The Red Queen Hypothesis

Seems very nice, will definitely give it a shot

I like it looks good am not a fan of Knight mind especially with Blue sun around but if it works for you good.

How is your economy doing?

The idea is hell-fun, and it's suprising that you say it's successful. To me it lacks draw - it might take ages to get breakers.

I don't like Order of Sol also, is it really useful, are you that often low on econ? I don't get it - to be running much you kinda need the money, and OoS implies exactly the opposite.

Anyway, including Sneakdoorbeta and lampreys is a great idea, so congrats! I'd love to see you playing this one

@jawohl Well from i've played alot of Nasir an i can say its easy to get a run in with no cash Order of Sol and Cyberfeeder's.

Looks like great fun, lots of ideas I've played around with myself in the past and glad to see it working. I'll cook this up when I get a chance and give it a go!

is Fester really worthwhile? also, without any card draw, this seems like it could be very inconsistent

@PinkwarriorI have always liked Knight, but really it's in there because it can deal with whichever piece of ICE is my biggest problem right now. I also like how it tends to trick the corp into trashing their own ICE.

@jawohlI run a lot, but bounce often as well. If I run and the corp rezzes a wall of static, I just spent 1 click to cause the corp to lose 4 credits. My successful runs are successful because the corp does not have the money to rez something on every server. Because of that I can get away with few or no breakers. For econ, I usually have just barely enough, which is fine by me.

@moistloafFester is a bit of a meta call on my part, people were starting to insta purge the moment I dropped a Lamprey. It's true that the deck isn't consistent, but most of the cards in the deck are useful virtually any situation so no matter what I draw I can do something with it.

This looks like a good deck, but why no Ixodidae since you have Lamprey and Fester? How do you think MemStrips and Steelskin's release in Order in Chaos will affect this deck? How's your match up against Blue Sun? The reliance on Knight and lack of a real breaker suite I see as being a real liability against that deck. Lastly, I can't help but think that this would simply be more effective as a Noise deck. How many credits do you usually deprive the corp of during a game with Reina's ability?

@magikot Ixodidae is something I've been playing around with, but the problem I see with it is that it is useless if I don't have Lamprey out. Since I'm not running any card draw, I can't afford to run cards that aren't always going to be useful to me. I haven't had trouble with memory limits, so I don't think I'll bring in MemStrips. Steelskin looks very strong and I'll probably try to find room for a couple once its out. I don't rely on Knight, or breaking ICE at all. This deck's strategy is not to break through the corp's defenses but rather to force the corp to spread itself too thin, so that one server is left completely defenseless. Reina's ability is actually what makes this deck come together. Not necessarily because of how much money the corp ends up losing (I'd estimate around 8 credits) but because that 1 credit, either by itself or in conjunction with Xanadu, makes it impossible for the corp to rez any of their ICE because they don't have the credits they need. I also don't like how corps tend to ICE up archives against Noise, it makes the Sneakdoor Beta drop less of a surprise attack.

I ran this tonight, losing with the game decided by a Hostile Takeover. Still, very fun deck, and I'd hate to face it.

Draw was the main killer here. I started with Sneakdoor, 2 Lampreys, and a Medium, ran Dirty against R&D, and dropped the Sneakdoor once the other central were iced over. I eventually drew Djinn, but then spaced on Darwin being a virus, and had to draw to it naturally after I face-checked an Archer and lost that half of the rig, and was held off by an Enigma and an Ice Wall. I recognize this as my bad.

I'm thinking Inject or Duggar's might speed things along. Maybe even an Astrolabe, though that's a hard sell up against Desperado. Spinal Modem might be an in-faction replacement to free up influence for draw.

Question - which is maybe more general than just your deck - why Darwin over Crypsis? With all the viruses in your deck I imagine the Corp probably purges on average twice a game, which seems like it would make Darwin pretty useless. Have you found otherwise? Does the Corp losing a whole turn make up for the loss of the counters?

@verge I'm glad you had fun, that's the point of netrunner! It took me a bit of practice to get the game plan really down. Spinal Modem is an interesting idea, I'll try incorporating it the next time I need to free up some influence.

@Andannius Crypsis is too expensive and time consuming for this deck. I like Darwin because it works great with Cyberfeeder and even if they purge I'm guaranteed to be able to get by any strength 0 or 1 ICE. Often those low strength ICE are the only ones that the corp can afford to rez. Darwin is in there to counter the cheap etr ICE like Quandary and Ice Wall.

One of the deck's regular victims here. I'm proud that our tiny meta is producing some great stuff! Wassup @GotHat.

First off, practice with this deck is hugely important because it score points by going down a completely different path than other decks do. Definitely play at least 10 games with it before your write it off or critique it really hard.

A skilled pilot will often keep the Corp on their toes from turn one, forcing them into catch-22s right off the bat. It's pointless to attempt to make money when there's Lamprey/Sneakdoor access, you've gotta purge. But then that opens up a window for Medium, and Reina still gets an extra turn of Lamprey/Desparodo goodness. Even if you manage to rez small ETR ice early, it disappears with Parasite or Darwin shows up to get through it.

All the tools in this deck point toward the same goal of keep the Corp completely broke and mostly iceless, and there are some great syngeries in there, but you've got to be able to read the corp and your tools in hand and make the most damaging decision.

That's all I've got for now... I've broken into a cold sweat and fear my PTSD is triggering from talking about this deck too much.

I like the concept! I've always been a sucker for the resource denial strategies, although I usually play Whizzard.

I think can see how the deck plays, although I haven't tried it yet: You Lamprey them down, they purge, but then they've still got no money, so they can't afford to rez ICE, etc. You can get the Lampreys back with Deja Vu whilst they're scrabbling. Given that (assuming I'm on the right track), would Vamp be an option?

I'd worry about the efficiency of your breakers; Any non-sentry with multiple subroutines would be inordinately taxing. Do you have any issues with Bioroids? They tend to be high STR with multiple subroutines.

Do you think Cyber Threat would be viable in this deck? You mentioned that you were happy to run and bounce to cost them credits, and Cyber Threat is either: 1, you can run without caring about ICE; or 1, force a probably-more-expensive rez.

Is anyone playing Blue Sun: Powering the Future? Seems like it die pretty hard to it.

@JashayYes, Déjà Vu and Djinn make sure I can always get a Lamprey or a Parasite when I need it. That way the corp's problems are never solved for long. Vamp is something I considered, but ultimately Lamprey does plenty of HQ drain and this deck usually runs low on cash so Vamp would eat up too many of my precious credits. Plus the resources I use in this deck are all things I want to hold onto, so that tag is something I would take very reluctantly. I used to run 2 John Masanori but the tags just got too painful. You're right, non sentries with multiple subroutines are expensive to get through, so they are my primary Parasite targets. I let the Parasite eat them away and apply pressure somewhere else until they are trashed. Cyber Threat is a card I would love to find room for, I'm actually going to be trying it in place of Fester at my next game night.

I think incubator would be the tastiest of slots for this deck.

I would really like some play-by-plays for this one. What are openers you like to see? The deck seems light on econ, so it seems to rely heavily on big pressure from turn one. How do you approach playing glacier? Fast advance seems a favorable matchup for this deck, but big ice seems rough. With no Davids an OAI Curtain Wall into Scorch seems a strong possibility. How do you handle the flatline threat?

@x3r0h0ur Incubator definitely would be solid in this deck, that is one of many slight variations that players can make to adapt it to their personal play style.

@ItJustGotRielle My ideal opening hand would probably be a Desperado, a Djinn, a Medium, a Mimic and either a Sure Gamble or a Dirty Laundry. But to be honest most of the cards in this deck are solid in an opening hand and it depends which corp I'm sitting across from. Mimic is much more necessary against Jinteki and an early Lamprey and Sneakdoor Beta is ideal against Near-Earth Hub: Broadcast Center. Pure glacier actually gets economically devastated fairly easily. If they rez big ICE then they are definitely leaving some other server vulnerable, and if they rez little ICE I can play the Parasite game. Blue Sun: Powering the Future + Scorched Earth kill decks are probably my worst matchup, if they were more common in my local meta I would run a couple Plascrete Carapace, but my strategy right now when I run into them is to get an Imp and go fishing for combo pieces.

I wonder about trying to squeeze in an Earthrise Hotel or two... Clickless draw seems like it would fit the deck, offering up options without slowing you down too much, beside wanting to play the cards. Not sure what to cut though, but as an influence free draw solution it seems suited.

Is your economy ever a problem with this setup? I tried to make something similar but don't have 3x desperado nor do I have order of sol. I should have proxy'd them in but I generally like trying to sub other things in and I found that I had big economy problems. I also had some issues getting to the breakers I needed once corp had some ice up.