The SOL of NBN (Imagine Games GNK 1st Place)

Introduction:

When Data and Destiny came out I finally got sick of losing with Weyland and wanted to switch to playing NBN. Now I'll freely admit, I'm not an amazing deckbuilder. I tend to try to find Ids that are easy to build around to give myself bit of a guide. So when I looked through the Ids, I was immediately drawn to New Angles SOL. Currents are a fairly underused card type, and with such an obvious build-around-me ability, it seemed like a relatively easy deck to build. After months of different versions, this is the version that I'll be sticking with for store championship season. In 3 separate GNKs, I've gone 10-1 over all with it and it was the main reason that I was able come in 1st at the Winter GNK held at Imagine Games in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Agendas:

I've been noticing a trend in Glacier NBN decks to remove Astroscript Pilot Program to get that extra 3 influence for better ICE or economy (Ex: Adonis Campaign in Spark Agency decks). The reason it's still here can be answered with this question; if Astroscript was a neutral agenda that cost an influence to import, would you play it? I would, and you should too.

The rest of the agendas are fairly normal. Beales as blank 3/2s, 15 Minutes to annoy the runner and Global Food Initiative lowers agenda density while making the runner's job a lot harder.

Currents:

The ID wants you to play currents so I've got 3 copies of 2 separate ones, Targeted Marketing and Lag Time. Both of them actively slow the runner down, but in very different ways.

Targeted Marketing is very powerful when named on the right card. Usually you want to name a common economic card (Sure Gamble, Cashe vs Noise, Underworld Contact vs Link Based decks) or something that the runner's deck does not function without (Ex: Rabbit Hole in Nexus Kate) or just Account Siphon. They really have two options: one, play the card to keep tempo and let you make loads of money or never play the card and slow themselves down so much that you can just win before they're set-up.

Lag Time turns all of your average to good ICE into monsters. I tried and experimented with lots of different currents like Enhanced Login Protocol and Pay-wall Implementation but eventually decided on Lag Time for two reasons. One, because it doesn't cost influence which lets you play better ICE and two, because it actually stops the runner. I don't like the idea of benefiting from them getting in, the whole point of a Glacier deck is to keep them out so this seems like the best current for that.

You have 3 copies of each because you HAVE to draw one early for the deck to function properly. This does cut into the deck slots fairly heavily but it works out.

Defensive Upgrades:

Caprice used to be here over Ash but the MWL made the 4 influence cost a real liability. The other defensive upgrade, Red Herrings is honestly the worst card in the deck. Out of all of the games I've played, I think it's stopped a runner from stealing an agenda maybe once. However, even if it stops a runner very rarely I don't think that there's another card that I'd rather have over it. You just need to stop them once and since your servers are so taxing with Lag Time and a multitude of large ICE it does the job well enough.

Economy:

The economy in the deck is fairly lightweight, with the normal Hedge Funds, Sweeps Weeks, PAD Campaigns and Marked Accounts. You will have JUST barely enough money to get everything rezzed. Fortunately, you have Targeted Marketing to give you some sweet burst economy when the runner finally caves in and plays into your hand. I've sat on 50+ credits multiple times because runners will give up trying to play around Targeted Marketing and just throw money at you.

ICE:

Instead of going over every single ICE I'm just going to give some shout-outs to the best pieces.

Someone once claimed the News Hound is the Sundew of New Angles SOL and basically was the reason to play the ID. Whoever that was is right, it is an absolutely insane piece of ICE. Not only is is an awful face-check, almost no breaker in the game is even remotely efficient against it, especially when Lag Time is up.

Archangel is a card that really shouldn't have been printed. How is it fair that a piece of ICE exists with 6 strength, that is not only cheap, but also has a subroutine that basically says “Trash a program”. Even if the runner has a ton of link, that Trace 6 makes it a hefty tax.

Rainbow is a very unassuming piece of ICE that does a ton of work in this deck. It is so ridiculously efficient and so good at taxing the runner out that I'm surprised that it doesn't see more play. Much like News Hound, there are very few breakers that deal with a Lag Time boosted Rainbow easily and even if they do, you only paid 3 credits for a 5 strength ICE that made them drag out a breaker. It's worth the include.

Gameplan and Matchups:

The overall game plan is pretty simple and doesn't really change for each match up. You want to artificially slow the game down with Targeted Marketing, Lag Time and your massive ICE to the point where the runner is completely out of resources and you can score out in relative peace.

Noise is the worst matchup for the deck. With the currents taking up so many deckslots, you can't pack in a Cyberdex Virus Suite to knock them down a peg and their milling makes your slow and steady plan very hard to pull off. You should also watch out for various Nexus Kate decks or big rig shaper decks. They can make the metric shit-ton of money needed to get in so you need to try to just rush out Astros as fast as possible and just end the game before they get online. Every other runner is fairly easy to beat.