Classic NEXT is in full bloom

Severijn 541

NEXT has always been suited for a rush strategy due to its speedy set-up. It had a problem in that it usually ran out of money and you ended up being better off playing ETF. Its main problem was also that you had to run a lot of ice in order to capitalize on your power. Ice that you cannot all rez and that doesn't end up defending the last one or two agendas you need to score.

Enter Bloom. Bloom is a very narrow Jinteki card with similarities to architect. It crucially allows for free installs of ice. It is more limited than architect in that it only installs ice, and only from HQ even. This means this card really only shines in heavy ice decks, which are all next decks. This deck usually has a couple of ice in hand to install.

Enter Seidr Adaptive Barrier. A barrier that acts as the big pay-off for building those servers that are 5-6 ice deep. It is fine early and really strong late, and ends the run. This is an outstanding barrier and will surpass Eli 1.0 late in the game.

The deck is very straightforward. You immediately start with 2-3 ice out of the gate and rush your first agenda in the second or third turn of the game. The agenda suite is tailored to give you a steady resource flow that you can ride to your next agenda that you are pushing out. You plan to score 2-3 agendas before the runner has completely set himself up to run. the last point can be scored with a combination of bait cards like melange mining corp or surplus agendas and the defence provided by corporate troubleshooter.

The trick of this deck is that it is blisteringly fast to score points. The ice installers must be respected, lest the runner gets to deal with servers that are 5-6 ice deep. Even the best rigs struggle breaking servers that deep multiple turns in a row. Adding to this is that your ice scales through the game. Both Seidr and next ice will just become more and more taxing as the game continues.

On top of this, it is also good in the meta. It runs 5 trashable cards, so Whizzard is almost blank. Corporate troubleshooter works well against Sifr. The nature of NEXT makes temujin contract hard to pull off since you can ice all starting servers if need be with ease. Accelerated beta test is the plan against Dyper, and dyper takes quite a while to set up. Blackmail I haven't played against yet, and it will come down to how fast they can find their second blackmail recursion effect I imagine. Stealth again needs some time before it can begin running. Getting a really deep server might keep them out or run them low on fuel if you are able to threaten a score a couple of turns in a row.

Some card choices explained:

Blue Level Clearance: Preferred over Hedge fund, because NEXT needs the card draw more than the money. You also don't need an absurd amount of money at the ready. Just enough to rez your next piece of ice.

Melange Mining Corp.: This deck tends to run low on money because it is rushing its agendas early on. This card works from a low budget and can be pulled with the one-off Psychokinesis. And ticking this twice means you have plenty of money to win the game with.

Psychokinesis: Looking at your deck is nice with the ABT in there, and it can pull a card in case that you are getting R&D locked.

The agenda suite: Bifrost Array has ABT and Corporate Sales Team as targets. Advanced Concept Hopper is in there because I often end up overscoring vitruvius and realized that I did not need to do that. What I needed was money and cards. It is one of the few reliable options to get this without dipping in 3/5 territory. As for ABT: How could you not play this in a deck with 24 ice?

Subliminal Messaging: Fire it twice and you have the same benefit that a hedge fund provides. Acts as a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" with the advanced concept hoppers. Because this deck only has 4 servers, I think this will be better over the course of the game. It is also a great card to toss in your archives off an ABT.

Ice suite: I think the NEXT ice, the Seidr, pop-up window and the six installers are crucial to the deck. The fairchildren are in there because it is fun to run all of them, and they are all pretty taxing. I could see this mixed up to have one fewer code gate so you could include a second NEXT gold. Fairchild 2.0 might be better off as another NEXT gold, though that is not yet entirely clear.

Where is Jackson Howard? There is no need for Jackson in this deck. We can defend against Noise by just icing archives a couple deep, and he will be too slow for this deck anyway if he tries to mill and hades us out. The deck also doesn't need Jackson to stop agenda overflow. Rushing agendas mitigates that problem sufficiently.

15 comments
4 Apr 2017 TheTim

Sifr overrides corp troubleshooter I'm afraid.

4 Apr 2017 Severijn

Ah, does it? I thought that the one requirement was that corporate troubleshooter has to be face-up. This is done in run step 2.1.

In step 3.0, the runner uses Şifr to set the strength to zero. The runner has no further abilities and passes priority for payed abilities to the corp. They use corporate troubleshooter's ability to raise the strength of the ice by as much credits that they invest in it.

Where lies the flaw in this reasoning?

That said, even if my reasoning is correct, the runner could still trigger their paid abilities first and parasite the ice down from a personal workshop, SMC or clone chip.

I still like the matchup though. Ice destruction versus a deck with 24 ice seems like a good position to be in.

4 Apr 2017 TheTim

From Sifr card text: "the strength of that ice is lowered to 0 for the remainder of the encounter." which will override any further attempts to change it. It essentially draws a big, fat zero on the card in marker pen; which can not be further boosted or lowered.

4 Apr 2017 Severijn

The more you know...

I thought this worked similar to a Datasucker. Good to know that it does not. I guess it doesn't work against Sifr.

With regards to the deck, I will still run corporate troubleshooter in there because I think it is better than Ash here. Sifr will need to be handled just by the depth of the servers that this deck builds...

4 Apr 2017 Sanjay

This deck looks like an absolute blast to play.

Incidentally, I believe @TheTimis incorrect. Sifr makes the strength of an ICE zero, including all presently applicable modifiers to that ICE's strength, but further modifications to the ICE's strength still apply.

As an example, see this UFAQ entry: ancur.wikia.com

I don't think we have anything more official than that at the moment.

Doesn't help vs Sifr+Parasite (the ice is dead before you can do your own tricks), but will help a bit vs Sifr alone.

4 Apr 2017 Sanjay

Never mind, I'm wrong and an idiot. The Bulwark ruling is weird because it doesn't require a paid ability window.

Sorry!

4 Apr 2017 Haberdash

So the reason Corporate Troubleshooter doesn't work with Sifr is that Sifr triggers on step 3.0, then on 3.1 the runner is able to use their icebreakers before they pass priority to the corp. 3.1 is the first time the corp would be able to use Corporate Troubleshooter after Sifr happens, and by then the ice is already broken. It would work on an Off You Can't Refuse run though, or if they encounter the ice again in the same turn.

4 Apr 2017 Haberdash

It also works if you boost an ice after they use Sifr for the turn.

4 Apr 2017 Haberdash

(A different ice I mean)

5 Apr 2017 ren666

No 1x Mother Goddess in a Next deck? For shame.

5 Apr 2017 Severijn

Mother goddess is another ice to consider if you aren't hellbent on playing Fairchild. I would rather play a NEXT gold over Mother Goddess in that case. Mother Goddess will rarely be the only ice, so it will likely be a code gate and a barrier. There is plenty of ETR in this deck. I feel there is a greater need to play a taxing piece of ice like Gold.

5 Apr 2017 Fabtraption

How does this deck possibly survive without Jackson? If you're flooded, you're doomed.

6 Apr 2017 Severijn

Well, as mentioned in the notes on the deck, this deck is trying to score very early and very frequently. A deck rushing its agendas has far fewer opportunities to get flooded because where another deck floods, this deck will be scoring out an agenda and reduce the agendas in hand issue that way.

6 Apr 2017 yluras

Hi! Nice deck, good job! One question: what do you do vs Yog? It blanks a lot of your codegates, at least until you rez a lot of next ice...

7 Apr 2017 Severijn

Thanks. Yes, Yog is a concern. It is another reason why I should run a second next gold over the fairchild 2.0. On the other hand, the only ice that it blanks that I care about are the 2 blooms and the 3 NEXT bronze ice. I also think it is fair to say that the odds of getting the 3 NEXT bronze ice over 3 strength is very optimistic.

As for what I do against Yog.0: Some of the issues are mitigated in that Pop-up window still does something, and so does NEXT ice. There's also something to be said about the ice still boosting any Seidrs in the server. Most likely, when Yog is installed, I would not bother with the low-cost code gates anymore (except minelayer). The pair of corporate troubleshooters could also surprise the runner if they are running Yog without support to lower ice strength.

It is definitely a good card against this deck. In a more serious version of this deck, I would lower the count of code gates and add another sentry. That should cover this weakness sufficiently.