Week 7 – Follow Up

Another Tuesday, Another Follow Up (see what I did there?)

Jemison Astronautics/Oberth Protocol

Jemison is not the deck for me. I thought it would be. It looked fun. It was way too much combo. Do I sack this agenda now and advance this so I can do this? Do I install here and wait a turn to sack on their turn? Do I just click for credits? Do I advance some ICE for a Commercialization? What if I advance the wrong ice and give away that I’m holding five points in hand?

So many decision points, and each one can lead to catastrophic failure. It’s a tough deck to pilot.

Nearing the end of my first game (which I won by Scorch against a DLR deck that didn’t have Paparazzi out), I realized that I had three points scored and three points forfeited. With not really an amazing board state to show for it. Though a seven-advanced Fire Wall on my scoring remote was pretty slick.

If my opponent had been more aggressive, played his Paparazzi, or capitalized on a few openings, I absolutely would not have won that game. Jemison is complicated. But totally worthwhile! I think there’s a strong archetype there that I haven’t seen yet. It’s probably kill.

Also Oberth is cool as hell. Tricky to use and easy to blow up, but really, really cool. I think any Oberth deck should probably be using Public Support (edit, thanks Brett!) though. Relying on Hostiles made bad pub just too, too prevalent.

Quarantine System

I don’t think this is a good card. Played this one against a Geist. I think it’s an edge-case card that helps you when you’ve been Siphoned into oblivion and you need to rez some ICE. But it’s still one to rez, so if you’re at zero, it’s not really an answer. If it’s already up, it’s not a surprise, and you have to weigh how many points you want to sack to get ICE up.

I tried it once. Sacked a Firmware Upgrades for a Mausolus and Fire Wall. So I lost an Agenda Point, Advanced my Fire Wall twice (Mausolus was already advanced to three), and paid one to rez. The result? Saved four credits and still spent another five.

I don’t think this card is worth it.

However, this game sure made me love Mausolus more. Mausolus and Fire Walls with Firmware Updates is really, really strong.

Khondi Plaza

Played this one against Whizzard. Dang. That was a bad call.

Turns out Whizzard is really good at trashing Political Assets, PAD Campaigns, and other sideways assets. You know, the things that make Khondi work.

Also, it turns out that if you score three Hostiles and give Whizzard three bad publicity, your assets get shredded even more. You get one good fire of Elizabeth Mills, but the Whizzard went to check it the turn after you install. You only get to remove one bad publicity, then she’s gone.

Oh, and Sifr is a thing. You see a Parasite hit your DNA Tracker, and you go “Dang, at least I’m Blue Sun and I can pick that up.” Then they run and Sifr it to zero and you lose your ICE.

I’m not salty. I swear! Heh.

The game went on longer than it should have because I had a Vanity Project and Government Takeover in hand. Three hostiles scored, and he had stolen both of my Atlases. There was only the Eden Fragment left in the deck, and he wasn’t seeing it. He did eventually pull the Vanity out of my hand.

I simply didn’t have any opportunity to build a scoring remote, at any time. I don’t think it was bad draws or bad plays, I think it was that I had no way to recover from Sifr/Parasite recursion.

As for Khondi Plaza, I’m not convinced it’d be any good in this deck. Three to Rez is rough. Though if the Runner lets you get three ICE deep on HQ and then lets you have four or five remotes, you’ll start seeing crazy returns with Blue Sun bounces. But how likely is that to happen? Not very.

Signal Jamming

Both of my Signal Jammings hung out in R&D the whole game, so I couldn’t really evaluate the card. It didn’t make a difference though as my opponent (on Pre-Paid Kate) was expecting Ark Lockdown and didn’t let any of his breakers stay in the heap.

He very conveniently didn’t run any of my servers with program trashing subroutines, and so Batty didn’t let me get rid of his Lady or Mimic.

He did play a lot of Indexing. Hit a Mad Dash/Global Foods with one of those. Pulled a lot of agendas out of my deck.

Unfortunately, by the time I was ready to start scoring (money, ice on remote, Batty and Caprice put back with Friends), he ran R&D with an interface and hit a Nisei to win the game.

I probably should’ve been going faster, but he’d already gotten to three points by the time I found an ETR ICE to put on my remote.

Signal Jamming is a cool card, and I think it makes a good addition here, but I didn’t get to play it. Nothing really to say there!

Quarantine System

Let’s Take the Train

The Oberth landed without incident at the Daedalus Complex’s landing terminal, and Dor and Carver followed it in, transmitting their Weyland code clearances to the docking authority.

The payload had guiding thrusters that allowed it to enter the thin Martian atmosphere and land with pinpoint accuracy on the accelerator pad. Dor maneuvered Wexel to a nearby airlock and docked with practiced familiarity.

From her chair, Dor watched as the Oberth’s accelerator pad whirred to life and the rocket lurched forward and into the tunnel networks. The pad would deliver the giant rocket directly onto a sub-surface transport network for shipping to the new Weyland headquarters on Khondi plaza.

Carver unstrapped himself and pushed a lock of black hair out of his eyes, uncovering his clan tattoos. “You hitting the pub after this?”

Dor shook her head and tapped the console. “No such luck, brother. I’m the delivery girl.”

Carver groaned and glanced at the invoice. “The execs want the mechanic to do a hand off to technical?”

“Time wasted,” Dor said.

“Time wasted,” Carver agreed. Then he walked out, no doubt looking for the closest, cheapest pub.

Dor completed Wexel’s shutdown sequences and locked out the controls before heading into the port authority complex. It was only a short walk to the transport terminal where the Oberth waited. There was a security terminal credentialing riders, and Dor waited patiently in the line behind a harried looking woman in a sharp suit and her companion, a smarmy blond guy with a purple tie. More execs coming in from Earth every day, Dor thought.

Dorsey Johnson had been born in New Angeles, but she’d spent half her life and all of her teen years on Mars. When her mother had landed a prestigious engineering job with Jemison Astronautics, the whole family had packed up and headed out to the red planet. A few years passed, Dorsey went to university, and then she found herself piloting repair craft for Jemison too. Two of Dorsey’s brothers were working for Jemison as well, though her youngest sibling, Shanelle, was still in grade school.

The trip to Khondi Plaza was speedy. Mag-lev tracks were always a fast ride.

The train’s arrival was signaled by a quiet chime, and the other dozen passengers stood to file out and into a bright hangar hung with Weyland corporate logos.

Dor leaned back, happy to sit while everyone jostled for space.

That’s when the doors slammed shut.

The harried woman in the sharp suit jumped back with a screech, and the lights in the cabin went a deep, threatening red.

Purple tie was on the outside of the train, and he whirled around with alarm. He took a confused step back towards the train, raising his hand, then he looked around the terminal.

Corridors everywhere were sealing shut, and a squad of twenty armoured private security thugs spilled out of a heavily-fortified door. Their guns were raised and pointed directly at the train. Purple tie threw his hands in the air and started shouting. Dor couldn’t hear anything though, the mag-lev trains were sound proofed.

“Shit,” Dor said. Reading the interior screens of the train.

Quarantine Protocol in Effect.

Trick of ICE

For my deck built around Quarantine System, I wanted to move into Vegan Weyland and focus on Trick of Light batteries. That means we put a few more ICE in and try to make them all advanceable. We also cut the False Leads to put in Firmware Updates. Hollywood Renovation keeps us advancing, and with Trick of Light, Oberth, and Jemison, we should be able to get those Atlases out relatively well, making the Renovations and GFI easier to land.

Anson Rose serves as a great distraction for the Runner, and another great way to get more advancement counters out.

I think this deck is probably weaker than the previous one, and it’s probably because the agenda suite is wonky. Trick of Light doesn’t really synergize well with Hollywood Renovation or Oberth, so it’s more of an alternative to get Atlases scored out if Oberth has been destroyed or is being blanked.

Still, it’ll be cool to see all that ICE come up real cheap.

Coriolis Jemison (Quarantine System)

Jemison Astronautics: Sacrifice. Audacity. Success.

 

Agenda (11)
2x Firmware Updates
1x Global Food Initiative ●
2x Hollywood Renovation
3x Hostile Takeover
3x Project Atlas

 

Asset (10)
2x Anson Rose
3x Jackson Howard ●●●
3x Quarantine System
2x Space Camp

 

Upgrade (2)
2x Oberth Protocol

 

Operation (9)
3x Commercialization
3x Hedge Fund
3x Trick of Light ●●●●● ●●●●

 

Barrier (9)
3x Fire Wall
3x Hadrian’s Wall
3x Ice Wall

 

Code Gate (4)
1x Enigma
3x Mausolus

 

Sentry (3)
2x Archer
1x Nebula

 

Multi (1)
1x Orion

 

13 influence spent (max 15, available 2)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Daedalus Complex

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

Jemison Astronautics/Oberth Protocol

New Paneling

“Looks good from here. Fire three?” Even though they were using the best equipment that money could buy, Carver’s voice still sounded hollow over the communications to Dor.

“Roger that. Firing three.”

The little shuttle that Dor was flying in upper orbit over Mars looked like a squat beetle with long, spindly arms. The arms were articulated, fine-detail repair rigs that were currently poking and prodding at the exo-structure of one of her employer’s new long-range delivery rockets.

Carver, Dor’s copilot, was in a suit doing an arms-length inspection of the damage to the rocket.

As Dor keyed in the code to test fire the third of four engines they were working on, a thin blue plume of exhaust and plasma shot outward from the rocket. Dor’s ship, WXLS-231, automatically adjusted her vectors to realign with the ballistic rocket. It was a good ship. In her heard, Dor had named it Wexel.

“Three looks good. Fire four?”

Rockets from Earth didn’t usually cross paths with space rocks. The calculating corps at Gagarin Deep Space usually had a bead on anything larger than a bead in the transit between Earth and Mars. Still, one couldn’t always account for human error. When a Martian comet jockey pulled too hard a turn and burn and his payload slipped its vector, the occasional nugget would fly off where no one was expecting a rock to be. The result? A few gazillion credits in damage to Weyland property. Dor didn’t want to be that comet jockey right now.

After another half an hour of checks and re-checks, Carver made his way back to Wexel and spun the airlock.

“Yo, Johnson,” he said as he dropped into the chair beside Dor. “Where’re we putting down?”

“Shipping in to Daedalus. We’re to follow the Oberth as it descends.”

“Five by, Captain. Let’s set this bird on the dirt.”

By the Numbers

Before I’d thought about starting this blog, I’d already spoiled myself by checking out Saan’s “A Ramp to Mars” deck on NRDB. It’s got an awesome agenda suite, and I really loved the inclusion of 24/7 News Cycle. So clever. Saan’s deck is definitely a great place to start with Jemison.

I’m a little bit worried about the economy in the build that I made, but I’m hoping Hostile Takeovers and Commercializations will be enough of a core to get at least a resilient board state out before we start ramping up our agendas. Of course, with 24/7, we can trigger when scored abilities like High-Risk Investment and Hostile Takeover again, and it sacks an agenda at will on our turn, letting us advance our stuff more quickly.

I elected for the Midseasons/Scorch package rather than a Boom because I just can’t ever make Boom work. I should give it more of a try, but I just like the threat of Scorch so much more. Plus Aaron is a jerk.

Good thing Contract Killers give us an answer to Aaron. Plus Contract Killers trigger from Oberth, so you can install, advance +Oberth, rez, and click the Killer to remove pesky Aarons.

Don’t forget that Oberth can help you double-advance ICE protecting Oberth’s server. That’s going to be key to landing big Commercializations and keeping our Oberth safe.

I think Jemison is going to be a really, really cool way to play Netrunner, and I can’t wait to try this out.

Unfortunately, Shouty Cat hits Oberth. Frustrating. At least we can Hostile out of that?

Investment Space Jemison (Oberth Protocol)

Jemison Astronautics: Sacrifice. Audacity. Success.

 

Agenda (11)
2x False Lead
3x High-Risk Investment
3x Hostile Takeover
3x Project Atlas

 

Asset (6)
2x Contract Killer
3x Jackson Howard ●●●
1x Space Camp

 

Upgrade (3)
3x Oberth Protocol

 

Operation (12)
2x 24/7 News Cycle ●●●●● ●
3x Commercialization
1x Consulting Visit
3x Hedge Fund
1x Midseason Replacements ●●●●
2x Scorched Earth

 

Barrier (5)
2x Fire Wall
3x Ice Wall

 

Code Gate (7)
2x Enigma
2x Mausolus
2x Pop-up Window ●●
1x Wormhole

 

Sentry (4)
2x Archer
2x Sapper

 

Multi (1)
1x Orion

 

15 influence spent (max 15, available 0)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Daedalus Complex

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.