Week 14 – Follow Up

Some housekeeping first.

The blog has been sporadic (having missed a whole week! Plus having missed a bunch of RPG posts even when I am posting!) because I am now in the process of selling my house.

It’s been very busy.

I’m on parental leave now with my six-month-old daughter, and I thought I’d have tons of extra time to write and post and play games, but instead, any time that I’m not feeding or playing with the baby, I’m cleaning the house for showings.

It should all settle down in the next few weeks once we’ve gotten a sale, but until then… things might still be sporadic. The fiction will likely be shorter than previous posts. I’ll do my best.

Additionally, my local store the Two-Headed Giant will be hosting a tournament on Monday the 19th. I’ll be running it, and so I won’t be testing my week 15 decks. I might take AgInfusion as my corp, but I’ll likely take Geist or Reina as my runner because I’m still tweaking those.

Actually, I’m thinking hard about taking my AgInfusion deck. It’s pretty cool, and you’ll get to see it later this week.

But on to the decks I actually played yesterday!

Berserker

Honestly… this card. I still don’t get it.

So, I didn’t get to play this deck. But a newer player who didn’t have his own cards wanted to play, and he thought he’d give the Quetzal deck a go. I cautioned him that it was a sub-optimal deck and was probably extremely weak. Nevertheless, he wanted to play it.

Unfortunately for him, it took half the game to find a Paintbrush and he never found Berserker. Anarch problems!

As Quetzal, he was still able to get through my Eli’s for a not-terrible trade, which he used to great effect on R&D. In a separate game he kept Keyholing through an Architect. It was… amazing for ETF with three Turtlebacks in play.

Again. Berserker. In any deck using SMC, Corroder is better. In any other deck (particularly in Anarch), Paperclip is better. So… not sure why you’d ever use this over something else. Maybe I could see it if it was break one sub for one credit. But the two credits for up to two subs makes it extra expensive.

NEXT Opal

This didn’t fire once. The deck was okay, but I also didn’t see any Ronald Five’s all game, so it just played like a super weak Moon deck. Seidr’s ability never fired because my opponent was Kit and just broke my Eli a few times with Inversificator.

Again, I don’t think Opal is amazing. It’s probably pretty taxing if you have all of your Silvers and Bronzes up, but it’s also a strength three Code Gate, so it’s not taxing at all if your opponent is using a Yog.0.

Not super impressed with this one either. I wish it was three to rez. Then at least it could be an okay trade against something like a Gordian.

Persephone

This deck fell flat on its face. I was up against a combo Weyland (which I will be featuring on the blog in a few weeks), and I just couldn’t get set up quickly enough. I didn’t see my breakers (the problem of not including any searches), and I just played NetInstaller.

I got a ton of Chips and BMIs out, but I found that the draw wasn’t strong enough to get through my deck to the cards. Not the way I expected it would be at least. I was also really low on money because I had no drip. If I was clicking Opus to get money for installs, I wasn’t drawing to find my breakers.

Once I got one Inside Man out, things got a lot easier, but then he won. How to speed this up? Maybe in Kate. Maybe with Test Runs.

Bioroid Work Crew

This. Deck. Had. Legs.

I played this deck maybe four times last night. It was gorgeous.

Though playing against non-Whizzard, non-Slums runners is sort of cheating. You know?

I scored a GFI from hand in two different games. Once with the Work Crew, and once with triple Biotic. I had an ungodly amount of money. Estelle was an easy game closer. If I had two agendas scored, I could just get Estelle up to eight or ten counters and brute-force draw into the game-winning combo in hand.

One thing I was very susceptible to was HQ multi-access. Gauntlet and Legwork were pretty nasty while I was setting up. This made NAPD Contract a must-include. I’d probably drop a Hopper for another NAPD.

Marilyn Campaigns. I love them.

Oh, and Advanced Assembly Lines. So beautiful to drop Bioroid Work Crews that are stuck in your hand when you want to combo turn.

This deck was magnificent. 9/10. Would play again.

Week 13 – Follow Up

A little housekeeping first: I didn’t end up going to Regionals in Vancouver.

It was disappointing, but it turned out to be bad timing to be out of town for two days.

I hear there were 23 players, and my buddy David got 5th (after his 4th place finish in the Seattle Regionals). Sorry that I won’t be doing a thorough run down as promised!

But how did last week’s decks do at Netrunner night? I’m glad you asked!

Ayla “Bios” Rahim

I love NVRAM. I really, really love NVRAM. There’s literally no downside. Okay. So there’s a small downside if you need to access something immediately, like by using SMC, and it’s in your NVRAM.

But I didn’t build a deck that did that.

I built a patient deck that put its rig together, made cash, and then hit the corp hard.

I won by Legworking for four points then Indexing into a Mad Dash (one or two turns after the Legwork) to go up to seven points.

Like clockwork, the deck came together and performed. I was thoroughly impressed, and I think the NVRAM design was genius.

I was playing against a Personal Evolution, so I took a lot of net damage, but I’d started with a Film Critic in my NVRAM, so I dodged the nastiness of my first score during the Legwork.

Seidr Laboratories

Played this one against a Los, and it was very interesting. An early Femme got him significant access against R&D after I’d spread my ICE pretty thin, but once I’d stabilized, I got a three-deep remote and scored Vitruvius, Vitruvius, ABT.

I had an Eli 1.0 on my HQ, and he was siphoning me by clicking. Which was cool, because as Seidr, when he clicked through my Eli, I got a Green or Blue Level clearance back.

I wasn’t that impressed with Mason or Heinlein, but that might have been because my opponent was mostly ignoring my remote. Heinlein did cement my eventual win though, because even if he had challenged my remote, he would’ve had to click through it (no Decoder in sight), and he would have lost his cash, leaving him unable to get through the Eli.

Ultraviolet Clearance was insane and awesome. I used it twice to try and find an agenda to close out the game (to no avail), but its power is intense. I would probably put a second one in to make the game faster.

All in all, probably drop the Masons and put in good, old-fashioned Caprice.

Steve Cambridge

Cambridge’s ability was super interesting. It got me a Medium back instead of a Sure Gamble (against Spiky RP), and it got me Blockade Runner back instead of Special Order. Plus a few other things randomly.

I hit lots of Snares, but with Steve’s ability, I was able to recover pretty well further down the line. I mean, he hit my on one Unlucky Run, but it was still pretty good.

Unfortunately for him, the time that I decided to pop four Turning Wheel counters on a two-token Medium run, I saw three Future Perfects in a row. He’d gone down to four credits rezzing Pups over R&D, so I just bid 0 on each of them. Got one.

Then I ran again, and saw them again with him on 0 credits. Game.

I think this deck would need more play for me to figure out any changes. Really, it was just criminal things. Breaking subroutines and getting efficient accesses with Temujin, Desperado, and Turning Wheel.

Skorpios

This deck is mean. Though by no means infallible.

I went against an Eater/Keyhole Whizzard. He decided that my Bloodletter on R&D wasn’t worth breaking with Eater, but he also didn’t mind trashing cards—even if I removed one of them from the game. So he Keyholed me hard. He got a GFI. Then another (which I saved with Jackson). Then he got two Oaktowns in one turn. He had to Knifed an Ice Wall over Archives though.

By this point, I’d gotten my mill going and was using Underway to pressure him. But it just wasn’t enough.

So I did a Power Shutdown for four. It did snag an Underway, but by that point I had an unrezzed Vanilla over Archives, so I was pretty confident.

He chose to destroy the Eater. I removed it from the game.

He installed another Eater.

That one I killed with a Batty that activated a Cobra.

I thought I was safe now. But then he used Levy and returned a Corroder (that had hit the bin after I’d used my Skorpios ability) to his deck.

Game on again…

So anyways, I was at four points. He was at six. He finds his Corroder. At this point he’s got Corroder, Gordian Blade, and Keyhole out. I’m worried his Mimic is on one of his two Street Peddlers, so I Best Defense one away. No Mimic there.

I had Ice Wall into Sapper into rezzed Enigma on my scoring remote. I installed a Jackson facedown and baited him into running. He pays through the Ice Wall. I rez the Sapper—he has no answer. I kill the Corroder.

He goes through the Gordian, and I pop Jackson.

Then I figure I’m good. I’ve got Ice Walls and Vanillas up over R&D, HQ, and my scoring remote. I’ve shuffled that Underway back from Archives, and I’ve still got a Jackson on the board. I don’t think he has any more fracters.

I find the GFI and install double advance.

He looks at his hand.

He thinks.

He takes two credits.

Installs Femme on my Ice Wall.

He has three credits left.

One to bypass Ice Wall.

One to break Sapper (why are you strength two and not strength threeeeeeeee)

One to break the ETR on Enigma.

Scores the GFI for win.

Super, super good game. I did not see the Femme play coming.

I think this Skorpios deck is a frustrating build to play against, but it’s not actually that stable. And Eater/Keyhole showed my weakness. If you can just ignore or peel away my ICE, I can’t really do anything about it.

 

All in all, great games, great decks. Seidr and Skorpios have cool abilities, but they won’t tempt me away from Jinteki. Ayla is interesting enough that I might play her when I want to play Shapers. Cambridge is cool, but pretty generic. I guess unless you play him with Parasites the way I saw someone else doing.

Seidr Laboratories

Ridiculously designed

Mason held out his wrist and let the scanner read his clearances. The screen flashed a pleasing Green, and the door ahead of him swished open. The hall was long and nondescript, with doors evenly spaced on each side.

After a few minutes of determined striding later, and Mason reached another stop that queried his clearance level. After a swipe, this one flashed Blue, and bisected doors slid open, revealing an elevator.

Mason descended. The elevator had no controls or access points on the inside. It didn’t even have a floor indicator.

He simply went down as far as his clearance allowed, then stepped out into another nondescript hallway.

After several more such maze-like detours, Mason stopped in front of a final elevator. This one was flanked by two PriSec team members. They nodded to Mason and kept their eyes trained on the hallway that he had walked down.

Swiping his wrist at the screen, the elevator opened up and beckoned him inside. The screen had flashed a murky, purplish sort of brightness.

When the elevator doors opened, Mason had reached the deepest labs in Haas Bioroid. The work stations that developed the most classified, the most intense, and the most interesting of Bioroid research.

That he knew about. There could always be more levels of clearance.

You’re cleared

My first thought was recurring traps. But meh, that’s just a little too on the nose. I mean, it’s super cool to install a Snare in a remote and bait the runner. If they go for it, awesome. If they don’t, then you overwrite the Snare and recur it with Seidr’s ability. It’s a cool play, in theory, but wouldn’t I be better off just accelerating the win condition? Snare would open scoring windows… maybe… but they don’t actually slow the runner down that much unless you’ve got some sort of other damage to threaten with. They don’t have to slow down against HB unless they expect to hit multiple Snares. Which they can avoid by just doing single accesses.

So, I scrapped that idea and decided that recurring multi-purpose operations would work just as well. Use the clearances to accelerate our board state, build big remotes, drop agendas, Mason, Heinlein for spice, and win quickly. When the runner spends or loses a click during a run, we can recur a Clearance to keep accelerating our game plan.

I considered going with Strongbox and Breaker Bay Grid, but I think that’s a different build that doesn’t rely on clearances. I actually think that one—an even more FoodCoats build—might be more competitive. With Breaker Bay, Eve, Adonis, Ash, and Mason, you can click the runner out and get Strongbox up for 0 credits.

But if you’re playing that, might as well play Moon as well. And suddenly the deck is completely different. Honestly, I’m nearly talking myself into that build. Okay. So I’m going to go and quickly design that build and see what it looks like.

Okay, I built it, and it relies on too many things.

Strongbox isn’t that strong at only 1 to trash, even on a free rez. And the runner can just run first click to get around Mason and other shenanigans. If you try to fit Ash, Strongbox, and Mason into a server, you’re waiting way too long to score. I think faster is the right call.

So. The Clearance version.

DeClicker Seidr (Seidr Laboratories)

Seidr Laboratories: Destiny Defined

 

Agenda (9)
3x Accelerated Beta Test
3x Global Food Initiative ●●●
3x Project Vitruvius

 

Asset (6)
3x Jackson Howard ●●●
3x Marilyn Campaign

 

Upgrade (3)
1x Heinlein Grid
2x Mason Bellamy

 

Operation (12)
2x Biotic Labor
3x Blue Level Clearance
3x Green Level Clearance
3x Hedge Fund
1x Ultraviolet Clearance

 

Barrier (6)
3x Eli 1.0
3x Vanilla

 

Code Gate (9)
2x Enigma
1x Fairchild
2x Fairchild 3.0
2x Ravana 1.0
2x Turing

 

Sentry (4)
2x Architect ★★
1x Ichi 1.0
1x Ichi 2.0

 

8 influence spent (max 15, available 7)
21 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Terminal Directive

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.