Traffic Analyzer

Neural Analytics

“I’ve got a heavy transport coming in on five,” Vanessa said into her commlink.

“Roger that. I see her.” Stev was new on the team, but Nessa had figured him for a good company man.

“Slewing a bit to the side.”

“It is at that. Heavy load?”

“Inebriated driver. Call it in.”

That’s when the cameras caught a facial rec of the driver. It was a Tenma model, but his eyes were glazed over as if there was nothing behind the wheel.

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND

Traffic Analyzer seemed like a pretty lame card. It has the chance to reduce your ICE rez costs just a bit. My first thought was to bring in a Troll and TMI deck. Things that stack traces with Rutherford Grid. Plus we could get a discount on TMI. It was okay. Also it was interesting with Aryabhata. But I was thinking too small.

Because, you see, Traffic Analyzer is not unique or limit one per server. That means with three of them and one Rutherford, we can run three Trace fours to reduce the rez cost of a piece of ICE by 3. Hmmm… Cell Portal is a 5, and it derezzes a lot. Akitaro Watanabe brings the rez cost of the Cell Portal down to 0. Which means we can create an infinite loop if the runner can’t beat the trace.

Guess what, Aryabhata can fit into this as well. So, every time we trace with Analyzer, they lose a credit, and we gain a credit. This increases our infinity. But what do we do with it? Just make a million credits?

No, we kill them. Because this all fits in the 17-influence beauty that is AgInfusion.

You see, if we’re reducing rez costs by 5, we can get an Assassin up for 2 credits. Or a Gemini up for 0. Assassin’s traces become trace 7 and 6. Gemini’s trace is 4 (which means for the low-low investment of one credit each time, you guarantee 1 net damage, possibly 2). In a pinch you could also use Neural Katana.

Originally this plan had been with Shinobi, but unfortunately Shinobi’s third sub has an ETR clause. So that’s out. Assassin is in.

What’re the other parts to this debacle? Well, the runner can’t jack out. So we need 3x Whirlpool. And we’ll need Batty to make sure the Whirlpool fires if they have an AI. We also need facedown ICE. That shouldn’t be a problem, we’ve got 19 ICE to install.

I also threw in a fun little Labyrinthine Servers which we can try and bluff out as a Project Junebug.

Basically, create your server of doom. You need a Cell Portal at the bottom and either an Assassin or a Gemini in front of it. You can protect the upgrades by putting a Junebug in it. Then you drop a Rutherford Grid, an Akitaro, and all three Traffic Analyzers. Go sideways with Aryabhata and protect them with whatever ICE you can spare. Your Macrophages and Kakugos can absolutely never touch your infini-remote, because it’s a waste. Get a Whirlpool in front of a facedown ICE to trigger AgInfusion’s ability with, and if they’re playing AI, get your Batty down on the Whirlpool server.

Whirlpool! Trash ICE to send them to our remote! (Remember, you cannot rez the Assassin or Gemini at this point.) They think they’re about to hit the Junebug and they extend their hand for good game, and you say, “but wait, there’s more!” You rez the Rutherford and the Traffic Analyzers. Then you rez the Cell Portal. If they had a card to break it, you may need to Batty it. But they may also have little money left because of the 9 credits they just lost from Aryabhata techs.

Cell Portal fires and derezzes, and the hapless runner approaches the outermost piece of ICE. Your Gemini or Assassin. It can now be rezzed. Which triggers Traffic Analyzer again, and hits them for another 9 credits (gaining you 9, of course) from Aryabhata. Then they encounter the ICE. You start dealing net damage or dealing damage and trashing their programs. Either way, your Aryabhata’s are making you richer and them poorer.

Then they hit the Cell Portal again. You rez it.

INFINITE LOOP. That only took a seven-card combo. Eight cards if you count the derezzed ICE. Nine cards if you count Batty. 10 cards if you count the kill.

Oh yeah. 10-card kill combo. That’s going to go off in EVERY GAME PROMISE GUARANTEED.

Rush Hour AgInfusion (Traffic Analyzer)

AgInfusion: New Miracles for a New World

 

Agenda (7)

1x Fetal AI

1x Labyrinthine Servers

3x Obokata Protocol

2x The Future Perfect

 

Asset (8)

3x Aryabhata Tech  ●●●●● ●

2x Jackson Howard  ●●

3x Project Junebug

 

Upgrade (12)

3x Akitaro Watanabe

3x Marcus Batty

3x Rutherford Grid  ●●●●● ●

3x Traffic Analyzer  ●●●

 

Operation (3)

3x Hedge Fund

 

Barrier (3)

3x Kakugo

 

Code Gate (5)

3x Cell Portal

2x Macrophage

 

Sentry (8)

3x Assassin

3x Gemini

2x Neural Katana

 

Other (3)

3x Whirlpool

 

17 influence spent (max 17, available 0)

20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)

49 cards (min 45)

Cards up to Blood and Water

 

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

Week 6 – Follow Up

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.

SYNC BRE

Tag Me

Bernice watched the Runner’s avatar approach her countermeasures. It was child’s play.

On one screen, Bernice’s rendering of the NBN servers showed a vaguely humanoid shape finally commit to its attack vector. As she monitored that form’s progress, two more screens to Bernice’s sides showed the perspective of dozens of NBN news drones all throughout New Angeles. The districts were colour coded, but Bernice looked through her camera lenses so often, that she knew the city inside and out without the system’s overlay.

The runner seemed to be gaining confidence as he or she passed more and more of her ICE, but Bernice only smiled. The final defensive measure was her only focus—each other countermeasure was simply a drain on the runner’s resources and stamina.

Bernice’s system was calling on computing power from the Aryabhata communications networks, slowly closing in on the identity of the intruder as subroutines sorted through false trails and counter defenses.

With a flourish, Bernice activated her Data Ward and laughed to herself as the Runner’s avatar seemed to hesitate. She could see the calculations going through their mind as they wondered if they should press on. Foolishly, they chose to, leaving themselves open to a counter-assault.

Yes, they had gained access, but her system had found their location. With a key stroke, her drones sped towards the Runner’s physical location.

All too easy.

No Link for You

In this world of Rabbit Holes and Security Nexi, the SYNC BRE is not exactly a winning bet. But hey, with Net Quarantine, it’s maybe doable?

This deck’s idea is to leverage Spark, Aryabhata, and lots of traces to keep the Runner poor, poor, poor. If they’re that poor, they can’t trash your SanSan or get through your frustrating ICE. Plus, if they do trash your Campaigns or your SanSan, just recur them! (What an ongoing theme we have here…)

Surveillance Sweep feels like it would be really, really strong here. Particularly if you have a Net Quarantine scored. And there are a lot of Traces during these runs.

Archangel, SYNC BRE, and Bernice are probably strong candidates to fire, and Gutenbergs are no slouch.

I think this is probably a mid-strength deck, but in the right hands, it could be terrifying.

BRE Despotism (SYNC BRE)

Spark Agency: Worldswide Reach

 

Agenda (10)
1x AstroScript Pilot Program
2x Net Quarantine
3x Project Beale
2x Quantum Predictive Model
2x Restructured Datapool

 

Asset (12)
3x Aryabhata Tech
3x Jackson Howard
3x Launch Campaign
3x PAD Campaign

 

Upgrade (3)
1x Bernice Mai
2x SanSan City Grid ★★

 

Operation (8)
1x Exchange of Information
2x Friends in High Places ●●
3x Hedge Fund
2x Surveillance Sweep

 

Barrier (4)
1x Data Ward
1x IP Block
2x Resistor

 

Code Gate (6)
1x Archangel
3x Pop-up Window
2x Tollbooth

 

Sentry (6)
2x Gutenberg
2x News Hound
2x SYNC BRE

 

2 influence spent (max 15-2★=13, available 11)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Daedalus Complex

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.