro ! Even with the good bit of MaxX hate in the field , she still went 7-0. That shows that as long as you know how to deal with the situations that will be presented when you play MaxX , you can still do really well.

The MaxX hate doesn't actually hurt you THAT much as MaxX. There needs to be better tech for this IMO.

Lmao it's cool @Vash2002, I didn't know for the longest time either...

Anywho congrats...

I never seem to get any mileage out of my Joshua B. When and how do you effectively use it?

Same here, I dropped Josh. What about Amped Up? Seems good on paper, but after 10 or so games didn't have a chance to use it.

Josh is an MVP. You get to decide to use him after MaxX's ability. Once the Siphon pressure starts, it's difficult for the Corp to waste two creds and a click on him. For 1 cred, he's an awesome tax once you go tag me.

Josh is fantastic when you get to use him. If you've put the corp behind , they can't afford to trash him. So you're basically getting 5 clicks a turn with him for a good long while. If the corp does trash him , you kinda don't care because they've taken a tempo hit from doing it.

As for Amped Up , it's one of those cards that enables tons of wonky plays if you open your mind up with it. Need money ? Amped up Same Old Day Job and still have a click if you need to (yes this only nets +2 money , but that +2 money could be very important in the context of the game). Want to make sure you close out the game with Keyhole runs before the corp gets a chance to find an answer ? Amped Up , Keyhole 5 times in a turn , and have the last click to run archives.

Amped up is just one of those cards that is fantastic once you learn how to use it. Granted , I don't play it every game , but when I do , it's awesome !

@Vash2002 Having played an approximation of this deck to a 2nd place win in a Store Champs, I have to disagree about Crisium. This deck can get slow starts--not every game is this ideal Siphon lock where all the right pieces coalesce. I was of the opinion Grid did nothing until I had it dropped turn 1 with 2 ice all on HQ when I was on an econ heavy draw on the mulligan with no real action until a few turns deep. At this point, they further reinforced, as they were aware of the shenanigans that would take place, simply nulling my Siphons and Wantons. If these are in fact ETR ice, conjuring up a Femme and Knight, or 2 Knights, isn't an easy endeavor whatsoever for this deck--esp. Knight.

This is not play error; it is probability at work in a deck that has more support cards than enablers. The chance of this happening is more than decent. So I would argue, inversely, that a smart corp that knows the value of a protected Grid in this match can't put the brakes to you quick.

I agree Swordsman is laughable. I had about every opponent drop one on me, and it was a minor bother at worst--c'mon, this deck is made to treat its heap as a resource. Wraparound is a massive pain in the ass, as mentioned. I also found Pop-Up to be annoying on R&D for the econ swing. I was quick to state Crisium was easy to maneuver around, but my only two losses with the deck on the day were in fact due to Grid locking me out of HQ and in turn blanking a decent portion of the deck's disruption package.

*typo '...CAN put the brakes to you quick.

I dropped a Knight for a Corroder in my build.

@spags not a bad idea, but it def dillutes opening siphon turns.

Well, you still have 7 breakers to use on 2 Siphons. Chance of getting that opening Siphons isn't huge, IMHO.

14 INF? I like Utopia. Opens up the Wanton, and can break up the Scorch or combos.

So, SlySquid has the Box-E in there. I saw that, and it seemed brilliant, so I put it in my MaxX deck, but then I took it out (and put it in, and took it out). Are you still running it, SlySquid? Or has anyone else played with it?

I also really want to put John Masanori in this deck. But I almost worry about the amount of draw that adds - I feel like I already spend MaxX turns looking at a 5 card hand already.

@Wookiee I played with Box-E for the last 2 weeks. It never really did anything in my matches--I played it literally once. It never mattered in the Store Champs I played in--the deck second after conceding in the finals due to a sched issue. I get the idea of including it, but it is so edge case.

I'd much rather have Utopia.

What do you take out for Utopia? Knifed is my best pick, since there are two, and this deck has recursion, but I'm not sure.

I like Knifed a bit more than Spooned generally, but that could be just me.

If I were to include a console in the deck (pertaining to the Box-E discussion) , I'd probably go with Spinal Modem over Box-E.

With Box-E , you get hand size and brain damage mitigation (they're both +2 mem). This is good if you feel like you're going to play Amped Up A LOT more frequently. But Box-E does nothing to actually improve your board presence. Sure , you can have knights + keyhole + femme + eater out , but you can also do that with Spinal Modem.

With Spinal Modem , You get those 2 credits to help with runs. This just makes you so much more efficient (2 credits goes a long way with eater). The Modem pays for itself if you've used the credits twice (and this deck runs quite frequently). The only downside is that you'd take a brain if you get successfully traced. This shouldn't ever come up really. Troll , and TMI are the only ice that have trace effects that you can't avoid (and only 1 of those sees play). Ash should almost never be going off , as you can just Singularity into him if need be.

Granted , some ice becomes particularly annoying when you have spinal modem (virgo in particular) , but I think the benefits outweigh the downsides.

In regards to Utopia Shard , I think I'd cut either a Spooned or an Amped Up for it , if you really want Shard in there. Amped Up enables crazy turns and all that , but I feel like having one would be enough if you play with that in mind. Maybe even cut them entirely if you so feel.

Spooned can go down to one , because there are less code gates that are seeing play that you'd actually want to get rid of. DO NOT CUT A KNIFED. A knifed can get you into a remote when you need to. If Corp tries to score behind an ETR ice or two , you can kill some of the ice to enable you to get it. The most common play a corp with do is use an ETR Barrier to keep you out , with some support above it. This way , you have 8 ways into the remote in the deck (not counting recursion options) against the most common remote tactic that the corp with try to use on you. Knifed is a lifesaver to me.

Also.. if you're THAT concerned with Crisium grid on HQ , you can find a way to slot in a Feint.

Feint bypasses two pieces of ice on HQ. But since Feint states "if the run is successful , you cannot access cards" , Crisium Grid essentially removes this clause , so you can still access. Blow up the grid with your super secret tech against CG.

Now finding the 3 influence and the card slot for one feint... that's the real trick.. lol

Oh, that's hilarious. It's almost worth dropping an Account Siphon just to do that. "Feint." "Okay, I won't rez. You get in, but can't access." "No, the run wasn't successful from Crisium Grid. I access." "...." But a single access isn't worth the loss of an AS, even if it's hilarious.

remember that you can trash the crisium grid with that access .. then you can go crazy with all your HQ stuff !

It's kinda troll-y

I cut 2 Ice Wall in my Blue Sun build for 2 Wraparound as more practical MaxX hate that is cheap and on-the-fly instead of CG since I really only fear Wanton and Keyhole, and also a Will'o'the'Wisp, since the hardest place for MaxX to reach is the bottom of her own stack. The Will has been so-so overall, but the Wraparound has been a huge taxing advantage to help swing credits- I see talk of adding a Corroder to this build, and it concerns me! I think a single Corroder will be a strong choice for MaxX builds in general, otherwise Wraparound on Archives is all I need to make you pay 8 credits for that Femme (3 RR + 5 Eater). Some good things to consider in these comments!

Knight gets around Wraparound actually. Wraparound is good tech , don't get me wrong , but it's NOT as potent as you'd think it is.

Although adding a Corroder is a decent idea. I'd sooner add a mimic though , but that's just me.

The whole point of Knight in the deck is three fold. Firstly , it helps you get access somewhere that you need to get access. Secondly , it gets through wraparound. Lastly , it helps with your efficiency on some ice.

Against Blue Sun , knight is less good , but it's still strong. Hits all the space ice (save for Orion) , if they're running it. The MaxX player just needs to be smart and have a click left over to move the knight to a piece of unrezzed ice at the end of the turn , so Blue Sun can't just pop back the ice trashing the knight in the process.

Blue Sun is MaxX's hardest matchup IMO.

@SlySquid @Vash2002

Hi guys! I'm going to play this archetype! and i have some Q's:

1) Do you think this deck needs more 47 cards? or this number is well setted up? 2) What do you think about new MaX archetype with a more solid economy, without siphoon and with a classic rig? 3)What about "silverware"? did you find them (4x in total) useful? (actually I'm going to test 2 knifed and 1x 1x of others) 4) Singularity feedback? If positive, 1x or 2x?

Thanks in advice!