Good news, everyone! Because FFG is so amazing at sending us new cards to play with, I’ve upped my quota to four decks a week. Starting this week.
After putting it all into a schedule, I realized that if I stuck with three decks a week, I wouldn’t be done writing about Station One until some time in June. With this new rate, I’ll start the first Earth’s Scion card on May 24th.
Anywho, house keeping aside, let’s talk about decks!
Network Exchange
Do you want to be good at Nasir? Then you must do as Yoda said: Unlearn what you have learned.
I did not listen to my Jedi master. In fact, I durdled a whole bunch and stared at the board a lot and made a bunch of mistakes.
But I sent a Heimdall 1.0 back to hand!
Anywho. I played this deck against an Engineering the Future with Jeeves, Bryan Stinson, Ash, and Sandburg. I know what you’re thinking. Shouty Cat was the answer. But did I pack a Rumor Mill? Sure didn’t!
Plus, on top of that, Nasir runs poor. So Bryan was turned on for 98% of the game. When Engineering the Future is on 60 credits, cash is no longer a consideration.
Definitely never trash a Tinkering. Once you’re worried about Destroyers, it’s your only way to safely face check. Crypsis was uninspiring, as expected. Also, it’s probably worth it to run three Sifr.
Running this deck again, I would absolutely include Houdini and Fawkes. Probably an Akamatsu or CyberSolutions Mem Chip. Drop the Sure Gambles for Ghost Runners (what an oversight there) and maybe throw in a Turning Wheel for some spice.
The conclusion I came to? If you want to be good at Nasir, you have to forget everything you know about running, then be willing to suck at Nasir for about six months. Tooling your deck, training new reflexes, and learning the sneaky situations. I think he could be good, but I think it takes commitment.
Sync BRE
I had so much fun with this deck guys. My first game was against a Geist, and I got hard flooded. I got greedy with my Jackson and he killed it early. He joked about a GeistPocalypse, so I was checking for that, but eventually I counted influence and realized I was safe.
It was a SpyCam deck, so unfortunately he sniped a bunch of agendas and got to 5 points. The last one he pulled out of hand on a 1/5 access. He was also sad that the game ended so quickly. We were having a ton of fun: it was real Netrunner!
I really felt like the deck was going to be good and I was just suffering from a bad shuffle, so I made sure to get it on the table again later against another player’s Exile.
Poor Exile, he just didn’t have the cash to Panchatantra through all my ICE. The traces were cripplingly expensive as well. He trashed my Aryabhata’s and Launch Campaigns pretty regularly, but he left my PAD Campaigns alive. I purged away his Clots whenever I could and scored through the SanSan. Again, real Netrunner. I opened scoring windows by baiting with remotes, and I took advantage of dips in his cash to score out Beales that I had been sitting on.
With an early never-advance Astro, two Beales scored, and then a QPM off the SanSan, we took that one home.
The agenda suite is wonky. Scoring Net Quarantine is just so difficult! The ICE suite was amazing though, and I liked how the operations came together.
I think this deck would probably do better in Sync though. Probably also with HHN because why not.
I didn’t think I’d find an NBN deck that I liked, but SYNC BRE really made it happen. Two traces on a strength 6 piece of ICE with Aryabhata and other things backing it up? Super fun. Probably want NAPDs and GFIs though.
Mad Dash
We started off against NBN glacier (Sol), and we just couldn’t get it going. Setup was slow, cards were bunched, it was a mess. But again, I saw potential.
Shuffle up, new opponent, now let’s play some Sunny against Titan Transnational. And this was a game and a half.
Hostile comes out first turn, and that leaves me with an open R&D, and lo and behold, I score an Atlas. Nice start.
Economy starts going, card draw starts going, then I Temujin into archives and find another Atlas. There’s a long, drawn out look between myself and Andrew. I look at my hand and see my Rabbit Holes. I could gain three link at the cost of six credits. I look at his cash. He’s got about 20, 25.
Temujin Archives. Temujin Archives (trash Temujin). Take a credit? Pass turn?
Andrew lets out a sight of disappointment and goes on to score another Hostile. Dodged the Midseasons, thank you very much!
The game continues, and I get the engine running. I’ve got breakers, I’ve got Find the Truth, I’ve got Adjusted Chronotype. It’s amazing.
Find the Truth sees a GFI on top of R&D. I’m at 4 points without Mad Dash in hand, so I let it pass by. He installs something in a remote un-advanced. Pretty sure it’s the GFI.
Well, let’s just keep going. I draw, I money up, I find a Mad Dash. Cool, that’ll be game if it’s the GFI.
He advances it twice on his turn and ices it again.
I still don’t have Nexus though. No problem. Draw, nothing. Draw, Nexus. Install Nexus. Play Mad Dash.
I was overzealous. It was a Mother Goddess with no other rezzed ICE. Without thinking, I force the trace, and he out-money’s me like a boss. I end by taking a meat damage and a tag, with no Citadel Sanctuary in sight to clear it.
Closed Accounts.
It’s all good though, I get my drip economy, drop another Temujin, clear the tag, make another run, score the agenda the next turn.
Another game, later, I play Sunny against RP.
Jak Sinclair does weird things against RP. I hate not using my programs! I had so many missed triggers… but I pulled through and kept the pressure up. It was a slog of a game, but also amazing. Once I had my Nexus, Power Taps, and Temujins up, I was at about 40+ credits no matter what I did. He ran out of ways to win, and had to go for the kill. I didn’t let that happen. I checked the top card of the deck with Find the Truth, then I would Jak Sinclair a central, then hit four remotes. He was playing with Shipment from Mirrormorph, and I eventually won by finding a Fetal AI that had been facedowned.
All in all, this deck was amazing but slow to set up. I played against another Sunny last night, and she was unbelievably fast. Using Off-Campus and Drug Dealers and John Masanori to burn through the deck very quickly. Still, I made much, much more money. I’m sure there’s a way to speed this Sunny deck up, but it’s late game is monstrous as is.
Flex spots are definitely Data Folding. Maybe drop a Hostage to free up some influence for Quality Time or Diesel?
Anywho, the deck is awesome. And Another Day, Another Paycheck makes ridiculous money. Just ridiculous.
Sky Hammer Grid 