Watch the Birdie (1st, Adelaide Chronos Protocol)

Ber 2658

This deck is based on the solid foundation of NBN Fast-Advance with Astroscript, SanSan City Grid, Project Beale, Breaking News, plus NAPD Contract. As per most current NBN decks, it wins by scoring agendas faster than the runner can get set up.

However, I decided to take advantage of NBN's reputation for typically running passive/harmless ice that can be safely face-checked, by packing in some nasty sentries. In particular, some net damage that can really interrupt the runner's plans and make them lose balance if they hit them without a killer.

So, whenever you draw the right cards to pursue a fast-advance strategy to Agenda-Point win, scoring those Agendas is first priority.

But in the meantime, slow the runner down and disrupt them with unexpected twists to confuse them as to whether the deck aims to FA or is doing something else:

  • try to get them to facecheck Neural Katana naked to lose some cards
  • Use Snoop to blow up breakers or nasty events whenever possible
  • put Chum in front of Neural Katana and a Corp Troubleshooter in root if you think they might run intending to leave chum and break Neural Katana, so you might get a kill.
  • put Chum in front of Snoop or Flare to force them to break the brutal ice str rather than fight the trace (also makes the Snoop & Flare 8 strength which is out of Knight range)
  • Use Corp Troubleshooter with Rototurret or Grim any chance you get to blow up a breaker - especially code gate breakers as there is a lot of EtR code gates and many runners are light on decoders
  • put Chum in front of chimera as a cheap way to stop the runner from taxing you by running chimera

The economy of the deck is 3x Hedge, 3x Sweeps, and 2x Private Contracts. The Sweeps were great as with the net damage flying around, runners didn't dare reduce hand size to combat it. The Private Contracts were a great source of money as the deck often wants to click for credits here and there, and no runner ever dared trash it as they needed their credits for elsewhere.

In practice, I found the Neural Katanas very effective for throwing runners off balance, but little use after that, often being broken or bypassed for a single credit. The Chums and Quandarys were both good, but I found myself wishing for Enigma instead of Quandary as Chum puts Enigma up to 4 strength while only pumping Quandary to a useless 2 str.

The Rototurrets did good work all day, regularly trashing a breaker on rez and also often a second breaker with the help of a Corp Troubleshooter (against Mimic, Atman, or Femme Fatale with limited credits).

Flare, Grim, Caduceus, Wraparound and Tollbooth all did well in their jobs of forcing out breakers or taxing the runner.

Snoop and Chimera did not help much however, I think in future they might be replaced by RSVP and Wall of Static respectively.

(What's the name about? Photographers used to bring a distraction to keep children entertained while being photographed. Similarly, this deck throws some curve balls at the runner to occupy them figuring out what the deck is trying to do while it gets busy scoring agendas.)

2 comments
23 Apr 2014 KingOfOdonata

This looks like a blast of a deck. I'm going to put it together sometime and try it out. I love the possibility of flat-lining on a run in NBN, since it is never expected. I've always felt NBN does a great job splashing stuff from other factions which makes them very unpredictable. I'll probably adjust some of the ICE, as you've mentioned some isn't terribly effective late game.

24 Apr 2014 Ber

I've now swapped some of the ice as mentioned in the description:

  • 2x Quandary for 2x Enigma,
  • 2x Chimera for 2x Wall of Static
  • 2x Snoop for 2x RSVP

The first two changes have proven excellent already. Haven't managed to draw an RSVP to try out yet though.