Conundrum

Shutters

Mason Bellamy looked over the reports from the Mars expansion. Each was ordered precisely correctly. Inside, he mused at the efficiency of the Jeeves models.

Motioning for a junior sysop to take the load, Bellamy shut down his terminal and got ready to depart. His shuttle back to Earth was leaving in half an hour, and he was looking forward to going back to a full G.

The terminal flashed one last inquiry request. “Work Complete? Y/N”

The Final Riddle

The very last deck. The very last card. This blog has achieved a bunch. I started it on March 6^th, and since then I’ve put up 150 posts. Some where RPG-related, some were guest posts, some were musings or event recaps, but in the end I personally made about 115 decks for the Red Sands cycle.

I love Netrunner, and I’ve loved Mars ever since I saw Reina’s character and read her back story.

I’m super pumped that the revised core will have Reina as the Anarch runner (though I’ll miss Noise fiercely as well).

This has been a very fun blog to work on, but it’s also been exhausting. I’m tired of being obligated to write something every week, and the bandwidth this has taken up has left me a little less interested in doing other writing. With the blog firmly behind me, I’m probably going to go back to some novel or RPG adventure writing.

Still, I feel accomplished.

Oh, and this last deck?

As we lose Quandary, we gain Conundrum. So before we rotate, I made a deck with all three puzzle code gates. It had to be in Seidr because we want to make the runner lose clicks, and it’s built on a FoodCoats shell with the Clearances for acceleration.

Basically, let’s recur our Blue and Green Level Clearances—or Ultraviolet if you’re feeling spicy—and just jam upgrades and agendas into a remote behind taxing ICE. Strongbox with Warroid is so annoying.

Enjoy! Good luck! Farewell! Auf wiedersehen, goodbye!

Riddle Me This Seidr (Conundrum)

Seidr Laboratories: Destiny Defined

 

Agenda (9)

3x Accelerated Beta Test

3x Global Food Initiative  ●●●

3x Project Vitruvius

 

Upgrade (8)

2x Breaker Bay Grid

3x Strongbox

3x Warroid Tracker

 

Operation (14)

3x Blue Level Clearance

3x Green Level Clearance

3x Hedge Fund

3x IPO

2x Ultraviolet Clearance

 

Barrier (6)

3x Eli 1.0

1x Heimdall 1.0

2x Seidr Adaptive Barrier

 

Code Gate (9)

2x Conundrum

3x Enigma

3x Quandary

1x Turing

 

Sentry (2)

2x Ichi 1.0

 

Other (1)

1x Loki

 

3 influence spent (max 15, available 12)

21 agenda points (between 20 and 21)

49 cards (min 45)

Cards up to Terminal Directive

 

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

Fractal Threat Matrix

Profit Sharing

“The Matrix has absorbed the data of over 50 runners this last week alone,” the sysop reported proudly. “It’s functioning well beyond what we were expecting, and it’s interfacing with our software better than we could’ve dreamed.”

Caprice nodded, but her voice was full of skepticism. “Keep an eye on it. There’s been a lot of tech sharing recently, but that doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

Let the Saw Go

Once more my friends, once more with feeling, as it were.

A deck with Fetal, House of Knives, Obokata, and Philotic (and Caprice). Honestly, Fractal Threat in PU is just so nasty!

I mean, it’d be great in a hard-barrier Skorpios too, but this is just icing. Double down on the net damage/stack shaving.

People want to break through a Kakugo? That’ll be one card from hand, three from the stack please. Hit a Komainu with no Breaker? Five and Five. Hit a Komainu with a breaker? Still two off the top. It’s the Runner lose/lose in the best Jinteki way.

We’ve also got the full boat of Domes and Shocks for one last time, and the Preemptive Action to recur them.

Oh, right, but how do we win?

We force the runner into going after House of Knives, Fetal, and Obokata until their deck is gone. Then we score with impunity—if they aren’t dead already. My favourite kind of Jinteki.

Ripsaw PU (Fractal Threat Matrix)

Jinteki: Potential Unleashed

 

Agenda (10)

3x Fetal AI

3x House of Knives

3x Obokata Protocol

1x Philotic Entanglement

 

Asset (9)

3x Breached Dome

3x Jackson Howard  ●●●

3x Shock!

 

Upgrade (5)

2x Caprice Nisei

3x Fractal Threat Matrix  ●●●●● ●●●●

 

Operation (13)

3x Hedge Fund

2x Interns

3x IPO

2x Neural EMP

3x Preemptive Action

 

Barrier (4)

1x Chiyashi

3x Kakugo

 

Code Gate (4)

2x DNA Tracker

2x Lotus Field

 

Sentry (4)

3x Komainu

1x Neural Katana

 

12 influence spent (max 12, available 0)

20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)

49 cards (min 45)

Cards up to Terminal Directive

 

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

Priority Construction

New Normal/Old Normal

Dor was happy to be back at work. With everything that’d gone on, the normalcy of tracking cargo payloads was relaxing. This latest one coming in from Luna was marked as high priority, and Dor just watched it pass through the thin Martian atmosphere from her perch high up.

Ignorance. Bliss.

Advanced to Win

A double that lets you install and triple-advance ICE? Something I can get behind. I mean, it’s only on a remote server, but it’s something to protect Anson at least.

So, I put it in the Red Planet Couriers deck. Full load of Biotic Labor as usual. Just so many operations when I was done with my shopping list—26 of them! We’ve got cash, more cash, fast tracks, more cash, recursion, and a few support cards.

Every piece of ICE is advanceable, plus we have Anson Rose to improve things. Biotic, Biotic, Fast Track, install Government Takeover, and then bang Red Planet Couriers to score 6 points. Y’know. Regular deal.

I like it. There’s suddenly enough advanceable Weyland ICE to do it.

Grindstone BON (Priority Construction)

Weyland Consortium: Builder of Nations

 

Agenda (5)

1x Government Takeover

2x Graft

2x The Cleaners

 

Asset (2)

2x Anson Rose

 

Operation (26)

3x Biotic Labor  ●●●●● ●●●●● ●●

2x Commercialization

2x Fast Track

3x Hedge Fund

3x IPO

2x Mass Commercialization

3x Preemptive Action

3x Priority Construction

2x Red Planet Couriers

3x Restructure

 

Barrier (6)

2x Fire Wall

2x Hive

2x Ice Wall

 

Code Gate (2)

1x Hortum

1x Mausolus

 

Sentry (2)

2x Colossus

 

Multi (1)

1x Orion

 

12 influence spent (max 12, available 0)

18 agenda points (between 18 and 19)

44 cards (min 40)

Cards up to Terminal Directive

 

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

Threat Level Alpha

Guards for Guarding

Harina paused outside the crew bathroom and leaned against the wall. For a movie about a bunch of kid’s fantasy creatures, there sure had been a lot of protection brought in. She nodded at two other sec team guys dressed up in AR-Enhanced armour just like her.

“It’s just a damned movie,” Harina muttered.

Meta Disgusting

Our goal? Draw into combo pieces, tax the runner, Hard Hitting News, Closed Accounts, Threat Level Alpha, eventually find a way to Psychographics into victory. Or just Exchange of Information into victory.

It’s just another stupid annoying Controlling the Message build. Something that dies to hate like Slums. But it’s got a convoluted combo with Fast Track and Vanity Project, and it has a Restructured Data Pool, so… cool? Honestly, I’m happy that Corporate Defector is a cool deck. The last four cards on the blog have been un-fun to build with. Maybe it’s because they’re NBN and Shaper, my two least favourite factions? Or maybe it’s because I’ve built 120 decks and I’m getting tired.

Or maybe it’s because these are all academic because rotation will be in effect a day or two after the final deck posts on the blog.

Dunno. But the pack is almost done.

Thanks for coming on this journey with me!

Crackdown CTM (Threat Level Alpha)

NBN: Controlling the Message

 

Agenda (8)

1x 15 Minutes

2x Global Food Initiative  ●●

3x Project Beale

1x Restructured Datapool

1x Vanity Project  ●

 

Asset (11)

3x Jackson Howard

3x PAD Campaign

2x Reality Threedee

3x Sensie Actors Union ★★★★★★★★★

 

Operation (19)

3x Closed Accounts

1x Exchange of Information

1x Fast Track

3x Hard-Hitting News

3x Hedge Fund

3x Psychographics

2x Sweeps Week

3x Threat Level Alpha

 

Barrier (6)

2x Data Ward

2x IP Block

2x Resistor

 

Code Gate (2)

2x Tollbooth

 

Sentry (3)

2x Data Raven

1x Thoth

 

12 influence spent (max 12, available 0)

20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)

49 cards (min 45)

Cards up to Crimson Dust

 

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

Rolling Brownout

Things’ll Turn Out

Craigsly passed the ration to Harriet, and smiled over the meagre light of their vid-PAD. “Well, it could be worse. NBN could’ve stopped regular programming while the grid was down.”

Harriet laughed. Craigsly hid his nervousness.

A Whole Lot of… You Know

I’m not a huge fan of currents, nor am I a huge fan of those cards that increase the cost of operations and events, like Donut.

Nevertheless, how to build this deck? Well, it could be CTM or NEH, as those don’t need events to function, but I decided to go with Spark for two reasons. One, I just did CTM. And two, Brownout sort of plays into a despotism build. Of course, we’re giving up on Predictive Algorithm, which is a much better current in a glacier-type Spark, but oh well. THEME!

So, we’ve got Launch Campaigns, Marilyn Campaigns, and PAD Campaigns. Lots of Advertisements. Plus Pop-up of course.

It’s definitely a glacier type of build and a bit of a No-Advance type of build. You can put Marilyns or Launches into your SanSan server. Trashing a Marilyn is no big deal, because they just keep coming back. Or you could be putting an NAPD in there.

This is not an optimized deck. Honestly, I’m not sure how to really stick Rolling Brownout. Maybe the agenda suite should be more no-advance with something like CST for more cash. Maybe I should have more reliable ways of landing tags than a SanSan/Breaking News combo.

But I’m honestly not very inspired by Rolling Brownout. The deck and card are… meh? Meh. We’ll go with meh.

Power Despotism Spark (Rolling Brownout)

Spark Agency: Worldswide Reach

 

Agenda (10)

1x AstroScript Pilot Program

3x Breaking News ★★★

3x Global Food Initiative  ●●●

3x NAPD Contract ★★★

 

Asset (12)

3x Jackson Howard

3x Launch Campaign

3x Marilyn Campaign  ●●●

3x PAD Campaign

 

Upgrade (5)

3x Product Placement

2x SanSan City Grid ★★

 

Operation (5)

3x Exchange of Information

2x Rolling Brownout

 

Barrier (3)

3x Vanilla

 

Code Gate (6)

1x Archangel

3x Pop-up Window

2x Tollbooth

 

Sentry (8)

1x Cobra

1x Data Raven

3x News Hound

3x Turnpike

 

14 influence spent (max 15, available 1)

20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)

49 cards (min 45)

Cards up to Terminal Directive

 

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

AR-Enhanced Security

Underpaid, Undervalued

It was a bunk job, but Harina was good at it. Encased in the latest Argus and after-market armour upgrades, she was top of the line security.

And she was protecting Sensie stars. It rankled, but it paid.

“Honestly my dear golem, if you can’t get a simple drink order right, why are they even paying to charge your batteries?” The drawling tones of Trixie Marie grated against Harina’s enhanced hearing, and the security officer was forced to take a few calming breaths. Trixie’s favourite pass time was to torment the androids set to see to her every whim. It was a bully’s glee that Harina saw on Trixie’s perfectly proportioned face.

The android though, she was behind the bar and simply offered to remake the drink. Which Harina was sure had been exactly what Trixie had ordered.

The sensie star must have had better instincts than Harina gave her credit for, because Trixie turned to regard her hulking bodyguard and fixed Harina with a withering stare.

“Something to say, bruiser?”

“No ma’am, nothing to say.”

“Damn straight.” Trixie Marie sauntered away, new drink in hand.

Harina’s hands clenched around her rifle.

Double Down

AR works really well in CTM. I mean, period. It doubles down on CTM’s ability, and since it’s a 3/1 it plays into an asset-spammy, sideways deck.

This deck is not subtle. It spews out assets and agendas with abandon and forces the runner into wasting clicks checking things. If they trash, then they’re wasting their cash on traces and clearing tags, and if they steal, then they get snagged by a Midseason. Film Critic ruins the day, which is thematic since we’re playing with Early Premieres.

I also threw in Expose to clear some of the Threedee bad publicity for fun. Otherwise, it’s just a tag and exchange deck. Psychographics is also around. Just in case.

Augmented Targeting CTM (AR-Enhanced Security)

NBN: Controlling the Message

 

Agenda (10)

3x AR-Enhanced Security

1x AstroScript Pilot Program

3x Global Food Initiative  ●●●

3x Project Beale

 

Asset (14)

2x Early Premiere

2x Exposé

3x Jackson Howard

2x PAD Campaign

3x Reality Threedee

2x Sensie Actors Union ★★★★★★

 

Operation (12)

1x Closed Accounts

2x Exchange of Information

3x Friends in High Places  ●●●

3x Hedge Fund

2x Midseason Replacements

1x Psychographics

 

Barrier (6)

2x Data Ward

2x IP Block

2x Pachinko

 

Code Gate (5)

1x Archangel

3x Pop-up Window

1x Tollbooth

 

Sentry (2)

1x Information Overload

1x Thoth

 

12 influence spent (max 12, available 0)

20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)

49 cards (min 45)

Cards up to Crimson Dust

 

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

Sand Storm

Motivation

Caprice inspected the Crisium architecture that had been retrofitted to her Tennin servers. The melding of Weyland brutishness and Jinteki finesse had created a defensive measure beyond any she’d seen before.

That combined with her own abilities made the information nearly uncrackable. And this was the sort of work that Caprice enjoyed—She was protecting advances that would help everyone. Not just her sisters, not just Jinteki, but the struggling peoples of Earth, Luna, and Mars all together. New hybrid food types to be shipped to the red dunes of Mars. New medicines that could improve quality of life for so many people.

It was good work.

Misdirection and Deflection

I put in ALL THE DEFLECTORS. I think? I don’t think there are others.

Anyways, Bullfrog, Miraju, Susanoo, and Sand Storm all work together to force the runner where they don’t want to be. That’s usually Archives. Filled with Breached Domes and Shocks. Crisium on every central server (prioritizing HQ and R&D) will help Tennin’s ability fire, and it’ll help protect our Off the Grid server.

Yes. Off the Grid Tennin. With Caprice on HQ. Deflectors on HQ. Crisium on HQ. Friends in High Places plus Crick plus Interns to bring our Grids and Caprice back. With a good Tennin rotation, we can never-advance all of our agendas. And even if they do get some successful runs through our strange labyrinth of deflectors and grids and psychic clones, we can always leave two advancement counters on our Ice Walls to Trick of Light onto our agendas.

It’s a silly deck. But I think it’ll work.

Pinball Tennin (Sand Storm)

Tennin Institute: The Secrets Within

 

Agenda (9)

3x Improved Protein Source

3x Medical Breakthrough

3x Nisei MK II

 

Asset (6)

3x Breached Dome

3x Shock!

 

Upgrade (7)

2x Caprice Nisei

3x Crisium Grid  ●●●

2x Off the Grid  ●●●●● ●

 

Operation (13)

3x Friends in High Places  ●●●

3x Hedge Fund

1x Interns

2x IPO

2x Preemptive Action

2x Trick of Light

 

Barrier (3)

3x Ice Wall  ●●●

 

Code Gate (7)

2x Bullfrog

2x Crick

3x Mirāju

 

Sentry (1)

1x Susanoo-no-Mikoto

 

Other (3)

3x Sand Storm

 

15 influence spent (max 15, available 0)

21 agenda points (between 20 and 21)

49 cards (min 45)

Cards up to Revised Core Set

 

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

Breached Dome

Shell Games

Reina looked across the board at her opponent’s defense. The checkered squares of her cyberspace interface representing—to her—each individual server that the corporation had walled off and secured.

There was a myriad of them. Some were bristling with countermeasures, others were suspiciously devoid. Some bristled with activity, others appeared dormant.

It was a crap shoot, but she had to find out what was behind the red door. Martian freedom may damn well depend on it.

Hurrah (the last)

This is basically… the epitome of pre-rotation Jinteki heaven. I’m not running Caprice, but I’ve got 3x Shock and 3x Breached Dome. I’m running Fetal and Obokata beside each other. I’m running Ronin and Junebug together (even though now we know that Ronin is entering Core 2.0).

This deck follows the idea that Eady from RLC espoused a few months ago (and again recently), that Jinteki does best when advanced cards and unadvanced cards both can kill you. The runner is always damned if they do, damned if they don’t. It could be a Breached Dome. Or a Psychic Field. Or a Bio-Ethics. Or maybe it is a Philotic or a House of Knives after all.

Maybe it’s a Fetal, an Obokata, or Junebug. Or maybe it’s a Ronin.

Spiky at its best, and that’s why I called it Quill. Porcupine was taken.

Quill PE (Breached Dome)

Jinteki: Personal Evolution

 

Agenda (10)

3x Fetal AI

3x House of Knives

3x Obokata Protocol

1x Philotic Entanglement

 

Asset (20)

3x Bio-Ethics Association ★★★

3x Breached Dome

3x Jackson Howard  ●●●

1x Project Junebug

1x Psychic Field

2x Ronin

2x Shi.Kyū

3x Shock!

2x Snare!

 

Operation (8)

3x Celebrity Gift

3x Hedge Fund

2x Neural EMP

 

Barrier (3)

3x Kakugo

 

Code Gate (3)

2x Lotus Field

1x Yagura

 

Sentry (5)

2x Komainu

2x Pup

1x Swordsman

 

6 influence spent (max 15, available 9)

20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)

49 cards (min 45)

Cards up to Crimson Dust

 

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

Restore

Projected Upgrades

Jeeves was in his most enjoyable function. He was approving expenditure reports.

Another data pipeline to the SanSan outpost was being requested, and Jeeves transferred it to the expedite queue. SanSan’s grid service was impeccable, and with that sort of computing power, Jeeves’s work would go even more smoothly.

You Say You Want Efficiency?

This is another deck that is just hoarding the clicks and making the advancements go quickly. Restore is an interesting card. It’s slightly better than Friends in that you can do it on your first or second click, and it’s slightly worse in that you only get one card, and you lose duplicates (Jackson and Marilyn help with that, though. And Vitruvius, even Pet Project).

I like this as a target for an MCA Austerity after the runner has bent over backwards to kill one. Just Restore it back to its previous server and then click it again.

The cool thing about this build is that you can put SanSan, Warroid, and MCA all in the same server, then if they want to kill your MCA, they have to deal with the Warroids. Once you click/trash the MCA, you have a six-click turn on a SanSan, more than enough to score a Mandatory Upgrades. You could even score both Vitruvius’s from hand. Or score a Vitruvius with a million counters to recur your operations and anything the runner trashes.

Pet Project is a fun addition that can rebuild a Warroid/MCA server, or SanSan, or whatever. Or Adonis. And you can Biotic it out or SanSan it out. Lots of options.

I think if a runner doesn’t go heavily aggressive, this deck will run over them.

SanSan Makeover ETF (Restore)

Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future

 

Agenda (9)

1x Director Haas’ Pet Project

3x Elective Upgrade

3x Mandatory Upgrades

2x Project Vitruvius

 

Asset (12)

3x Adonis Campaign

3x Jackson Howard  ●●●

3x Marilyn Campaign

3x MCA Austerity Policy

 

Upgrade (5)

2x SanSan City Grid ★★ ●●●●● ●

3x Warroid Tracker

 

Operation (7)

2x Biotic Labor

3x Hedge Fund

2x Restore

 

Barrier (5)

3x Eli 1.0

1x Heimdall 1.0

1x Heimdall 2.0

 

Code Gate (6)

1x Fairchild

1x Fairchild 3.0

2x Ravana 1.0

2x Turing

 

Sentry (4)

2x Architect ★★

1x Ichi 1.0

1x Ichi 2.0

 

Other (1)

1x Loki

 

13 influence spent (max 15, available 2)

20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)

49 cards (min 45)

Cards up to Revised Core Set

 

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

MCA Austerity Policy

Duck/Water

Jeeves had been reassigned. He enjoyed this work as well—not as satisfying as helping to run a mining operation, but production of Bioroid models on Mars had hit a fever pitch, and efficient service was Jeeves’s primary function.

Clicks? You say you want clicks?

I went overboard. This card is insane.

If the runner can’t get to it—through ICE, through net damage, encryption protocols, and through click costs, they just keep losing clicks. Then you get a six-click turn!! With that six-click turn, you can score a 5/3 (like Elective Upgrade) from hand. Or you can use Jeeves and score a Mandatory Upgrades from hand. Or you can over-advance a Vitruvius into the freaking sky.

Or you can click Eliza’s Toybox twice.

This is such a cruel, mean, terrible card. And I love it. Because it can be killed by running or by using something like Political Operative. There are ways around it. What a silly deck this will be.

More for Us HB (MCA Austerity Policy)

Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future

 

Agenda (9)

1x Domestic Sleepers

3x Elective Upgrade

1x Mandatory Upgrades

2x Project Vitruvius

2x Voting Machine Initiative

 

Asset (21)

1x Eliza’s Toybox

3x Encryption Protocol

2x Hostile Infrastructure  ●●●●

3x Jackson Howard  ●●●

2x Jeeves Model Bioroids

3x Marilyn Campaign

3x MCA Austerity Policy

1x Ronald Five

3x Turtlebacks  ●●●

 

Operation (6)

3x Friends in High Places

3x Hedge Fund

 

Barrier (5)

3x Eli 1.0

1x Heimdall 2.0

1x Wotan

 

Code Gate (5)

1x Fairchild

2x Fairchild 3.0

2x Ravana 1.0

 

Sentry (2)

1x Enforcer 1.0

1x Ichi 1.0

 

Other (1)

1x Loki

 

10 influence spent (max 15, available 5)

21 agenda points (between 20 and 21)

49 cards (min 45)

Cards up to Terminal Directive

 

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.