We Never Go Out of Style

krystman 2831

alt text

You got that James Dean day dream look in your eye

And I got that red lip classic thing that you like

And when we go crashing down, we come back every time.

We never go out of style

Simple, solid, lean Stealth Andy build. Based on Matuszczak's build from Polish Nationals. Did some minor tweaks to fit my play style and to improve Shop match-up. Really good against any taxing decks.

Won Store Championship in Wizzard's Well in Mannheim, Germany. Went undefeated in 5 rounds.

Why Datasucker?

This was Matuszczak's idea. I love it. Instead of running 3x Cloak you replace a Cloak with Datasucker. You can't install all 3 Cloaks anyway and the Datasucker is one less influence. Which makes Film Critic possible. Later in this cycle it could be Rebirth.

Additionally, a Datasucker often turns out to be more useful than a cloak credit. It allows cheap runs through Eli. It also allows to break an Archangel or Crick for just 1 stealth credit and 1 sucker token.

Why Rolodex?

I had great success using Rolodex in Stealth decks and I would love to have 2 in the deck. It often feels like an extension of Andy's ability where you keep up the tempo by drawing exactly the things you need in the order you need. Keep in mind it works differently than Mr. Li or Express Delivery. For example, with Express Delivery you will get the best card from the top cards of your deck, but the rest gets shuffled. So you get a single good card but gain no long-term advantage. With Rolodex you get the additional benefit of knowing EXACTLY what you can expect from your next few draws. This allows you to make informed decisions. Should you keep drawing for a breaker or should you try to do some pressure with inside job? Which breaker needs to be Special Ordered? Can you afford to spend some of your #Ghost Runner credits knowing there is more coming down the pipe?

There is also a cool interaction where playing Special Order will shuffle the deck. So you can sometimes pace your breaker tutoring to also re-shuffle the deck when you know there are no longer any cards on top that you need right now.

43 comments
19 Mar 2016 JackMade

Arrrr...mazing!

20 Mar 2016 Koala

Glückwunsch:-)

20 Mar 2016 moistloaf

Wow, elegant list. Not a slot wasted & very surprised to see the Rolodex. Congrats

20 Mar 2016 Swiftie

This is a criminal deck named after a Taylor Swift song with lyrics. I 100% endorse this.

20 Mar 2016 Metaphorazine

Played a very similar deck recently at a store championships, Marcus Batty + Rototurret say that you might have problems.

20 Mar 2016 krystman

@Metaphorazine Yes, Batty is a threat. But he is relatively rare and can be played around. Just don't run on servers with unknown upgrades and concentrate on threatening the rest. Drive By can defuse upgrades on remotes. Also, economy management is an good way to make sure a server is safe. They need at least 6 credits to rez a Roto and play the PSI game.

I've ran into Battys only for the corp to realize the best they can do is to fire an ETR. Finally, even if you lose a breaker, the game is not over. You have inside jobs and some servers may still be open.

If Batty is popular in your meta you can turn a Switchblade into Femme.

20 Mar 2016 JackMade

I really recommend playing 3 Earthrise Hotel and only one John Masanori. Earthrise Hotel does a lot of work in Stealth Andy.

21 Mar 2016 kollapse

I would also be a bit nervous against both Batty (in Pālanā Foods mostly) and Keegan Lane which have been kreeping up in NBN lately. Will definitely try this out though, been wanting to give Andy 2016 a ride.

21 Mar 2016 Sotomatic

With no back up breakers or recursion, this is super risky in a Palana/Batty meta.

22 Mar 2016 krystman

@Sotomatic Because there is no influence. Because Palana wasn't legal. Because Batty is rare in this meta and because I have yet to lose a game because Batty killed my breakers.

22 Mar 2016 kaikisole

I like this for the gif...

24 Mar 2016 SkittlesSinistereo

Possibly a newb question: What is Silencer's purpose in this deck? The credits it provides are specifically to be used on killers, but the only killer in the deck is Switchblade who's abilities can only be powered by a stealth card...

24 Mar 2016 SkittlesSinistereo

Oh, ignore me. I just noticed it does have stealth on it. My bad. Though as an alternate question, would it make sense to remove a data sucker and a Switchblade (as you have a lot of draw power and card manipulation already) and replace with some form of recursion from trash for potentially trashed programs and / or resources? (Asking as someone new to the game who is trying to learn how to build decks)

25 Mar 2016 ANRguybrush

@SkittlesSinistereo I don't think you can afford recursion tbh. Influence is pretty tight already. This deck is hungry for more copies of R&D Interface.

Switchblade is the first breaker you want to get out because you don't want to faceplant into an architect or cortex lock. Cutting one switchblade is okay, but it's really helpful to have them early.

Datasucker functions as a third copy of cloak expect datasucker is often better.

27 Mar 2016 TugtetguT

This deck has so much potential from future cards:

Rebirth to become whatever Criminal you deem fit for your current situation.

Political operative to trash nasty rezzed stuff and Councilman to prevent the rezzing of said nasty things - Mr. Batty in particular.

The Turning Wheel for incredible Security Testing/Datasucker/Desperado/John Masanori/Dirty Laundry AND multiaccess runs.

The Black File for a non-removable, at least by purges, three turn clot.

If you ditch both HQI and RDI for one Turning wheel you'll even be able to find influence for a Sacrificial Construct if Mr. Batty trashing your breakers makes you shiver.

This deck really has me exited for the future of criminals!

(Deck slots just might be an issue)

27 Mar 2016 TugtetguT

Ah I just realized that The Turning Wheel does not get a counter from Archives runs, but I still think it's an interesting include, though you probably won't sec test HQ/RND too often just to get a counter on The Turning Wheel. So it's a bit less of a combo than what I initially thought it would be.

28 Mar 2016 Swiftie

Played against this deck at the Brighton store champ. Was great fun playing against it :) film crittic stole the only TFP from RnD :(

12 Apr 2016 krystman

@TugtetguT Yep, all things worth experimenting with. Brought out the deck with those potential changes in mind.

With the Turning Wheel I'm still not sure. Either change the RDI for a Turning wheel to free up 1 inf. Or drop both interfaces for two Turning Wheels so you draw it early. Too bad it's unique.

Sac Construct is not worth the influence IMHO. It's useless in non-program-trash match-ups. I could get behind Deja Vu but that's too much influence. Better play Councilman to deal with Batty.

Otherwise - play carefully. I've been skeptical about those types of builds myself in the past. The concerns are real. But in practice, the scenario of getting your breakers trashed is actually rare edge case. It's more important if you can win the games against Foodcoats or Convenience Shop, for example.

14 Apr 2016 Myriad

What would you do to help out the asset spam matchup? Since IG seems to be a growing presence in the meta, would you make any changes to help out with keeping on top of the trashes and not dying horribly to net damage?

16 Apr 2016 krystman

@Myriad Haven't had too much experience with IG yet. The match-up is not the worst since open servers means you will have a crazy amount of money so you can afford to pay through the IG ability on some key cards. Things to try would be

  • Political Operative can help against Ronin
  • CBI Raid can be good before running on Archives or after Account Siphon. It will slow the corp down.
  • Feedback Filter is something you may want to splash in if you see A LOT of Jinteki. We had a surge of PE in my meta and I was considering it.
18 Apr 2016 phette23

Adding to that: Drive By might be the single best Criminal card against traps Jinteki. Trashes for free (except Hostile Infrastructure net dmg), reveals bluffed agendas. It's probably not enough to turn the IG matchup positive but it helps more than anything.

@krystman what would you cut to add Political Operative? Or is it not valuable enough to add?

18 Apr 2016 EnderA

In my opinion, Political Operative is just stronger than Drive By. You get to snipe anything, anytime. Caprice, Ash, and Ronin all tremble before PolOp. Even Crisium Grid is defeated by it, assuming you've made a successful run on HQ before.

Drive By is a one-shot double event that could hit anything. You have to time and target it precisely. When there are 3 face down cards in a server, you could end up hitting Breaker Bay Grid or Cyberdex Virus Suite, or just an agenda that you already knew was there, when you really wanted one of the other upgrades. And they can play around it by pre-rezzing cards, which is nice to force them to do, but that means they get to keep anything important. PolOp gets to sit there, waiting for the perfect moment, paid ability speed, to strike.

So it's an easy replacement, in my mind:

-2 Drive By, +2 Political Operative

Possibly replace a third card with another one, or a Councilman. That will make any upgrade/asset oriented Corp truly sad. Marcus Batty/Keegan Lane get slaughtered by the Councilman/PolOp combo. Pre rez? Trash with PolOp. Rez during run? Derez with Councilman. Who needs recursion when you counter both methods of proactive trashing?


If you add Rebirth, the primary target would probably be Leela Patel: Trained Pragmatist. Bouncing unrezzed cards sounds fantastic in stealth, especially with PolOp. You don't really need the credits of Iain Stirling: Retired Spook with stealth, and you don't need the link.

18 Apr 2016 krystman

@phette23 @EnderA POOP and Drive By have slightly different applications. There is some overlap in that both can deal with difficult upgrades on Remotes and both are 'counters' to Ronin. However, Drive By's is great against simply installing naked cards and advancing them in a Trap deck situation - especially when we talk about Mushin No Shin. POOP also doesn't have the window against a SanSan City Grid and Jackson Howard. And Drive By is better at dealing with early game Asset economy.

I will certainly try POOPs instead of Drive By. I feel like this might be very meta-dependent.


@EnderA Leela Patel: Trained Pragmatist is probably the go-to ID. However, if I see Rebirth on my starting hand Silhouette: Stealth Operative might be a good choice too. With Sil you can expect to get in an Account Siphon 2nd turn or so. Run HQ, if they rez, you know which breaker to Special Order. If they don't rez, you expose and also know which breaker to Special Order. ;D

Leela and Sil are also usless at end-game, where one or both players are at match-pointand most ice is rezzed. In this case Gabe or Iain should be solid choices too. It really depends on the board state and the match-up.

That being said, I noticed Film Critic is soooo useful, I will try out Rebirth but it must deliver for me to be persuaded to switch.

18 Apr 2016 EnderA

@krystman Now that I think about it, Rebirth covers most of the weaknesses of Political Operative, just as you mentioned: You can become Silhouette: Stealth Operative. Then traps don't really matter anymore, and you can find out what's in the server indirectly, any number of times.

Re: SanSan/Jackson, Councilman combined with PolOp forces them into a bad choice: Either rez the turn before they use it and leave it vulnerable to PolOp or rez when they need it, and leave it vulnerable to Councilman. And you get to keep them on the board until they do what you want. Same as versus Marcus or Keegan.

19 Apr 2016 EnderA

The Turning Wheel might help you find influence as R&D dig for 1 influence.

19 Apr 2016 percomis

I'm curious if you ever tried adding additional MU to deck? In theory it sounds like a good idea late game to have both Cloaks and Datasucker out, but I'm not sure how it works out in practice. I was thinking like a single Q-Coherence chip (as the downside doesn't really matter because you have exactly 6 MU worth of rig anyway).

19 Apr 2016 Swiftie

I'm currently liking a mix of two pol op and a single drive by in my stealth deck. Once turing wheel comes out I would swap both interfaces out for two to make sure you find it early.

19 Apr 2016 krystman

@EnderA You are expecting to have two different 2-of or 1-of cards installed and ready to go AND have the credits to trigger them both before NEH can get a first SanSan rezzed. Good luck with that. ;)

Sil creates her own mindgame. PE could Mushin No Shin anyway to bait you to expose a Psychic Field. That's more difficult to do against Drive By because you can't depend on the runner having it. But yeah, you are generally right.

Yes, The Turning Wheel will be a good choice for this. However, not sure if it will actually save an influence. Because you might need two so you draw it early enough. Needs to be tested.


@percomis Didn't think about it. But it might be a good idea. Try it and let me know how it went!


@Swiftie What did you drop for the 2nd POOP?

19 Apr 2016 Swiftie

@krystman its kind of an odd stealth build. I'm currently running study guide and its really helpful.

19 Apr 2016 EnderA

@krystman That's true, it's a bit of a MagicalChristmasLand idea to have both out, plus money, early. I suppose the choice boils down to the meta you expect and your playstyle.

PolOp alone won't stop the first use of SanSan, but it will still kill it afterward anytime you choose without needing to run (the remote, anyway.) Drive By will kill it immediately beforehand, but you need to pick your target carefully. If you can regularly get a read on your opponent, then I can see Drive By being superior in several situations, as you mentioned.

Yeah, you'd probably want 2x Turning Wheel anyways, so... not sure where to get that extra influence for Rebirth. All of it is well-spent.

19 Apr 2016 Swiftie

@krystman If you care to have a look :0

netrunnerdb.com

26 Apr 2016 tvaru

Congrats on the deck, I like it very much. I have a question regarding the usefulness of Datasucker over 3rd Cloak, though. I agree that you save one influence, which is a lot. But other than that, I could argue with your reasoning given above.

You wrote that you cannot have 3 Cloaks anyway but DS also takes 1 MU, so it makes no actual difference which you choose. As for running through Eli, is there any difference between lowering its strength to 3 with DS token against paying for boosting Corroder using the 3rd Cloak cred? Given that the raise strength cost is 1, I do not see any advantage. And DS tokens can be purged, rendering it useless until you load it again with successful jumps.

Do not get me wrong, I really like your deck and I have my own motive to asking. I am trying to build a good stealth Jes and have a spare inf, so I could swap the third Cloak for DS, so I just want to check if I am not missing something in my thinking.

26 Apr 2016 percomis

The part you're missing is that Datasucker is like a bank of stealth creds. Let's say you have 4 counters on DS (not an unreasonable situation) and you are running a HB server of Viktor 1.0 and Architect. You can lower Viktor to 2 and Archi to 0, thus sparing 2 stealth creds. In the Eli scenario, 1 counter is really the same as a Cloak token, but 2+ are not.

Of course the banking effect makes it vurnable to purging and a well timed CVS can foil your plans with it.

26 Apr 2016 krystman

@tvaru Yeah, basically what @percomis said. Maybe to add - yes there is not enough MU for 2x Cloaks and a Datasucker either. But if you are going to have stealth 3 support cards in your deck, 1 of which you will have to discard, it's better for that 3rd card to cost less influence.

And as already mentioned, in some match-ups the Datasucker turns out to be slightly more valuable.

26 Apr 2016 EnderA

I would also add that you shouldn't expect to see all of your deck, so seeing 1 cloak and 1 datasucker is better than just 1 cloak. If datasucker cost 2 influence, it would be a different story.

26 Apr 2016 krystman

@EnderA So I tested POOP some more and I'm really not impressed. The HQ access is really a deal-breaker here. I feel if you have access to HQ you probably have control over the game anyway. If you're losing the game because you are being locked out of HQ, POOP will do jack. You kind have to draw it early and burn Inside Jobs to even get in on the board.

I do like Councilman tho, especially since it addresses the deck's weakness.

As for Drive By - you don't even have to read your opponent very well. You will usually get your value out of it. I mean, hitting a San San or an Eve is basically Lucky Find kind of money. Sniping an Ash, Caprice or a Jackson is even better - simply priceless. Sniping a Breaker Bay grid seems like not that much value, but the economical damage it does to your opponent is huge. And then there are those Mushin Match-ups where it just wins the game. Even against NEH you can use it to determine whether they are trying to sneak out an Astro early game or just over-protecting a SanSan - and then use Inside Job accordingly. The only match-up where it doesn't help is when they turtle on centrals.

26 Apr 2016 EnderA

@krystman Good to hear your experience. Do you think your assessment is deck specific or just generally applicable?

26 Apr 2016 krystman

@EnderA Deck-specific. I think with Sneakdoor Beta or out-of-faction this should be a way stronger card.

14 Dec 2016 TugtetguT

Temujin Contract + The Gauntlet + The Turning Wheel + Rebirth + Net Mercur. Enough said. Well almost, with this you can make a little room to play 3 career fairs which enable you to run several times tun one with Temujin C. There's so much money on TC that the loss of Desperado is irrelevant and the 3 extra influence goes on Net Mercur which is essentially Desperado anyway.

14 Dec 2016 krystman

Yeah but you also kinda need Houdini because Archangel or Fairchild can easily tax you out. Also, there is still no good Stealth solution for Turnpike. See my last games with that deck: www.youtube.com

Finally, why not simply go Smoke?

14 Dec 2016 TugtetguT

I've played a lot with this iteration recently: netrunnerdb.com

Honestly I've never been taxed out by even the thickest of glaciers oftentimes this banks 15+ real credits and 10+ stealth credits. The weakness in this list is of course the lack of inside job and the necessity to win batty psi games - do Siphon them to irrelevant credit amounts before you run a batty server.

I guess a strength in Andy is Siphon. The Gauntlet point also cannot be stressed enough it's a crazy thing especially combined with the siphon threat. Also I think Andy's 8!! extra clicks turn 1 is a far stronger ability than 1 recurring credit (Net Mercur potentially has 4 anyway)

Rebirth does a lot of work as well. Against traps -> Silhouette, HB -> Gabe, Rush -> Leela and finally go -> Iain when behind. But you wont fall behind :p

NACH is a response to Power Shutdown/BOOM! builds + SYNC stuff and isn't completely redundant in other match-ups as it enables double siphon turns and just generally saves you clicks (Data Raven).

In conclusion Andy is way cooler than Smoke!

16 Dec 2016 krystman

I was referring to the taxing of Stealth Credits. With two Turnpikes the corp can build Server that will max out your stealth capabilities even if you have everything installed. Again, see the above video to understand what I mean. The situation hasn't really changed all that much.

I do not see the strength of Gauntlet at all. It's just very expensive multi-access that blocks your Desperado slot.

Note that Silhouette is useless against trap decks because of Psychic Field.

Also, I would swap NACH for On The Lam these days.

17 Dec 2016 TugtetguT

Gauntlet is very cheap multi access. 5 credits for 2 MU and an ability that is way stronger than HQI. 2 rezzed ice on hq means you legwork every run.

I think you should try it with Gauntlet/Temujin/Net Mercur. There are only that many psychic fields :-)

Also the video, which i just watched, is from before NAPD MWL 1.0 everything has changed!