Respirocytes

The New You

Null looked at himself in the mirror and barely recognized the man looking back. He’d gone to the chrome shop more times than he wanted to count now. He certainly wasn’t more machine than man, but he had more than enough of the former.

He was starting to realize that it was an addiction. Always chasing the next upgrade.

Running a hand across his bald scalp, Null felt for a ridge or a scar where they’d done most of the work on his Brain Cage, but the Martian chromers did good work. His skull was unblemished.

And it would make him even harder to catch.

Diggers

Respirocytes are great for Severnius deep-dig decks. Basically, use some Prepaids to Quality Time or I’ve Had Worse up, Severnius the cards away, then draw some extra cards up to save you from a Snare! It’s genius I tell you.

At least that’s how I think it works. It’d suck if you can’t stack multiple Respirocytes, but I haven’t seen a ruling for it.

Anywho, it’s a pretty straightforward PPVP money, draw, recursion deck, but with Cybernetics as a flavour. Two Levys means we’re getting lots of work out of our Day Jobs, Dirty Laundries, etc. etc. Severnius gives us a use for our duplicates, and Null lets us deal with odd-numbered hands when you sack cards to Severnius and want to trigger your Respirocytes.

If only Black Orchestra wasn’t so dang expensive to use against HB.

Chromed Up Null (Respirocytes)

Null: Whistleblower

 

Event (20)

3x Day Job

3x Dirty Laundry

3x I’ve Had Worse

3x Inject

2x Levy AR Lab Access  ●●●●● ●

3x Quality Time  ●●●

3x Sure Gamble

 

Hardware (12)

1x Brain Cage

2x Net-Ready Eyes  ●●●●

3x Prepaid VoicePAD

3x Respirocytes

3x Severnius Stim Implant

 

Resource (6)

3x Chrome Parlor

3x Same Old Thing

 

Icebreaker (9)

3x Black Orchestra

3x MKUltra

3x Paperclip

 

13 influence spent (max 15, available 2)

47 cards (min 45)

Cards up to Crimson Dust

 

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

Lean and Mean

Acceptance

Despite all of his careful maneuvering, Null had discovered that it was impossible to operate outside of the clans and the mounting pressure inside the Mars domes.

So he’d decided to embrace it.

With a few contacts inside Jarogniew, Null had set up a perfect circle of income. He hit the corps, the Mercs kept the heat off his back, and the clans ate up all the chaos.

The corps didn’t know what was hitting them, even though they knew exactly where he was. No problem, Null’s new network had all the major players accounted for.

Targeted Scouring

Lean and Mean is a super cool card, but because it’s a run event, it’s got some counter-synergy with this deck. I mean, it’d probably be better with a Medium rather than a Counter Surveillance set up, but I wanted to include it as a strong remote pressure card.

Basically, in this deck that sets up a whole bunch, we can’t rely on Datasuckers to support Yog and Mimic, so we’ve got Lean and Mean for a quick punch that the corp doesn’t see coming. It’s also supported by Dean Lister, Ice Carver, and Null’s plain old discard ability.

I did not put in God of War because we’d already used it, and this doesn’t need to go fast. It wants to set up for its Counter Surveillance/Dean Lister/smasharoo turn.

True Believer Null (Lean and Mean)

Null: Whistleblower

 

Event (20)

1x Account Siphon  ●●●●

3x Day Job

3x I’ve Had Worse

3x Lean and Mean  ●●●

3x Mars for Martians

2x Networking  ●●

2x Special Order  ●●●●

3x Sure Gamble

 

Hardware (2)

2x Obelus

 

Resource (17)

3x Counter Surveillance

3x Dean Lister

2x Ice Carver

3x Jarogniew Mercs

3x Joshua B.

3x Same Old Thing

 

Icebreaker (6)

2x Mimic

2x Paperclip

2x Yog.0 ★★

 

15 influence spent (max 15, available 0)

45 cards (min 45)

Cards up to Terminal Directive

 

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

Severnius Stim Implant

Let’s Get Cut

Null winced as he felt the implant press against his back. The anesthetic numbed the pain, but it was his first piece of cyber, and he still wasn’t sure if he’d made the right call.

The Chrome Parlour was cramped and dusty, and there were no back rooms or privacy curtains. They worked on their clients in full view of the people passing by on the Bradbury thoroughfare. Outside, the workers looked restless. Protestors gathered at every crossing tunnel and shouted challenges at anyone and everyone—at the workers, at the tourists, even at MCA personnel.

The door to the parlour banged open and a woman in a long black coat pushed her way in. Her hair was raised in a multi-coloured mohawk, and the right side of her head was shaved. She lacked clan tattoos, so Null figured her for a new arrival to Mars, and probably one even less legally travelled than him.

“Which one of you fucks can get me out of here in half an hour? Got places to be.” She cracked her knuckles and glared around the room.

One of the chop docs looked around sheepishly then spoke up. “Um, I can? What are you looking for?”

The woman stomped over to a chair and sat down, pointing at the side of her head. “Cage me up, pretty boy.” The technician nodded and started gathering some kits of equipment. The woman slouched in her chair and rolled her head towards Null and his bare chest. “Need something, slick?”

“I’ve got what I need,” Null replied, then turned his attention back to the gathering violence outside.

Now if I can only get home before a damned riot breaks out.

Space Monk

For Severnius, I thought it made sense to revisit my Null Mind deck. It’s another way to drop cards, and it gives us some HQ pressure. Another way I could’ve gone is with a Levy/Trope based recursion deck or with the Conspiracy breakers, but this seemed like a fun addition—and I wanted to dust Null off again.

So, some changes since the first version. Obviously, with the changes to the MWL, I had to revisit Sifr and Temujin. I wanted to keep Sifr in because it turns on the breakers particularly well.

Luckily, Prepaid came off the list, so we could just drop the Temujins and pretty much call it a wash.

I also went up to three full Davinders and dropped the Feedback Filter. Although Kakugo is out now, and the return of Caprice means more Jinteki… so maybe it should be two and one.

We made space for Severnius by dropping one Retrieval Run and two Pushing the Envelope.

I also wanted to get a third Datasucker in there for some more consistent answers to multi-layered ICE in the mid and late game.

Null Mind 2.0 (Severnius Stim Implant)

Null: Whistleblower

 

Event (17)
3x Day Job
3x Dirty Laundry
3x Making an Entrance
2x Pushing the Envelope
1x Retrieval Run
3x Sure Gamble
2x The Noble Path

 

Hardware (10)
2x Bookmark ●●●●
1x Plascrete Carapace
3x Prepaid VoicePAD
2x Severnius Stim Implant
2x Şifr ★★★★★★

 

Resource (7)
2x Emptied Mind
3x Guru Davinder ●●●
2x Symmetrical Visage

 

Icebreaker (6)
2x Nfr
2x Sūnya
2x Yog.0 ★★

 

Program (5)
3x Datasucker
2x Medium

 

15 influence spent (max 15, available 0)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Station One

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

Week 3 – Follow Up

UPDATE: A bit of new business! Because Station One is coming out so soon (this week?! Next week?!), I’m stepping up my schedule. There will now be three decks a week. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will be devoted to decks, with the occasional bonus deck dropping on a Saturday when it makes sense. Enjoy! And resume.

 

As expected, the Reina was amazing, and the Medtech was fragile.

Unfortunately for me, I only got to play one game with the latest Red Rabbit Reina, and both copies of the Archivist were snuggled at the bottom of the deck. That’s fine though. I still kept Engineering the Future from having any significant amount of money to compete with my Nexus Rig and Power Tap cash.

There was even this really strange situation where I’d drawn two Rabbit Holes, so I only installed one (plus one from Stack) and ended up with four link after Nexus was out. I found that, on turns when I didn’t want to draw and didn’t want to run (he had Snares in hand), I could Nexus into a piece of Ice, deliberately lose the trace to gain 3 credits from Power Tap and a tag, then gain another three credits from Citadel Sanctuary/Power Tap to remove the tag.

Once I found my Masanori though, I could make a successful Keyhole run and run a PAD Campaign to jack out for Sanctuary/Tap cash.

Seriously. This deck makes so much cash. Underworld Contacts, Power Tap twice over, and Liberated Accounts for burst. Love it. ETF could not hide its agendas from me, and he got super flooded. I still won by Keyhole though, since I was afraid of the snare.

As for Medtech… I played it three times. I killed Null with a Snare, and Noise took my agendas away. It’s not a great deck. But it was fun to play. I think a winning strategy is to just put the agendas in archives and protect them with Defense Construct, but Hades Shard is a thing.

I think Jackson would have been very useful. My last game of the night had me try to force an agenda through with only two cards left in R&D. The very last card was the Kakugo that I could’ve used ten turns before to mill the runner out of options as he mercilessly attacked my hand looking for my Future Perfects.

I did get to score a Vanity Project though!

 

Week 1 – Follow Up

Those decks were FUN.

I’m going to start with Null. I played it against a Personal Evolution, which seemed like a bad match up and ended up being some of the most fun Netrunner I’ve played in months.

The dance of managing Emptied Mind and Bookmark around Neurals and Snares was super exciting. I only really felt safe when I had Guru Davinder on the board (and later, Feedback Filter), but I had to use my Davinder to go through a Neural Katana (didn’t have Sunya out yet) then was on three credits when I stole the Nisei MK II. The Guru left me at that point, and everything got dicier.

The deck plays so comfortably once you’ve got three cards on Bookmark. I found that I only took the five-click turns every so often against PE, deciding the turn before if I needed or wanted five.

Unfortunately, my Mediums were in the bottom three cards of my deck, and I saw my Prepaids late. And also, there’s this weird thing with Komainu where Sunya is crazy expensive if you’re worried about Snare, but if you’ve got Davinder out, you can go in empty handed and do it free? Strange balance!

Unfortunately, since I was up against PE ICE, I didn’t actually use Pushing the Envelope this game, but I think it would’ve worked well. Needs more testing before I know what cards I’d swap, but I think a second Davinder instead of the Feedback Filter will be my first change.

As for CyberNEXTics. That’s the deck that seemed to get people chatting. I got lots of compliments and a few suggestions. Actually, while sleeving up the deck I made one minor change as well–dropped the Victor 1.0 for an Enforcer 1.0. Untapped potential there.

I played this one against a Noise, and it was sort of a one-sided game. He had trouble finding breakers, and so wasn’t very aggressive. I scored a Self-Destruct Chips and Noise had a lot of trouble digging through his deck with a hand size of only three. Two ABTs and a NEXT Wave 2, and I scored out for the win.

One really good suggestion was to drop NEXT Gold for Brainstorm. I think I’ll keep one Gold and add one Brainstorm. That also plays well into the next suggestion–Marcus Batty. We’ve got the influence for it, might as well force some more brain damage!

First thought is to drop one Eli and replace it with a Quicksand. Maybe a Markus 1.0? I guess I could drop the GFI too, but I don’t really want a runner-scoreable three pointer in the 44-card deck.

Anyways. Both decks were successes. Lots of fun! Tune in later this week for a Zed 2.0 deck! Also whatever I end up doing with Maw. Because that card is weird.

Pushing the Envelope

Null stepped from the transport onto the Bradbury varasteel concourse and breathed in the moderately fresher air of freedom. After Omar and the Flashpoint, all of Null’s contacts had burned bridges, so the former corporate programmer had cut his losses and headed up-stalk and out into the black.

He needed a new start—today that was Mars.

Null’s transport had landed at one of the lesser used cargo docks in Bradbury, so he’d only seen the red sky through the ship’s virt displays so far. The concourse around Null was a drab, durable grey—a claustrophobic network of tunnels carved into Pavonis Mons. No sky to be seen, no fabled domes of Mars. Yet.

The people moving through the space were hardbitten and no-nonsense. They moved in small units, grouped by matching jumpsuits or similar facial tattoos. The tunnels were couched in a tense, agitated buzz, as if Null had walked into a room filled with volatile gas and everyone was itching to light up a cig.

Null hefted his duffle and nearly threw himself into the wall. The lower gravity was awkward to his Earth-born equilibrium, but it was a welcome change from the microgravity he’d endured while his ship waited in orbit for docking clearance.

Looking down a junction, Null spotted an information kiosk with an NBN logo above it. The golden letters had been defaced by sharp-lined red graffiti, the meaning of which Null couldn’t identify. But he knew what the kiosk was. Map station. First stop so he could find a dom.

The lag time from his transport back to the Earth and Luna networks had been frustratingly slow, and Null was impatient to unpack his console and start exploring the fourth planet’s cyberspace. He had a small fortune in verified American dollars—not the Titan Transnational credit—and he needed to find an exchanger.

Then he could run again.

Mars. It’s where I’ve wanted to go in Netrunner since I found out Mars had colonists. I’m seriously ridiculously pumped for this cycle. And, in honour of our trip to Mars, I started building my first deck with Reina (also one of my go-to Runners).

By the time I was done, it was a Null deck. C’est la vie.

Pushing the Envelope is a super cool card, and I saw a few ways to go with it. My first idea was to use the fixed-strength breakers and Datasucker. In goes Corroder, Mimic, and Yog.0. But then again, I’m a huge sucker for Morningstar—and it’s a fixed strength! That led me to Retrieval Run (and Making an Entrance). Envelope and Retrieval are 3-cost events, so Prepaid seemed to make sense, and I was saving influence on breakers being an Anarch.

With Making an Entrance, I considered going Conspiracy breakers, but I didn’t think I’d have the econ to maintain those.

Then the inspiration hit—I should make this an Emptied Mind deck. I hadn’t tried it before, and five clicks with no cards could be fun, and Envelope will always trigger!

Damage mitigation came next. Bookmark is my clever splash, though I also included Filter for net damage, Plascrete for meat damage, and Davinder for kill shots. Plus, if those are dead cards, you can filter them with Making an Entrance.

We want to run a lot, so I put in Temujin, and when we draw cards (rarely) we want another benefit, so I put in Symmetrical Visage. With prepaid, economy was pretty straightforward—Day Job and Dirty Laundry, plus the added bonus that we’d have an extra click for Day Job/fifth-click Run turns.

I looked at what I had wrought, and decided that I needed something other than Bookmark to get cards out of my hand. Duh. Null.

That meant I brought in Sifr, Nfr, and Sunya. And suddenly we had a themed deck. Null decides to Empty his Mind and tread a Noble Path. Sorry Reina, maybe next time.

 

Null Mind (Pushing the Envelope)

Null: Whistleblower

 

Event (19)
3x Day Job
3x Dirty Laundry
3x Making an Entrance
3x Pushing the Envelope
2x Retrieval Run
3x Sure Gamble
2x The Noble Path

 

Hardware (9)
2x Bookmark ●●●●
1x Feedback Filter ●
1x Plascrete Carapace
3x Prepaid VoicePAD ★★★
2x Şifr

 

Resource (7)
2x Emptied Mind
1x Guru Davinder ●
2x Symmetrical Visage
2x Temüjin Contract ●●●●

 

Icebreaker (6)
2x Nfr
2x Sūnya
2x Yog.0 ★★

 

Program (4)
2x Datasucker
2x Medium

 

10 influence spent (max 15-5★=10, available 0)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Daedalus Complex

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.