R+ Kill, In This Economy? [8th & Undefeated @ EA Regional]

lif3line 280

Through the beauty of wordless communication via Netrunner tournament I was convinced that R+ Kill is still real and can hurt you. I was sitting there in a lovely game shop in Nottingham, just manifesting Quetzal's meme potential when I looked over to the game next to me and saw @chonkyseal fighting something truly horrifying (see @jan tuno's delightful poetry for the original).

Now one of my thoughts (as a well adjusted adult) was "what if I could be the one playing the horrifying murder deck that forces my opponent to do all the thinking??". That said, @palmtree has also been trying to convince me to join Team Murder for awhile, but my objection was always that a well practiced opponent could play around the kill lines. Then I saw a bunch of incredibly talented Netrunners had lost to the deck in a tournament setting and it made me think of Captain Kirk:

It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose..

The rest of the quote betrays that it's intended to be a comfort when things are arrayed against us.. but (again well adjusted), what if I was the array?? And my opponent could be trapped by their own knowledge???

False Hybrid

This deck does have a scoring plan, but the secret is that it's to 4/5 points..

I've played this a decent amount online (sorry to all my opponents) and while a few games were won by scoring out, others by mistakes or someone getting unlucky, the majority were won by the threat of scoring out forcing my opponents to take risks they wouldn't have otherwise. Hence the funky agenda suite, hear me out..

I'm the worst

If you've scored two 2-point agendas and a False Lead then you've probably already won even through tech pieces:

At 4 points any 2 unrezzed cards could also be Holoman + Degree Mill so need to be checked by the runner.

Similarly, any 2 unrezzed cards could be Orbital Superiority + Holoman, so they can't end the turn on 3 cards or you can score Orbital then send over your guy.

Except we run 3x Behold! so any card they check could also spell their doom. Multi-access is therefore also a bit dangerous..

Not to mention that all unrezzed ICE is also either 2 net damage or a tag until proven otherwise...

Then if you trash anything or find an agenda you're probably going to get Oppo Research-ed....

These are just some of the things the runner must consider. Unsurprising then that (given the available information) the runner can effectively make no mistakes and still lose.

In For The Kill

The kills are pretty rote, ideally you want 8c and the runner to end the turn with some tags. Sometimes you get them with Behold! (or they get unlucky accessing R&D/HQ), sometimes it's an Amaze server, often it's Oppo when they don't have the capacity to deal with it.

False Lead makes this all easier since as soon as they're on 2 clicks and some tags you can just forfeit it and attempt to do some harm:

  • 3+ tags: Mindscaping -> 2x EotL
  • 2 tags: same plan
    • Only 10 damage (still gets most runners)
  • 1 tag: 2x Mindscaping -> 1x EotL
    • 6 damage, just enough! Gets any un-teched runner or teched runners that have hit some net damage or dared to use their cards

Pivot finds (and potentially plays) a piece of the kill as needed. Or finds you Oppo / Your Digital Life at a key moment, but is very much a backup. Probably quite cuttable. Typically you'd rather get Gaslight to do the thing or just draw into the pieces.

Sometimes you only need Mindscaping -> EotL; just consider what tech they may have. E.g. against Steelskin Scarring we can play the odds and use Mindscaping to reduce the chance of hitting one.

Odds aren't bad for some situations if you gotta gamble:

  • Hand of 5 with 1 Steelskin: dealing 2 damage has a 60% chance of dodging it
  • Hand of 4 with 1 Steelskin: dealing 1 damage has a 75% chance of dodging it
  • Hand of 4 with 2 Steelskin: dealing 3 damage has a 58% chance of only hitting 1

Other odds aren't great (don't recommend).

Actually Playing

There's lots of room for antics in this deck (see below), but you have a few things you need to achieve relatively quickly:

  1. Acquire credits, if you get through a Regolith you'll have a good game, otherwise improvise
  2. Score 4/5 points, setup those impossible forks
  3. Score a False Lead, it makes everything easier

There's lots of ways to play, but I think having 1 "main" remote with Unsmiling Tsarevna in front of it to push things through works quite well. This is typically taxing enough that the runner won't hit it every turn giving you space to do the things you need to.

If they have ICE destruction or efficient ways in then it's time to fall back to a classic shell game where they still have to play around Behold!, Oppo, Amaze, and agendas that give them tags.

Shenanigan Section

There's lots of silly things you can do; almost all your installs can very reasonably be one of a several different lines. HQ and R&D are in a quantum state of all Behold! or agendas that give you tags. If anyone asks, you always have the kill in hand (except when they have Burner).

Dismantling The Corporate Machine

If you too hate Capital then, here's some ways to dismantle it's power:

Shout Outs

Thanks to @cobrabubbles, @J0N4LD, and @not_yeti (plus anyone else I've missed) for organising a really great tournament.

@Bartimaeus for giving me a better name for this deck than "Do The Murder".

Thanks to all the players who made the event a really lovely day and who were really welcoming especially to newer players at their first tournament (thanks to my buddy @alex for agreeing to play despite only remembering Netrunner last week). Also our crew from Sheffield who got up waaaaay too early to drive down.

Special thanks to everyone who was very supportive and encouraging when I was a bit nervous about playing in the cut. Especially @cobalt who gave me a stern talking to about how I gotta belive in myself <3 I may have gone out in the first elimination but I still had a great time and it was by 2pts to 0 so I feel like I had a decent shot.

Final Thought

Be the impossible situation you want your opponent to be in.

I'm so sorry

3 comments
23 Sep 2024 holzpubbnsubbe

Awesome writeup! Congrats on the placing!

...

Did you have to? D:

24 Sep 2024 lif3line

Thanks^^ I think I'm contractually obliged to..

24 Sep 2024 jan tuno

very good writeup, thanks <3