Date on a bench

For the last months I played a really aggressive Chaos Theory deck with SMC + Account Siphon + Indexing. It worked very well but eventually I got bored with it. Its aggressivity somehow became tiresome. But I couldn’t figure out what else to play. I built an Andromeda control deck with a lot of connection (Logos, Bad Publicity exploit) that is quite challenging and interesting to play, but tiresome again. Other decks out there weren’t looking like things I wanted to play. Interesting maybe, sometimes even inspired, but not for me. So I took a break in order to reboot my brain’s Netrunner part. Two weeks without thinking about combos, tweaking deck ideas or looking for new strategies.

Then I saw her: Oracle May.

She is great. But like every other woman she has a catch. Some might even say two: you risk trashing your own cards and you show the Corp what you are going to play. I don’t think the latter is really something negative. In fact, I think it is a powerful psychological trick: the more the Corp player thinks about what possibilities you have with your cards, the more he forgets his own game plan. It’s an information overload. The Corp sees everything, but doesn’t. Hiding in plain sight, remember? So the one thing I want to negate is the destructive part of her ability. And I want to do that as much as possible and with as few cards as possible.

The first card that came to everybody’s mind was Motivation of course. But that is a combo setup. It takes time and effort to put together quickly. I wanted to avoid that because combos suck. I want reliability, not something like “if I have this card and if I can play this other one before it, this magical thing will happen. But only if I have enough credits, the Corp didn’t play this card, etc, etc, etc…” You get my point? The more “ifs”, the more you have to think of things that could go wrong with your combo. Combos are not reliable.

Personal opinion: I want to play Netrunner, not “think” it. Thinking is bad; especially in tournament situations (or maybe I’m just not smart enough, who knows?).

To reliably use Oracle May’s ability means running a majority of one type of card. This way I can name that every turn with little to no negative effect. I’m not planning to play a Professor deck, so event cards were the logical choice (though that Professor deck does sound interesting). In addition to that I needed something to save Oracle May’s mispredictions out of the heap.

My first reflex was to try her out with Chaos Theory, because my last deck already had program recursion built in it with Clone Chips and Test Runs. The small size of the decks also means getting Oracle May quite reliably. So I took out some programs, the hardware tricks and put in more events. But I wasn’t happy with it. Influence meant that I missed most of the sweet criminal events. Additionally, it’s an auto-lose to a double Punitive Strike. I didn’t like that. I guess no one does.

So I turned away from Shapers. But I still needed enough influence for the recursion tricks. Who has the most influence in Criminals? Ken "Express" Tenma! And in addition to that, he makes all the run events cheaper! He is perfect:

• 17 influence. I still want more, but at least I can nullify Oracle’s negative effect well enough.

• I have access to all the criminal events, including tutors to “save” the few cards I don’t want Oracle May to trash.

• The run events are cheaper.

• Theophilius Bagbiter protects me against flatlines.

So let’s take a look at it:

Influence:

2 x Test Run. Recursion + tutor. What’s not to like. Twice, because once is not reliable enough.

1 x Retrieval Run. It’s a run event, so you can play it from your stack thanks to Planned Assault.

1 x Levy AR Lab Access. Reboot all the nice events. You will draw a lot and soon your stack will appear really small. That’s the time for LALA. You may need to play it as soon as you get it though, depending on the risk of damage you might take from the Corp. Losing it can become tricky in the endgame.

2 x Oracle May. 3 might be better, but influence is limited. On the other it’s one less non-event card and we have access to Hostage.

1 x Corroder.

1 x ZU. 13 Key Master. I would prefer Gordian Blade, but influence again…

The events are mostly self-explanatory. I preferred Forged Activation Orders over Emergency Shutdown because in addition to put pressure on the Corp, it gives some control of where its money goes and information. It helps knowing which breaker to tutor first (keeping the pressure on) and it’s really useful if there is Ice over Archives. This way I know which breaker I will need in case I need a Retrieval Run.

2 x Theophilius Bagbiter. He has a nice synergy with Oracle May (you automatically get the credits for the card you just draw plus credits for another card) and protects you from all kind of damage. There are no combo cards in this deck. The only card you may not want to lose is LALA. But be careful, don’t play him carelessly. You must balance your need for credits vs your need for cards (or life points). Sometimes I don’t even play him. Theophilius brings safety to the deck, but also some archenemies: Sweep Weeks and Komainu. He really is match-up dependent. So I may cut one out in favour of something else. Maybe a Femme Fatale. But I’m not sure yet. Any suggestions?

Short playing guide:

The perfect starting hand: Oracle May, Theophilius Bagbiter, a program and Easy Mark. First click: Oracle May Second click: Theophilius Bagbiter Third click: Draw with Oracle May Forth click: Easy Mark

And you are set. You can replace one of the connections with a Hostage, since the Easy Mark is enough in order to keep your cards with Bagbiter.

The first thing you always want is to install Oracle May. Then you will want your rig. Forged Activation Orders helps you to choose the right program and start pressuring the Corp as you search for your complete rig. If you don’t have Theophilius in your starting hand, you don’t HAVE to install him at all. It really depends on the match up. Keep the Easy Marks back, if you can. They make the install so much easier.

From there on the decks is really easy to play. There are no real combos in this deck. Just many cards that have nice synergies, like Ken making the run events cheaper (13 from 38 events, that 13 credits right there), Theophilius and May, the tutors, …

Simple and easy. I love it.

First click is Oracle May, then you go on from there, depending on the events you have. Sometimes you won't even have better things to do than click for credits.

Don’t be afraid to click for money.

I would really love The Maker’s Eye, but I don’t feel comfortable cutting one Test Run or the Retrieval Run for it. I also thought about Déjà Vu, which would also help if I lose LALA. But again, I don’t feel like cutting the Retrieval Run. It is so much more reliable thanks to Planned Assault.

I would love to know what you think about it. If you have questions, don’t hesitate.

Have a good one.

Elstyr.