tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27490096422583269802024-03-13T14:02:25.242-07:00The Satellite UplinkStrategies, decks, ideas and anecdotes from Android: Netrunner, the LCG from Fantasy Flight Games.Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-33236201154638394452015-07-23T03:09:00.001-07:002015-07-23T03:09:28.951-07:00It looks Like Team Weyland... is Blasting Off Again!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-60078952832232951022015-07-17T08:14:00.000-07:002015-07-17T08:14:41.716-07:00The Short Goodbye<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It has been a long time since my last blog, in which time I've had a good half dozen half-written blogs that never made it to full fruition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I've been struggling increasingly with the fact that I don't enjoy playing Netrunner. The initial excitement of rediscovering the game and the new cards quite quickly gave way to the feelings of frustration that led me to quit the game last year. I cycled through a dozen different deck archetypes, both on Runner and Corp side, hoping that something would stick that I found interesting but it hasn't happened. From Industrial Genomics and Cybernetics Division to Near-Earth Hub and Replicating Perfection I've tried my hand at a wide range of Corporation decks and found them all stifled by the restrictions placed on Corp deckbuilding by the mechanics of the game (including Agendas, the need to defend critical weaknesses on HQ and R&D). On the runner side there was definitely more freedom to make varied decks that worked, which I think we've seen in the Regionals results, but I still felt ultimately that they were quite similar and led to repetitive games.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I'm going to close down the Satellite Uplink, and I'm afraid it will be for good this time as I'm selling my cards on tomorrow in order to ensure I don't suffer another relapse further down the line.<br /><br />While that's sad news I'd rather leave Netrunner before I start to really dislike it, and all I'm really doing is transferring my time and energy into the relaunched <a href="https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2014/11/5/a-game-of-thrones-the-card-game-second-edition/">2nd Edition of the A Game of Thrones LCG</a>, which hopefully hits shops next month. I've already set up the skeleton of my new blog about that game: <a href="http://oldgodsandthenew.blogspot.co.uk/">The Old Gods and the New</a> and look forward to exploring that game as it's released.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Those also interested in the new A Game of Thrones LCG are more than welcome to join me in Westeros.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For those who I am leaving in the Android universe then thank you for your time, thank you for reading my blog, and may the Psi be ever in your favour!</span></div>
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Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-38242571369253930572015-06-22T09:09:00.002-07:002015-06-23T11:16:27.495-07:00Keeping up with Current events<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was just leaving Netrunner for my sabbatical as Lunar Cycle loomed but I have strong memory of reading an article, as I left, that introduced the forthcoming Current keyword and thinking: "hmm, that sounds like it could be interesting". One of my frustrations with the structure of Netrunner is how much almost every interaction is forced through the medium of runs, meaning that at heart the game is quite non-interactive - you can never choose to interact with your opponent's strategy directly, you have to use a run. What I liked about Currents, and the way they cancelled each other out, was that here was another angle of attack and counterattack that didn't require runs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />And then I went away, and it seems like for most of that time I've been away Current have, by and large, sucked. They simply weren't good enough to justify playing, and if your opponent wasn't playing Currents then you sure as hell weren't going to play your crappy Currents just to counter his crappy Currents that he wasn't even bothering to play!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, it's been a long time coming for those who stuck with the game but I think Currents are finally starting to come of age and it's virtually entirely down to one card: Hacktivist Meeting. This Anarch Current arrived in Breaker Bay and pretty much immediately found a home in a metagame dominated by two Corp IDs thriving on remote Assets: Near-Earth Hub and Replicating Perfection. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I mentioned this when I discussed <a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/in-at-deep-end-sheffield-regionals.html">the changes I'd made for my Maxx deck</a>, but to repeat myself the Hacktivist Meeting hurts so many of the common cards in this metagame, including Jackson Howard, Daily Business Show, Marked Accounts, PAD Campaign, Eve Campaign, Adonis Campaign, Sundew, Mental Health Clinic, Crysium Grid, Ash, Caprice, Red Herrings... the list is huge.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That was the first blow struck for real competitive currents. Prior to Hacktivist Meeting the only Current you were likely to see were Enhanced Login Protocols, but although annoying the impact of Enhanced Login Protocol wasn't strong enough to force Runners into playing their own bad Currents to fight it. It took Hacktivist Meetings to really flip things up a gear and make Currents really matter, and now we've had Surveillance Sweep spoiled from Data & Destiny, potentially delivering a Corp Current that Runner's also can't ignore.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every good Current that gets printed makes every other Current better, as having a counter to Currents becomes more and more important. I think we're starting to see a cascade effect bringing more and more Currents into decks, so it's worth revisiting what the Currents are to see what you should be re-evaluating.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Currently there are only six Runner Currents available, and realistically there are only two and a half you'd consider playing outside of very niche decks. We've already discussed <b>Hacktivist Meeting</b> but I'm also a big fan of <b>Net Celebrity</b>, which is ongoing efficiency economy in the vain of Lockpick/Silencer/Cloak but which you can also use to trash assets or resolve effects like Self-Modifying Code - Net Celebrity is almost like a mini Bad Publicity counter, which is no bad thing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The half card I mentioned is <b>Traffic Jam</b>, which is a card that fits the old Current template perfectly - it does something good but not good enough to really justify a card slot on its own. However as Corp Currents become more prevalent I think Traffic Jam might just creep into use here and there among Criminals who want to counter annoying Currents but can't spare Influence for Net Celebrity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reason Criminals would use Traffic Jam is because their own Current, </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unscheduled Maintenance</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, largely sucks balls - restricting Corps to only installing Ice about as often as they probably wanted to in the first place! It's got some added value in Leela decks, maybe tutored up with Logos in a particular situation of extreme value. That's about it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The remaining Runner Currents are both Anarch backup to Hacktivist Meeting, and they both suffer from being nowhere near as good as their big brother. <b> Itinerant Protesters</b> is kind of the kill card in a particularly self-contained Bad Publicity-obsessed Valencia deck, and <b>Scrubbed</b> is simply not very good.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You Are Using: Hacktivist Meeting</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Where the Runner only has six Currents available the Corporation has ten, and more of them are playable. It's Hacktivist Meeting that has triggered the Current arms race, but it's the Corps who are best prepared for it.<br /><br />Starting with one you're most familiar with, <b>Enhanced Login Protocol</b> is a solid taxation card for the Runner that particularly punishes those who run frequently, and as such it's a good support card for a horizontal Corp strategy where you can tax the Runner additional clicks for coming to investigate your remote servers. You see it played for this element in Replicating Perfection, where it fits very well, but it would suit any similar horizontal deck such as Gagarin in Weyland, or Industrial Genomics in Jinteki. You'll also see it support the Bioroids and asset economy in a lot of the slower glacier-style Haas Bioroid decks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fulfilling a slightly similar role is <b>Paywall Implementation</b>, but instead of taxing the runner a click for running like Enhanced Login Protocol does, Paywall Implementation sees the Corp get paid for each successful run. I've seen Paywall used in a lot of the same type of decks as Enhanced Login Protocol and one clear advantage is the way that it counters the Lamprey in Reina Roja's deadly 'Headlock' style of deck.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Those are probably the Currents that have seen most use on the Corp side until now but there's one clear contender that I think is about to become a big deal, and that is <b>Cerebral Static</b>. The dominant Replicating Perfection archetype is facing a triple threat in the shape of the rise of new Whizzard decks that use the Yog.0/Net-Ready Eyes combination, and Hacktivist Meeting. This is a trifecta of bad times for Replicating Perfection, with Yog.0/Net-Ready Eyes shutting down some of their strongest Ice in Lotus Field, and both Whizzard and Hacktivist Meeting targetting all of their precious asset economy pieces. The answer to two of those problems is in one card: Cerebral Static, which shuts of Whizzard's ability and trashes Hacktivist Meeting! As well as countering Whizzard, the Cerebral Static is crippling in Noise, Kit and Maxx matchups and still valuable in matchups against Leela, Quetzal, Kate, and Chaos Theory. It's a card that is about to have its moment as the best way for the dominant Corporation deck to answer a huge new threat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A Current that I probably like a little bit more than I really should is <b>Lag Time</b>, which I consider a genuine alternative to Enhanced Login Protocol in my Haas-Bioroid decks. They do similar but slightly different things: where ELP taxes clicks from the runner for checking out <i>unprotected</i> servers Lag Time taxes credits for ploughing through my <i>protected</i> servers. When I've got cards like Ash, Caprice or Red Herrings sat at the base of those servers any extra costs to penetrate the Ice is welcome, and Lag Time shines here. An added bonus for Lag Time, to my mind, is that against the fixed strength Anarch breakers it crucially makes Architect tough for Mimic to deal with, and also makes my Vipers tough for Yog.0, even with Net-Ready Eyes. Lag Time is, to my mind, the perfect example of a Current that didn't do quite enough to justify a deck slot until there were Runner currents that I had to kill, and right now I think it's just about knocking on the door of being ready for serious play. Caveat: I did say at the top of this paragraph that I might like this card more than I really should, so if you play it and it turns out be rubbish then don't blame me!<br /><br />There's a couple of really powerful Corp currents that, for whatever reason, haven't really found a home yet: Manhunt and Housekeeping. I think the biggest problem for <b>Manhunt</b> is that Near-Earth Hub is so good nobody is using Making News anymore as their NBN identity, and the second biggest problem for Manhunt is that Kate McCaffrey is so ubiquitous and comes with a base link of 1, halving the tax of Manhunt outside of Making News decks. At some point this card is going to be huge, though, take my word for it. It's a real sleeping powerhouse just waiting for the right deck to unlock it - taxing the runner 2 credits or a tag for every run is nuts. </span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Housekeeping</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is like the Corp's version of Hacktivist Meeting and it's a powerful effect, though perhaps one that is easy to overrate - Housekeeping will rarely help you to flatline the Runner as they can choose when to take damage and can ensure they recover, instead Housekeeping is more like the disruptive drip of damage runner previously had to take from Personal Evolution decks. It's actually better support for a deck intent on trashing the runner's rig with Power Shutdown and Taurus than it for a deck trying to blow the Runner to kingdom come with Scorched Earth. Beware when that deck appears though, for Housekeeping is a painful card to play against.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />I don't have much time for <b>Predictive Algorithm</b> or <b>Targeted Marketing</b>. Compared to the other taxation Currents like Enhanced Login Protocol the 2 credits for an Agenda tax of Predictive Algorithm is almost nothing, and Targeted Marketing frequently misses the Runner's deck completely if you misread their intentions, or they simply wait until they clear the Current and then play their big card if you called it right. I do like <b>Surveillance Sweep</b>, though, and I think it will join the ranks of the strongest Currents when Data & Destiny is printed. At the moment trace effects are a bit of a gamble on the Corp's part - pay too much and the Runner will shrug and be happy at how much you spent, pay too little and the Runner will decide to match it. Surveillance Sweep switches that relationship onto its head and will have a big impact on the strength of a TON of tracing cards, making good cards better (Ash, Caduceus, Viper) and bad cards good (Searchlight, TMI, Shinobi).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That leaves Defective <b>Brainchips</b> as the only card I haven't talked about. I don't see Brain damage as a viable strategy yet so this sits as casual-only for now. It's the Corp's version of Itinerant Protesters, probably.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You Are Using: Enhanced Login Protocol, maybe Paywall Implementation</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />You Should Start Using: Cerebral Static, Lag Time (maybe?)<br /><br />And Watch Out For: Manhunt, Surveillance Sweep, Housekeeping.</span>Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-62537138163888205172015-06-04T15:52:00.003-07:002015-06-05T00:26:19.938-07:00Cyber Threat: Prepaid Kate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After </span><a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.com/2015/06/uk-nationals-2015-results-summary.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the dominance of Kate McCaffrey at the UK National Championships</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> the next stop in my Cyber Threat series was pretty obvious. Cyber Threat is a series analysing the top decks in the metagame and learning precisely what makes them tick, the first deck I looked at was </span><a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.com/2015/05/cyber-threat-replicating-perfection.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the Jinteki threat of Replicating Perfection </a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and now it's time for my first runner.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've picked six Prepaid VoicePAD decks recently posted onto NetrunnerDB and Acoo, all of them proven success stories from recent Regional or National Championships. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't mind spoiling the punchline a little by saying that we're going to look at six decklists that are HUGELY similar. Prepaid VoicePAD is a deck where the players have all settled on a list that's pretty close to what they believe is optimal, and any changes are largely minor or around the fringes. We can still look at what those differences are, and it's also extremely interesting to see just how much consensus there is on the deck.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In case you've been living under a rock recently you probably know how a Prepaid Kate deck works but I'll give you a summary anyway.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Prepaid refers to Prepaid VoicePAD, and the recurring credits to play Events lies at the heart of a deck that is all about snowballing an economic advantage as it powers through the Stack, before using Levy AR Lab Access to reshuffle everything back in for a second run through. The deck is hugely consistent with a lot of card drawing and program-searching effects, and also benefits from the ability to maximise the impact of 1-of splash cards like Clot or Parasite using Clone Chip. Kate's ability to reduce the cost of Programs and Hardware isn't essential to the playstyle but it's better than any other Shaper identity and ever credit helps.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The success and popularity of Prepaid Kate, therefore, shouldn't be much of a surprise. It's powerful, it's consistent, and just as importantly the all-star Self-Modifying Code makes the deck both quick to threaten servers and flexible against a range of Corp strategies.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dnV7__vyYs8/VXDS9wI2NQI/AAAAAAAABQ4/dgbdQsMpypY/s1600/CT%2B-%2BKate%2BHardware.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dnV7__vyYs8/VXDS9wI2NQI/AAAAAAAABQ4/dgbdQsMpypY/s640/CT%2B-%2BKate%2BHardware.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you're building a Prepaid Kate deck then here are 8 cards you can sort out straight away - you'll want full sets of Clone Chip and the signature Prepaid VoicePAD, and a pair of Astrolabe. Most of the decks then went on to round out their hardware with the old stalwarts of Plascrete Carapace and R&D Interface</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z0GFh2L4EPo/VXDTPRpSP3I/AAAAAAAABRg/XRTPcju3Qvc/s1600/astrolabe.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z0GFh2L4EPo/VXDTPRpSP3I/AAAAAAAABRg/XRTPcju3Qvc/s200/astrolabe.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-d0WWQAewJ1A/VXDTPIG4mUI/AAAAAAAABRc/CjjEPGq8JXs/s1600/Clone%2BChip.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-d0WWQAewJ1A/VXDTPIG4mUI/AAAAAAAABRc/CjjEPGq8JXs/s200/Clone%2BChip.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-avwc3zYlHrM/VXDTPc_pVdI/AAAAAAAABRk/_yqwwRsYFIY/s1600/Prepaid.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-avwc3zYlHrM/VXDTPc_pVdI/AAAAAAAABRk/_yqwwRsYFIY/s200/Prepaid.png" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The three Hardware listed here really lie at the heart of what Prepaid Kate is trying to do, and almost encapsulate the deck's concept in microcosm. </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Prepaid VoicePAD is your incremental economic advantage - as the game goes on your deck gets stronger and more efficient as your rig builds up, giving Kate a huge amount of mid-late game power. </span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clone Chip is a key to how flexible and responsive the deck can be, allowing it to reuse Self-Modifying Code, block fast advancing Corps with Clot, destroy Ice with Parasite, or pull back lost Icebreakers as the situation demands. </span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally Astrolabe is a deliciously cheap Console for the +1MU and also comes with free draw effects attached. As we'll see Prepaid Kate LOVES to draw cards - it's precisely those cards that feed into the snowballing economic buildup and provide a steady flow of Events to play with your Prepaid VoicePAD credits.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Resources</b></span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wcW7K3vyj14/VXDS_B-ginI/AAAAAAAABRM/6Aa3mxAgdOU/s1600/CT%2B-%2BKate%2BResources.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="134" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wcW7K3vyj14/VXDS_B-ginI/AAAAAAAABRM/6Aa3mxAgdOU/s640/CT%2B-%2BKate%2BResources.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Prepaid Kate doesn't like Resources much as they're basically the only card type that they don't get a discount for. The Resources are dedicated to more of Kate's core strengths, card drawing and economy from Symmetrical Visage or Professional Contacts, and replaying key cards with Same Old Thing (which also doubles as essential backup protection for Levy AR Lab Access in case you take damage).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The only real debate here was the clear decision to be made between Professional Contacts and its low fat alternative, Symmetrical Visage. The players in the UK Nationals all placed their faith in Professional Contacts while the others played a little more fast and loose with Symmetrical Visage. The key thing to note here, I think, is that nobody was actually using Symmetrical Visage to directly replace Professional Contacts alone, because they also chose to play Quality Time as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's a close decision to make between the two options. Professional Contacts alone certainly outclasses the Visage, but with Prepaid VoicePAD cutting the cost of Quality Time there's a real power rush there. My instincts as a neutral observer is that I'd probably prefer the steadier benefit of ProCon over the burst drawing of Quality Time, but there's no getting away from the tempo hit you get when you first put Professional Contacts down.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Events</b></span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aMzmhbojYqQ/VXDS96TJ3uI/AAAAAAAABQ8/2r1RZ9s0Ts4/s1600/CT%2B-%2BKate%2BEvents.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aMzmhbojYqQ/VXDS96TJ3uI/AAAAAAAABQ8/2r1RZ9s0Ts4/s640/CT%2B-%2BKate%2BEvents.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, almost half the entire deck is Events! That fits with the theme of using Prepaid VoicePAD and you can also see just how must consistency there is here, first and foremost with a trio of burst economy cards - Dirty Laundry, Sure Gamble and even the influence-hungry Lucky Find.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gDVZt_FJwS0/VXDThK6-GbI/AAAAAAAABR0/D_Q2ZIq7XuM/s1600/Diesel.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gDVZt_FJwS0/VXDThK6-GbI/AAAAAAAABR0/D_Q2ZIq7XuM/s200/Diesel.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o7kmJlMhK90/VXDThAXG0kI/AAAAAAAABR4/2F6BHX9dAqQ/s1600/lucky%2Bfind.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o7kmJlMhK90/VXDThAXG0kI/AAAAAAAABR4/2F6BHX9dAqQ/s200/lucky%2Bfind.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a4o1lA4QsLI/VXDThCWrcaI/AAAAAAAABR8/khAisBKWGcI/s1600/Makers%2Beye.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a4o1lA4QsLI/VXDThCWrcaI/AAAAAAAABR8/khAisBKWGcI/s200/Makers%2Beye.png" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When you base your deck around burst economy cards it's essential to ensure a steady supply of cards so you keep seeing more of them. We've already found plenty of draw effects in the Hardware and Resources but we also find it here in Diesel and Quality Time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's then also a selection of general utility Events like Scavenge (for resetting Atman), Stimhack (for running those servers that other runs just can't breach), and the multi-access threats of Legwork, Makers Eye and Indexing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>EDIT</b><br />One of the weaknesses of writing these pieces from the perspective of the returning player who is still learning the metagame is that I can miss subtleties about why cards are chosen. I deliberately didn't write about the Vamp in Alex White's UK Nats winning deck because I wasn't sure why he had broken from protocol to play it over Parasite. I've since been told that Vamp was included largely as anti-Psi tech, allowing him to bankrupt the Corp and be 100% certain of winning a Psi game when it really mattered.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Icebreakers</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You might have thought that so far the decks have been almost identical so we're due some differences in the Icebreaker suites...</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uKKR5aKvUNg/VXDS-zQkmyI/AAAAAAAABRY/jIW3AHmTXXA/s1600/CT%2B-%2BKate%2BIcebreakers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uKKR5aKvUNg/VXDS-zQkmyI/AAAAAAAABRY/jIW3AHmTXXA/s640/CT%2B-%2BKate%2BIcebreakers.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You'd be wrong.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Basically the ONLY decision to be made is whether you want to take two Codebreakers into the shower (Zu.13 and Cyber Cypher), or just one (Gordian Blade). Although "Lady" is only a short-termed Barrier breaker it gains more longevity in Kate thanks to the Clone Chips and Levy AR Lab Access to replay everything a second time, meaning that Kate can benefit from the huge efficiency that "Lady" brings against the big barriers without worrying too much about her loyal puppy lying down to die at the wrong time.</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hIHkPYftnHM/VXDTtvA6MPI/AAAAAAAABSM/Bodiyij09iw/s1600/Lady.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hIHkPYftnHM/VXDTtvA6MPI/AAAAAAAABSM/Bodiyij09iw/s200/Lady.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ODUR4kv6Ui0/VXDTtbNCs3I/AAAAAAAABSU/CMYUVtdhQXI/s1600/Mimic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ODUR4kv6Ui0/VXDTtbNCs3I/AAAAAAAABSU/CMYUVtdhQXI/s200/Mimic.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ukz3mc1HgTQ/VXDTt4abwXI/AAAAAAAABSQ/vwYz4sn-5k0/s1600/zu13.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ukz3mc1HgTQ/VXDTt4abwXI/AAAAAAAABSQ/vwYz4sn-5k0/s200/zu13.png" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was originally a little surprised to see that they had opted for Mimic as their only core Killer, but then I quickly searched for frequently-played Sentries that are Strength 5 or above (so would need more than a single Datasucker counter to break, or an Atman more than 4) and there are very few. VERY few. More than that, of the Sentries that are that big, such as Archer or Ichi 2.0, the Sharpshooter will deal with most of them. Further supporting the Mimic in matchups where big Sentries are a problem is the old friend of Kate's: Atman, who brings the efficient AI solution that can make every the most ornery of Ice a relatively easy obstacle to bypass.</span><br />
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<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>EDIT</b><br />The relative weakness of Kate against big Sentries is one of the reasons why Susanoo-No-Mikoto has become a strong option in many of the RP decks.</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Programs</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At last, some real differences between these decks.... oh.</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MVh2wUFvCMY/VXDS-zE3Z2I/AAAAAAAABRQ/KkdeRVmq-Dw/s1600/CT%2B-%2BKate%2BPrograms.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="136" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MVh2wUFvCMY/VXDS-zE3Z2I/AAAAAAAABRQ/KkdeRVmq-Dw/s640/CT%2B-%2BKate%2BPrograms.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The biggest shock here is that two of the top UK players felt like that could afford to run only two copies of Self-Modifying Code. Otherwise the rest of the deck is pretty much prescribed, with the only difference among these six decks being the two influence that Alex White transferred into Vamp from Parasite.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Card Types</b></span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zrr4f0ZyR7c/VXDS98lpQoI/AAAAAAAABRI/Nsl1wMfAD-Y/s1600/CT%2B-%2BKate%2BCard%2BTypes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="162" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zrr4f0ZyR7c/VXDS98lpQoI/AAAAAAAABRI/Nsl1wMfAD-Y/s640/CT%2B-%2BKate%2BCard%2BTypes.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of my favourite tools when comparing decks is to break down the cards into what they're trying to do, which can often help you to find similarities between decks that otherwise seem very different.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-40L35KTRWEk/VXDV-7NBa9I/AAAAAAAABSs/EMZoI-VcblU/s1600/fry-take-my-money.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-40L35KTRWEk/VXDV-7NBa9I/AAAAAAAABSs/EMZoI-VcblU/s320/fry-take-my-money.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You don't really need to do that with these decks because of how obvious the similarities are but I do think this summary really tells you a huge amount about what this deck's strengths really are: Economy and Card Draw. Fully 2/3rds of the deck are either Economy or Card Draw with actual Icebreakers or offensive rig pieces actually treated as an afterthought: what's the bare minimum of Icebreakers I can run? What's the bare minimum of offensive cards?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's a very different approach to how many Runner decks are made, which often put the offensive rig in first and then worry about how to make it work. That's backwards in Kate, and really presses home just how much the deck's greatest weapons are the brute force of having all the cards and credits you need.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Fighting Back</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, that's Prepaid Kate. It's consistent at seeing the cards it needs, flexible in responding to threats, and a long term economic powerhouse fuelled by Lucky Finds and Sure Gambles all day long. It's clear from these decks that the formula for Kate success is well worn by now, and well proven as well. These players were able to pick up a deck that pretty much everyone knew and prepared for, and still found great success with it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's a hallmark of a really powerful deck. There's a lot of value in doing something unexpected, and especially so in Netrunner where hidden strategies can reap huge rewards, but this deck doesn't need that. Kate doesn't sneak around, she doesn't try to dodge defences with trickery or blackmail, she doesn't rely on Siphoning the Corp into the ground. Kate starts the game in the three-point stance and takes the Corp down head-on. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kate is a fighter. A smart fighter, for sure, and certainly a technical and flexible fighter, but at heart she's about simply muscling through defences and stealing Agendas with brute force multi-access attacks. And right now she's the #1 threat that Corps need to be prepared for.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Good luck! I think you might need it...</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic;">EDIT</b><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic;" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic;">Apologies for the relative lightness of the 'how to beat Kate' section. I've deliberately skirted around this because I feel that at the moment my inexperience in the metagame makes me a pretty poor choice to write that sort of detailed strategy piece. There are dozens of people who know much more about how to edge Kate out than I do. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic;">If I had to pick some targets I think that it's going to be difficult to fight the core economy, that's way too strong. The weak points are where the deck got stretched thin to fit all the economy in. The icebreaker suite is bare minimum so you can attack the weakness vs big Sentries, and you might even be able to attack "Lady" if you play A LOT of barriers and drain those power counters quickly enough. I also think that while Kate is flexible with SMC to find Clot/Parasite/Atman etc when she needs it, and can then replay them with Clone Chips, she might struggle to flex in multiple directions at once - if you can overload her search/recursion engine with the need to do two things at once she might not cope.</span>Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-20343476478786405462015-06-01T02:14:00.001-07:002015-06-01T10:18:02.155-07:00UK Nationals 2015 - Results Summary<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The UK National Championships were this weekend (I think the first Nationals of 2015?) and the results are in - congratulations to Alex White who will be flying the UK flag at Worlds!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a 150+ player tournament the Nationals are a big tournament to evaluate the meta at the moment. I'm going to throw some tables on here right now and then come back and add in some notes and observerations later.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Corporation Identities</span></strong><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qUJejD-M8fs/VWwgA-J8d6I/AAAAAAAABPQ/a-eC-CgQ-R0/s1600/Corp%2BTop%2BDecks%2B-%2BUk%2BNats%2B2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="390" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qUJejD-M8fs/VWwgA-J8d6I/AAAAAAAABPQ/a-eC-CgQ-R0/s400/Corp%2BTop%2BDecks%2B-%2BUk%2BNats%2B2015.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Overperformance of Blue Sun (highest % of players in Top 16)</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Blue Sun was only 10% of Corp decks but made up 25% of the decks in the Top 16. It's also unique in that it has a top-heavy distribution of performance (more people did well with the deck than did badly). Although Replicating Perfection took up more slots in the Top 16, and ultimately Alex White's winning deck was Replicating Perfection, the strongest performance appears to have come from Weyland.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some example Blue Sun decks from UK Nationals...</span></div>
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<a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/21622/edinburgh-blue-sun-4th-place-uk-nationals-"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Seamus' 4th-placed deck</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/21631/fried-runner-sunny-side-up-10th-place-uk-nationals"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tom Didiot's 10th-placed deck</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the Sunday of UK Nationals also saw another big tournament (70+ players), which was won by Blue Sun...</span></div>
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<a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/21629/meat-is-murder-1st-place-uroboros-cup-2015-70-players-"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nicole Campbell's deck</span></a></div>
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<strong>Weakness of Haas-Bioroid (lowest % of players in Top 6 despite good representation)</strong></span><br />
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Although none of the big four identities did badly Engineering The Future was clearly the worst of the bunch, collecting players in the 33-64 bracket more often than its peers. That's only a win or two away from the top of the tournament and I suspect that many of the elite players had avoided Engineering The Future so there may be some selection bias creeping into this evaluation. Nevertheless, right now HB is clearly the runt of the Corporation litter as the other HB identities also performed (marginally) the worst outside the big four.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Desert of Alternatives</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you're not playing the big four identities (and arguably even if you're playing Engineering The Future) then you're doing it wrong. 80% of all players who played any other identity finishing outside the Top 64, and only two players made it within the Top 32!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The strong Corp decks are the strong Corp decks.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vmLSNxEqaQw/VWwgA6tKyYI/AAAAAAAABPM/IwUPtZ2bh3M/s1600/Corp%2BOther%2BDecks%2B-%2BUK%2BNats%2B2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="292" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vmLSNxEqaQw/VWwgA6tKyYI/AAAAAAAABPM/IwUPtZ2bh3M/s640/Corp%2BOther%2BDecks%2B-%2BUK%2BNats%2B2015.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>The New Face of Supermodernism</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The one Identity that really bucked the trend was Gagarin Deep Space, which was played by one player and was strong enough to take 100% of that one player into the Top 8! That player was the well known Quintin Smith, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/14/netrunner-took-over-my-life-and-why-it-should-take-over-yours-too">who has managed to get Netrunner into actual real print in a real newspaper recently.</a></span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MREh_l91qiw/VWyPw9AMySI/AAAAAAAABP8/fU3idB-f3HM/s1600/Gagarin.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MREh_l91qiw/VWyPw9AMySI/AAAAAAAABP8/fU3idB-f3HM/s320/Gagarin.png" width="229" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I know a lot of people have been trying to get a Gagarin deck to work but it was Quintin who had the courage enough in his convictions to actually take the deck to Nationals and go on to great things with it.<br /><br />I won't do a full breakdown <a href="http://www.acoo.net/deck/11091/uk-nationals-2015-7th-quinns-quinns039-tier-121-gagarin-deck/">of his Gagarin deck</a> but I can summarise by saying that I think it's actually an elegant evolution of the Supermodernism deck style. Gagarin decks have tended to go really heavy on Asset economy to tax that 1 credit for accessing cards but there's only a few Assets in Quintin's deck, instead he's playing a more subtle blend of Asset and Operation economy cards to support an Ice mix that's actually quite aggressive at throwing ETR routines at the runner. Ice Wall, Enigma and Caduceus are the hallmarks of a deck trying to rush Agenda scores in the early game, and it still packs the SEA Source/Scorched Earth threat from Supermodernism to trip the unwary runner. What's absent from Supermodernism is the Archers and the Hostile Takeovers that powered him, but there's still threatening Ice here and the Gagarin's ability stretches the runner's early economy just enough to force Agendas through.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In short I like the deck a lot, and I think it could provide an alternative Weyland route to Blue Sun. A lot of players have suggested that Weyland is on the wane, but Blue Sun and this deck suggest we shouldn't be waving goodbye to the bad guys just yet.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Runner Identities</span></strong><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AZuSgTI0sOU/VWwgBo0SowI/AAAAAAAABPU/XQhbFepvIgw/s1600/Runner%2BTop%2BDecks%2B-%2BUk%2BNats%2B2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="346" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AZuSgTI0sOU/VWwgBo0SowI/AAAAAAAABPU/XQhbFepvIgw/s400/Runner%2BTop%2BDecks%2B-%2BUk%2BNats%2B2015.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Kate McCaffrey was utterly dominant</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The most popular runner by far, Kate McCaffrey also outperformed the rest of the pack comfortably - 33% of players used her and she was 56% of the Top 16 and another 42% of the decks that finished 17-64th.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">There's a discussion to be had about whether it's Kate winning games or just Shaper cards, and Kate is just that much better than any of the specialist Shaper IDs and so takes all the glory. I would lean towards Kate's ability actually being a key part of her success as on top of the near-guaranteed 1c discount per turn I think she combos through quite well with the key cards Clone Chip and Self-Modifying Code to generate even more value. The economic power of Prepaid Voice Pad is also much greater in Kate as she buys her Pads at a 50% discount.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In the end more players chose Kate than any other runner, and they were right to do so. Among those players were the eventual winner, Alex White...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.acoo.net/deck/11059/uk-nationals-2015-1st-alex-white-stimmed-up-count-wongula/">Alex's Championship-winning Kate deck</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">And, because I didn't list it above, <a href="http://www.acoo.net/deck/11058/uk-nationals-2015-1st-alex-white-am-i-bootcamp-glacier-yet/">his Replicating Perfection deck</a> that was paired with Kate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Are Anarch's hard to play or just inconsistent?</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The big problem that Anarchs always faced is that they wind up clicking to draw cards while Shapers and Criminals enjoy searching through their decks for the cards they want with Special Order, Hostage, Test Run, Diesel, Self-Modifying Code etc. They've been given a helping hand in that respect with Inject and I've Had Worse but perhaps it's not been enough.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">What we see in these results is a really clear break in the results of both Reina and Noise - a few players did very well but the majority did very badly, with Anarch's having the highest likelihood of finishing outside the Top 64 of any of the main IDs.<br /><br />Were just a few players doing it right and everyone else playing Anarch was making mistakes? Well my personal anecdotal experience with MaxX is that I think she is quite unforgiving to mistakes, but underlying all that I think one of the main reasons that's the case is because even MaxX, with her free drawing ability, is only on the borderline of being good enough to win the tough games. I fear Anarchs still need some love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Andromeda is still (just) the Queen of Crime </strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was close competition from Leela but Andromeda did just enough to edge the young pretender into second place. Although they were both played the same number of people, and both took the same number of Top 16 slots, Andromeda's consistency saw very few Andromeda players fall outside the Top 64. The pattern of Andromeda players ranking's was actually quite strong (only 36% outside Top 64) and although many fell just outside the Top 16 it could be that the 'Stealth Andy' deck remains the best Criminal structure.</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--4cL0yAGIhA/VWwgBS5oOhI/AAAAAAAABPg/gx2H_rsKc14/s1600/Runner%2BOther%2BDecks%2B-%2BUK%2BNats%2B2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="362" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--4cL0yAGIhA/VWwgBS5oOhI/AAAAAAAABPg/gx2H_rsKc14/s640/Runner%2BOther%2BDecks%2B-%2BUK%2BNats%2B2015.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Izzy Whizzy, let's get busy?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Much like Gagarin for the Corp there was a runner anomaly, with two Whizzard decks placing strongly - Marc Valles taking it to the Top 16 while Joey McMillan was only one win away from joining him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I haven't seen decklists for either of the Whizzard decks yet but it's easy to see how his Asset-trashing ability is well-positioned against the metagame. I'll look out for those decks </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and add them here once they crop up.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chaos Disproves The Theory?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If I argued that Kate is good because she's Kate not just because she's a Shaper (as I did above) then Chaos Theory is doing her best to disprove that hypothesis. She was only played by 9 players but her distribution through the field is quite similar to Kate's. This has often been the play-off between Kate and Chaos Theory - is it better to have Kate's money or Chaos' consistency?<br /><br />It appears as though simply playing Shaper cards is a good start, and the argument pro-con Kate McCaffrey being a key part of Shaper success will continue, I feel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>In Summary: Play Green Cards.</strong></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Play Green cards. Less than 50% OF ALL PLAYERS TO PLAY ANY SHAPER ID finished outside the Top 64. 70% of Anarch did, and 62% of Criminals.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Play Green cards.</span>Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-65432931350224330792015-05-19T10:40:00.000-07:002015-05-19T10:40:11.083-07:00In At The Deep End - Sheffield Regionals Report<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This past weekend offered an excellent opportunity to accelerate my Netrunner rehabilitation by hurling myself in at the deep end with a Regionals tournament in Sheffield, UK. I made a conscious decision not to worry too much about the decks I was playing and simply take what I had been dabbling with over the last couple of weeks, namely a Maxx deck that I was pretty sure was good, and the 'Waldemar' Haas-Bioroid deck that I was pretty sure wasn't good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Regionals was 58 players and had attracted many of the best players in England so the field was ripe with talent including the 2014 National Champion, Dave 'Cerberus' Hoyland. Normally I would enter something like this expecting to have a good shot at Top 8 but plunging myself deep into such a competitive environment when I literally had no idea what most of the recent cards did meant that I tempered my expectations. I believed in the Maxx deck and thought I could go 4-2 with it over the six rounds of Swiss, and while the Waldemar HB deck had done well in my practice games with it I thought it would be badly exposed in top competition and would likely go 2-4, leaving me with a total target of 12pts from the Swiss.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As it turns out both my decks exceeded those expectations with Maxx going 6-0 in the Swiss portion and the experimental Waldemar deck holding its own at 3-3. That record was enough to earn 18pts and seed me 4th in the Top 8, where I was lucky enough with coin flips to wind up running three times. Maxx won the first Top 8 game comfortably, lost the second very narrowly, and then I made a chump play and lost spectacularly in the third game (more on this later).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not a big fan of tournament reports so I won't bore you with the full details but I would like to share the decks that I played, and a few key moments from my day...</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-828jIeB10a0/VVtuwVj4DkI/AAAAAAAABJg/k_R6NyyT3pQ/s1600/goodbadugly.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="160" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-828jIeB10a0/VVtuwVj4DkI/AAAAAAAABJg/k_R6NyyT3pQ/s640/goodbadugly.png" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Good</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Playing in the Swiss against Laurie Poulter, a tough competitor who wound up losing the final, I managed to rip two Agendas with blind Spooned runs against an unrezzed piece of Ice. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Laurie was playing Haas-Bioroid and we were midway through the game - he'd set up on his central servers and I'd seen a few pieces of Ice, and now Laurie pushed to score an Agenda through an apparent scoring window where I only had an Eater and Femme installed. He installed an Ice, then installed and advanced a card behind it. I looked at the board and weighed my options... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd seen an Eli which told me a little about his Ice strategy as it was taxing rather than hard ETR, so maybe there was Heimdal's to support it and probably not much else in Barriers.. I could probably click past most of his Barriers if need be. Any Sentries he was playing were likely Architects (I'd seen one already), maybe an Ichi or something, and with Femme installed I could break them and get through to the Agenda. What I couldn't deal with was an ETR Code Gate like Quandary, Viper, IQ or Enigma - I could Eater through them but wouldn't steal the Agenda.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I did have Spooned. So if I Spooned the server I thought I had a pretty good chance of getting in - I could probably click most of his Barriers, I could break Sentries, and now I could trash Code Gates with Eater/Spooned and come back for more. Laurie didn't like the unexpected Spooned and thought long and hard before he decided not to rez his Ice, handing me an advanced Vitruvius. I felt pretty clever, I can tell you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Laurie followed up by installing a second Agenda into the server on his next turn. This actually made perfect sense from his point of view - a turn ago he believed the server was secure from looking at the board state, and although he'd been sniped by a surprise Event the server still looked just as secure this turn. Unfortunately for Laurie a second copy of Spooned was in my hand and I repeated the play to steal another Agenda!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was a bad break for Laurie, with 4 Agenda points lost to Spooned. For those interested I'd called the Ice over that server pretty well - I'd expected Viper but in fact it was a Tollbooth, and understandably he hadn't wanted to sacrifice that to a Spooned.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Bad</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Architect is a very good card. A very attractively costed Sentry, it lets you play cards out of R&D, and also out of HQ or Archives. As a sweet added bonus it also doesn't get trashed once it's been installed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Which is why it was a pretty stupid of me to put a Parasite on it, really.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Ugly</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd gone into Regionals with very low expectations of success but somewhere long the way to a 7-1 record with my Runner the ego monster had run out of control and I thought it was easy.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k27tQgrwLXQ/VVtwjsZlNTI/AAAAAAAABKA/h1RYy8xYzwg/s1600/cocky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="227" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k27tQgrwLXQ/VVtwjsZlNTI/AAAAAAAABKA/h1RYy8xYzwg/s400/cocky.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After losing (very) narrowly in my second game of the Top 8 I was drawn into the losers bracket against Near Earth Hub. I'd played against Near Earth Hub three times in the Swiss I'd beaten them all pretty comfortably. My opening hand was strong with a couple of breakers, an Account Siphon and a Same Old Thing while my opponent was clearly struggling to find Ice or economy. I smelled blood in the water and went in for the kill, hitting him with a Siphon on my second turn and floating the tags.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Traffic Accident, Scorched Earth, thanks for playing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A very useful lesson in humility. I'd become so sure of my runner's success that I genuinely thought I had the game in the bag on turn two and then completely switched off to how I could lose. Respect your opponents, folks!</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At first I was like... but then I was like....</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MZNResmCwSk/VVtxbJkQCII/AAAAAAAABKY/NMI95S-sMpw/s1600/luke.gif" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MZNResmCwSk/VVtxbJkQCII/AAAAAAAABKY/NMI95S-sMpw/s1600/luke.gif" /></a> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zmoDknG4haE/VVtxbPLdCVI/AAAAAAAABKQ/ygbpBGML1es/s1600/death%2Bstar.gif" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zmoDknG4haE/VVtxbPLdCVI/AAAAAAAABKQ/ygbpBGML1es/s1600/death%2Bstar.gif" /></a></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maxx Hacktivism</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(6-0 Swiss UK Regionals Sheffield)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MaxX: Maximum Punk Rock</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IBF5RgSPhHY/VVty-gpew2I/AAAAAAAABKs/pTTbprdxY5E/s1600/MAxx.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IBF5RgSPhHY/VVty-gpew2I/AAAAAAAABKs/pTTbprdxY5E/s1600/MAxx.png" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Event (25)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Account Siphon ••••• •••</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Day Job</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Déjà Vu</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Forked</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Hacktivist Meeting</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x I've Had Worse</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Knifed</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Levy AR Lab Access •••</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Retrieval Run</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Spooned</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Sure Gamble</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Wanton Destruction</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Resource (10)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Hades Shard •</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Joshua B.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Liberated Account</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Same Old Thing</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Icebreaker (8)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Eater</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Femme Fatale ••</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Knight</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Program (4)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Keyhole</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Parasite</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">14 influence spent (max 15) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">47 cards (min 45)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/20841/maxx-hacktivism-6-0-swiss-uk-regionals-sheffield-#">View on NetrunnerDB</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the Maxx deck I played to 6-0 as the Runner, which is based on a direct copy of <a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/14503/slysquids-mother-f-deck-store-championship-winner-">Slysquid's Maxx deck</a>. In playing this deck a lot over the last couple of weeks I'd grown comfortable enough to be able to make some changes and I added Parasite and Hacktivist Meeting, dropping Amped Up from the deck.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h1VdUexFD18/VVty3qxdipI/AAAAAAAABKk/BOjP7TXUixU/s1600/Hacktivist.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h1VdUexFD18/VVty3qxdipI/AAAAAAAABKk/BOjP7TXUixU/s320/Hacktivist.png" width="229" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Both Parasite and Hacktivist Meeting fit this deck perfectly, Parasite is a quick and easy way to remove cheap Ice that might otherwise force you into awkward Knight/Eater plays just to get by a Quandary or Pup. Parasite also matches the deck's objective of keeping the Corp poor by forcing them to reinstall replacement Ice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hacktivist Meeting is one of the best Anarch cards printed in a long time and is brutal in this current metagame. It seems like all the key decks are big on Assets and Upgrades (Daily Business Show, Jackson Howard, Pad Campaign, Sundew, Mental Health Clinic, Adonis Campaign, Ash, Caprice Nisei, Crisium Grid... the list is a long one) and Hacktivist Meeting hits them all pretty hard. Again, like Parasite, the Hacktivist Meeting suits my overall aims of restricting the Corp's money by deterring them from rezzing Asset economy cards. A perfect fit for a great card.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One word on how Maxx is played, because I think most people are doing it wrong. I constantly hear Maxx referred to as a Keyhole deck or a Recursion deck but she's neither of those things. Maxx is a pressure deck - you aim to keep the Corp poor by constantly running and threatening servers, trashing economy and Ice, demanding they trash your Assets, demanding they rez Ice or get Keyholed. To use my three Runner definitions she's a pure Harvester with Keyhole as the secondary objective. Yes Maxx has recursion, and yes if I get to hit you with five Account Siphons I will, but stopping the recursion does not stop this deck.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pretty much everyone I played against knew about the Maxx deck and was prepared for it, but pretty much everyone also misplayed badly because they misunderstood what I was trying to do, either protecting R&D as though I was a Keyhole deck or throwing down cards like Blacklist or Chronos Protocol as though they were silver bullets. I've been told that Maxx has been given a bit of a bad name after her initial success, like she's a gimmick deck who had her time. I think a lot of that opinion has come from people who've made the deck and put it into their testing gauntlet but then played it wrongly and thus come to a wrong conclusion about how easy she is to beat.</span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Waldemar HB - Caprice 1.0</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(3-3 Swiss UK Regionals Sheffield)</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hQmCA_uXqn4/VVt0JanEnYI/AAAAAAAABK4/aQLw6L6loYI/s1600/upgrades.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hQmCA_uXqn4/VVt0JanEnYI/AAAAAAAABK4/aQLw6L6loYI/s1600/upgrades.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agenda (10)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Accelerated Beta Test</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Mandatory Upgrades</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x NAPD Contract</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Project Vitruvius</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Asset (14)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Adonis Campaign</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Encryption Protocol</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Eve Campaign</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Jackson Howard ••</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x PAD Campaign</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Rex Campaign</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Upgrade (7)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Ash 2X3ZB9CY</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Caprice Nisei ••••</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Crisium Grid ••</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Red Herrings ••••</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Operation (3)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Hedge Fund</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Barrier (6)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Bastion</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Heimdall 2.0</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Wall of Static</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Wraparound •</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Code Gate (6)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Datapike</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x IQ</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Tollbooth ••</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Viper</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sentry (3)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Architect</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">15 influence spent (max 15) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">49 cards (min 45)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/20908/waldemar-hb-caprice-version">View on NetrunnerDB</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uB1hZPNb0F4/VVt0PVQUs4I/AAAAAAAABLA/1XMksC-8CpM/s1600/rex.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uB1hZPNb0F4/VVt0PVQUs4I/AAAAAAAABLA/1XMksC-8CpM/s320/rex.png" width="229" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The version of <a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/20145/waldemar-hb-2x-top-8-regionals-dmqt-winner-">the Waldemar HB deck</a> that I took to Regionals had been tuned a little away from the original. The main changes were scraping together the Influence for Caprice Nisei (mainly dropping a Tollbooth) and speeding the deck up slightly by dropping to two Mandatory Upgrades and faster economy in Rex Campaign. Rex Campaign is a weak card generally but fits this deck very well and the added value of being able to remove Bad Publicity vs Valencia is very helpful. I played Valencia once on the day and my opening turn was Hedge Fund, Rex Campaign, Datapike in front of Rex Campaign. Two turns later, after Valencia had bounced off the Datapike, I cleared the Bad Publicity and walked to victory.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Waldemar HB in general I think I make most of the valid comments on the NetrunnerDB list I posted, but I think it's worth repeating that I like this deck. The Mandatory Upgrades are a little gimmicky but this deck is very good at scoring them, and importantly I think there's still room for improvement in this list. The Encryption Protocols are very lightweight, only good in matches where the Runner is right in a sweet spot where they weren't so cash-strapped that they'd already decided to leave your economy alone but weren't so rich that they could afford to pay a few credits more and still get by. I think they're rarely bad, but equally rarely do they make a critical impact on the game and are ripe for upgrade to another card (perhaps Enhanced Login Protocol to fight Hacktivist Meeting).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I went into Regional expecting to go 2-4 with this deck. I managed to go 3-3 and I think that in the next tournament I'd be disappointed not to manage 4-2 with an improved list. Waldemar is not Near Earth Hub or Replicating Perfection, but it might be one of the best decks that people aren't actively prioritising their chances to defeat.</span></div>
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Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-20510301236243413962015-05-14T09:40:00.003-07:002015-05-14T09:40:57.969-07:00The Three Runners - Hunter, Digger and Harvester<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How do you win games as a Runner? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, you need to get some economy together so you can pay for stuff, and then you need to assemble your rig of Hardware and Programs so that you can evade the Corporation's Ice and steal Agendas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It sounds pretty obvious but we all know that there are many different routes of going about all of this - is your economy dripfed by the likes of Daily Casts, Pre-Paid Voicepad, Cyberfeeder, Desperado? That's a slow way of gaining cash but quite efficient as it's low on clicks. Is it click-intensive like Armitage Codebusting, Kati Jones, Magnum Opus, more effort but more cash? Is it trying to 'surf' from one efficient one-off economy card to another, like Sure Gamble, Modded, Dirty Laundry or Cache, great so long as the supply remains steady but prone to breaking down?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And your rig can be built any number of different ways - using Datasucker and fixed strength breakers, flexible breakers like Corroder/Gordian Blade and lots of cash, finding ways of 'cheating' big breakers into play like Femme Fatale/Morningstar. Beyond that do you run one of the AI suites instead - Knights, Eaters, Atman etc - or do you plan on just trying to avoid the Ice entirely by either destroying it with Parasite/Knifed or slipping past it with Inside Job, Escher and Blackmail?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A lot of the time it's going to be a combination of the above option - some economy, some breakers, some frustrating Events. Whatever the combination you choose, usually the vast majority of a Runner's deck will be dedicated to making sure that all of the above happens.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But that's <b>not </b>how you win games as a Runner. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's all the stuff that you're doing just to get you to the position where you can execute your strategy, steal Agendas and win the game. If 90% of a runner's deck is dedicated to getting the runner into the position where they can break Ice and successfully complete runs then I'm interested in the remaining 10%... the 10% that says "right, I've got my rig and some money... what happens next?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once you've got your rig I think there's three main routes to Runner victory, depending on where you go looking for those game-winning agendas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Remote Servers - "The Hunter"</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H9RIMZMZKL4/VVTMAXhHDeI/AAAAAAAABG8/hR-q7ztirRY/s1600/hunter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="360" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H9RIMZMZKL4/VVTMAXhHDeI/AAAAAAAABG8/hR-q7ztirRY/s640/hunter.jpg" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Signature Cards: Femme Fatale, Blackmail, Inside Job, Test Run, Knight, Stimhack</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Hunter is perhaps the most passive of the three strategies because a lot of this strategy just involves waiting around for the Corporation to give you something to hunt. The main aim of the Hunter strategy is to ensure that, when the Corporation thinks it is position to score an Agenda and puts it on the line in a remote server, the Runner has the tools to burn through the Corp's defences and steal it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are two common approaches to playing the Hunter: either building a powerful rig with A LOT of credits behind it so you can break through several layers of even the biggest Ice, or using cards like Femme Fatale, Inside Job, Blackmail etc to skip past as much of the Ice as possible. The recent hound Icebreakers like Lady or Cuj.0 also help a Hunter plan, fittingly, as the power counters are perfect for breaking through big Ice relatively cheaply and the Hunter doesn't need to use them so often.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A lot of time it's helpful for the Hunter to APPEAR to be in a weaker position than they really are so that the Corp thinks they have a scoring window that isn't really there. Once the Corp has installed an Agenda (ideally advancing it a couple of times for good measure) the Hunter can then spring their trap with a Test Run/Scavenge for Femme Fatale, or a Stimhack/Running Interference that dramatically swings the odds in their favour just long enough to steal the Agenda. A key distinction here is that long term power isn't the objective of the Hunter because he doesn't need to be able to run every turn, he just needs to be able to run big when there's an Agenda on the line.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A real benefit of the Hunter plan is that it doesn't require anything that the Runner wasn't already playing - ways of beating Ice, and economy to pay for it - but there are also a few key weakness to the Hunter strategy: </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A Corporation that plans to fast advance its Agendas need not ever give the Runner a target to shoot at. A lot of Corporations fast advance.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The strategy as a whole allows the Corporation to decide when the battles are fought, with the Runner relying on the Corp misjudging what the Runner is capable of.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because the Hunter's rig maximises the ability to produce a short term 'burst' of power over long term efficiency any wasted run (either unsuccessful, or suckered into hitting a taxing ambush or decoy) is bad news.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of these it's perhaps the first point that has historically played strongest against the Hunter strategy, and there are few tools available for the Hunter to avoid a Corporation that simply wants to score its Agendas directly out of HQ. Until recently the best weapons were either Chakana or The Source but the addition of Clot gives Hunters a whole new weapon by forcing the Corp to leave their Agendas dangling in a remote server for at least one turn. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't want to dedicate too much space to talking about a single card but it's worth saying the best way to maximise the irritant of Clot is to have ways of installing on the Corporation's turn, just before they stick the final Advancement counter onto their Agenda, so having something like Self-Modifying Code or Clone Chip in your rig makes Clot MUCH better at spoiling the Corporation's party, and thus much better for the Hunter style of play.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>R&D - "The Digger"</b></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2VgJy_8tnhA/VVTNflrYtJI/AAAAAAAABHg/bmQaAKUDwVc/s1600/digger.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="350" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2VgJy_8tnhA/VVTNflrYtJI/AAAAAAAABHg/bmQaAKUDwVc/s640/digger.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Signature Cards: Medium, Maker's Eye, R&D Interface, Keyhole, Indexing</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Where the Hunter is all about waiting for the Corporation to decide when they want to fight the Digger strategy puts the Runner into the driver's seat. The plan is to hit R&D hard and often, at least once per turn and ideally accessing multiple cards every time. The logic behind this plan is that the Agenda's are in there somewhere and so long as you keep digging you're going to find them eventually. Whatever else the Corporation is up to doesn't bother you too much, you just want to get your head down and dig for victory.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unfortunately the Digger plan is quite a common one and also quite predictable so often the Corporation will lay defences down against it by default, then will be quick to reinforce those defences when you show your hand and install something like a Keyhole or R&D Interface. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a Digger you can expect to have to punch your way through a few layers of Ice every time you want to access R&D, and unlike the Hunter you know you're going to want to run much more frequently if you're going to find enough Agendas to win. This requires a strong but efficient rig to be built that can stand up to the hard work of bashing the Corp's defences down time after time. The classic Andromeda deck used the Datasucker/Desperado engine to make it cheap to break most Ice, for example, a mode which has been commonly replaced by a Stealth breakers combination in many modern Criminals. The Runner can also gain strength from knowing they're going to be focussed on R&D in the game, which is the theory behind the Breach/Alias/Passport Icebreakers that trade power for flexibility, or the recent crop of Eater/Knight Anarch decks using Keyhole.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The ultimate endgame of the Digger is the 'R&D lock', which is the point at which the Runner is able to dig so deep into R&D every turn that they'll always see an Agenda before the Corp has the chance to draw it. Establishing an R&D lock is not a guarantee of victory but unless the Corp has the Agends he needs already stashed away in HQ then it's pretty close.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reason that Corporations know to prepare for R&D dig is precisely because it's proven to be a hugely effective way of winning games, but it certainly doesn't mean that it's infallible.</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Digger is in a race with the Corporation, gambling that they can find and score Agendas from R&D before the Corporation can score Agendas from HQ. If the digging start early then the odds are firmly in the runner's favour, but if the Corporation has already scored a few Agendas before the Digger really gets going then it could all be too late.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Against Jinteki net damage decks the Digger strategy becomes a liability as it's all too easy to hit two Snare! at once and be ending your run in a body bag. Although Keyhole can't force an R&D lock like Medium it at least retains usefulness against Jinteki.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Corporations are getting more and more tools to evade the R&D lock such as Jackson Howard, Daily Business Show and Fast Track, and there are more Agendas that are tricky to steal out of R&D like The Future Perfect or NAPD Contract.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All that said, there's a reason why Diggers have been among the most popular runner strategies - it's hard to ignore the near-inevitability that Diggers will score Agendas if they can just keep digging.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qXG7lozAa1c/VVTN2wovZyI/AAAAAAAABHo/297GzEw_EMg/s1600/noise.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qXG7lozAa1c/VVTN2wovZyI/AAAAAAAABHo/297GzEw_EMg/s200/noise.png" width="142" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One special case is worth mentioning: I think a lot of players might read this and wonder where Noise fits into these strategies, with his virus-led trashing effect. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I would argue that to most intents and purposes Noise is a Digger, he's just using viruses to dig through R&D rather than the traditional options.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>HQ - "The Harvester"</b></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ewhJTD85S9A/VVTMAm8VrmI/AAAAAAAABHA/jjff8rprPBg/s1600/Harvester.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="392" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ewhJTD85S9A/VVTMAm8VrmI/AAAAAAAABHA/jjff8rprPBg/s640/Harvester.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Signature Cards: R&D Interface, Nerve Agent, Legwork, Wanton Destruction, Utopia Shard</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hunting for Agendas in HQ is traditionally one of the least rewarding ways of playing the game: many Agendas will pass through HQ only briefly on their way from R&D to remote server, and unless the Corporation is flooded for Agendas you've frequently only got a 20% chance of any HQ run ending in a score. If all there was to the Harvester's gameplan was randomly accessing cards from HQ then it would be called 'The Fisher' instead', and would be just as slow, boring and pointless as it's real life counterpart. The Harvester has bigger plans than that and wants to improve the odds of their HQ runs paying off in scored Agendas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agendas are on a conveyor belt out of R&D into HQ. In the natural scheme of things they then pass on into remote servers to be advanced and completed. But if a runner can prevent the Corp from moving those Agendas on into remotes then they will start to gather up in HQ and make it a juicier target. The first step of the Harvester strategy is to do this, keeping pressure on the Corporation as much as possible so that they never feel like they can risk trying to score an Agenda. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The tool for achieving this is usually waging economic warfare. This might sound similar to what the Hunter is doing in building a strong economy but while the Hunter relies on looking weaker than the are, the Harvester wants to look strong so that the Corporation doesn't even try to score something. Another contrast is that where the Hunter watches and waits, the Harvester harasses and harries.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Keep the Corporation spending money, keep trashing their Sundews and Adonis Campaigns, keep making them rez ice, keep draining their economy whenever possible while building yours. The longer the game goes on the more Agendas are herded into HQ, and that's what you want - that's why you're the Harvester. Account Siphon/Vamp are fantastic cards for the Herder as it's the best way of keeping the Corporation on its knees, economically, but often the key for the Harvester is to just keep pestering the Corp in a form of guerrilla warfare by constantly pecking at their defenses and demanding they spend money. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, when you judge that the time is right and HQ is ripe for the picking you turn your attention to HQ and harvest the rewards of your hard work with multi-access/trashing cards like Legwork or Wanton Destruction.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like the Hunters and Diggers life isn't plain sailing for Harvesters, and the Harvester plan has some definite weaknesses.</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If the Corporation's economy is too strong then you won't be able to contain the Corp. In the worst case you could burn yourself out trying.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cards like Daily Business Show and Jackson Howard give Corporations a way of filtering excess Agendas out of HQ, meaning the HQ 'fruit' never ripens.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The theory of the Harvester is that eventually the Agendas will arrive in HQ, but while the Digger is almost certain to find Agendas in R&D there's less certainty for the Harvester. You could keep the Corp helpless for a dozen turns only for your coup de grace Wanton Destruction to reveal they hadn't drawn a single Agenda in that time.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That said, the Harvester also has two big natural advantages - waging economic warfare on the Corporation is obviously a good thing to be doing anyway, and in constantly probing the Corp's defences you might pick up a couple of Agendas along the way when they are stretched to breaking point. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Split Personalities</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These are the three routes that I think most Runners use to win games - there are exceptions, of course, but I think this explains the vast majority of successful decks. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having laid out the three distinct strategies I think it's essential to admit that it's actually relatively common for a Runner deck include elements of more than one of these strategies! A cyclopean focus on a single gameplan is asking for the Corp to focus all their defensive efforts against it so having a Plan B is often an important part of being a runner. But while a successful runner deck might carry an element of more than one strategy there is almost always a heavy weighting towards one over the other because it's difficult to fully support two of these plans.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You might see a deck running some Mediums and a copy of Nerve Agent, so are they are a Digger or a Harvester? Well usually there will be more copies of one than the other, with the runner intending to have one as Plan A and the other as a Plan B in case HQ/R&D becomes too heavily defended. Similarly you can often find Makers Eye and Legwork in the same deck, or a Hunter deck might carry some Makers Eyes so that they can go hunting for Agendas in R&D if the Corporation is slow in installing their Agendas. But while you might find two strategies in one deck there will always be a clear main objective, which is what the Runner's economy and rig is set up to support.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Know Your Role</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is most important is that you pick at least one of these strategies when you're building your deck. Time and again I see Runner decks that tick all the boxes aside from having a gameplan as players get so sucked into the joys of designing and crafting a rig that they never consider what that rig is actually going to be for! If you fall into that trap then you'll never take the initiative away from the Corporation and however good your rig is you'll be fighting uphill in every game, with the Corporation secure in their central servers and waiting for you in their remotes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second lesson is to bear in mind what your final gameplan is when you're building your deck. Try to make sure that everything is pulling in the same direction, from the 1st card to the 45th, and know why everything is in your deck. If you're a Hunter you need burst economy and surprise attacks, if you're a Digger you need steady efficiency, if you're a Harvester you need to be aggressive from the outset. Mismatching elements of those strategies is one of the most common mistakes that new players make, but also one of the easiest to avoid once you learn to think about your deck in the right way from top to bottom.</span>Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-38356245877718552502015-05-10T11:05:00.002-07:002015-05-10T11:07:13.356-07:00Cyber Threat: Replicating Perfection<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since returning to Netrunner I've had my work cut out of me trying to catch up on over a year of new Data Packs. New cards have created new decks and shunted the old favourites I'm used to into the sidelines. My new 'Cyber Threat' series will be focused on trying to understand some of the current big decks - the cards they play, why they play them, and why together form a killer deck. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First up is the Jinteki juggernaut of </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Replicating Perfection</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. I've picked six decks posted over the last couple of months (five from NetrunnerDB, one from Reddit), all of which were winners of either a Store Championships or a Regional Championships, and I'll be comparing them to each other to find the common threads and the differences. Interestingly this also gives me three decks from before SanSan Cycle arrived, and three decks from after SanSan Cycle, so we can look at how things have changed.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rxJ6rHlhddc/VU9ChybNcqI/AAAAAAAABDA/lMknT0fNmoM/s1600/RP%2B-%2BDecks.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="130" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rxJ6rHlhddc/VU9ChybNcqI/AAAAAAAABDA/lMknT0fNmoM/s640/RP%2B-%2BDecks.png" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Any discussion of Replicating Perfection decks has to start with one card: Replicating Perfection itself. This corp ID is one of the most powerful we've seen printed to date because it puts such a frustrating restriction onto the runner's freedom. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For a long time Jinteki was the whipping boy of Corporations and the few Jinteki decks that did work were based in net damage and killing the runner using the Personal Evolution identity as there simply weren't enough cards printed that supported Replicating Perfection. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By contrast Replicating Perfection has now had 18 months of consistent improvement and love as Jinteki was given a real boost throughout Spin and Lunar Cycles, including Honor & Profit, and the strong ability on this ID is fully able to shine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every Replicating Perfection deck is built around maximising the ability on the ID. At its very least the runner is forced to waste a click on running a Central server before going to hit a troublesome Asset or steal an Agenda, but Replicating Perfection decks are looking for more than that. The objective is to put threatening Ice over all three Central servers so that the Runner has to do more than waste a click, they also have to spend credits or cards before they can jack out of the Central server to attack a Remote. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This pushes Replicating Perfection decks towards a taxing strategy, constantly draining the runner of clicks and credits for everything they want to do, and it also produces a deck that gains additional value out of protecting Central servers, making you a more troublesome target for the classic Account Siphon/R&D type of assaults from runners.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let's look at how players are maximising the impact of the powerful Replicating Perfection ability, and using that to wage economic warfare on the runner.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><b>Agendas</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is such a strong consensus on Agendas for Replicating Perfection that out of the six decks only ONE card differs, with Cerberus daring to break ranks to play a single copy of Chronos Protocol (presumably for its Maxx-busting powers). To all intents and purposes though, every RP deck starts with the same 9 cards.<br /><br />NAPD Contract and The Future Perfect share something very obvious in common - they're Agendas that are difficult for the runner to steal - and this fits perfectly into the RP gameplan of taxing and draining the runner. Even if the runner is able to pay to score their agenda you know that it's taxed them further and possibly created a window for the Corp to push a second agenda through.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nisei MkII is a different story - it doesn't defend itself, but once scored it defends all your other agendas. In a deck like RP, with it's horrible taxation and frustrating multi-run ability, a scored Nisei MKII can be utterly devastating, rendering a dozen clicks worth of the runner's effort worthless with a single Agenda Counter. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Did you run through HQ? Did it cost you credits? Ok, did you run on my Agenda? Did it cost you more credits? Well guess what, you need to do it again. Twice. Hugs & Kisses xx."<br /><br />We've long thought of Astroscript Pilot Program as perhaps the best Agenda in the game, and while Nisei MkII is harder to score as a 4/2 Agenda, once it's in your scoring area the impact of a scored Nisei can easily match that of Astroscript, especially in Replicating Perfection.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One final comment on the Agendas is that there's a common theme here. Where most Corporation decks look for Agendas that are the easiest to score (Astroscript, Project Atlas, Accelerated Beta Test) or on Agendas that help the deck once scored (Geothermal Fracking, Efficiency Committee, Priority Requisition) the RP agendas are about being difficult to score. RP could play with four 3/2 Agendas if it wanted to but instead it's all about making the runner's life difficult, not the Corp's life easier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Assets</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The consensus on Agendas carries through into Assets as well, with Mental Health Clinic and Sundew forming the beating heart of Replicating Perfection's economy. These are both great cards in their own right, but also both fit absolutely perfectly with RP's ability. Replicating Perfection makes it impossible for the runner to trash Sundew before you get your 2 credits back, so at its very worst Sundew is a direct tax of two clicks and two credits from the runner, but more often it will sit there over at least a couple of turns generating cash before the runner is in a position to trash it. Mental Health Clinic is very similar to PAD Campaign, but with its 0 rez cost it becomes a low-risk alternative to the PAD Campaign that again, at its very worse, taxed the runner for two clicks and three credits.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think we're long past explaining why Jackson Howard is in Corp decks, and these days Daily Business Show has become another popular card for Corp decks who want to have more control over the cards they draw, and avoid Agenda flood by pushing unwanted Agendas to the bottom of R&D. Replicating Perfection makes a particularly good home for Assets with a high trash cost that the Runner will want to trash, and Daily Business Show ticks that box, but I think there's another important reason why RP wants this asset in particular: Replicating Perfection is slow as hell.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You're playing a deck based around dragging the game out, with taxing Ice, clicks drained from the runner, dripfeed economic assets and Agendas that are difficult to score. None of this helps you to actually finish games but Jackson Howard and Daily Business Show do at least help the Corp to maximise their draws, finding a critical mass of economy to install Ice, and find Agendas to score and actually win the game.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Upgrades</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh yeah. Her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Caprice Nisei can be horrible to play against, and once again she's a card that gets even more horrible in Replicating Perfection. Caprice is the final raised middle finger at the bottom of a remote server once the runner has committed huge resources to getting that far, much the same way a scored Nisei MkII might do. Caprice underlines that the whole strategy of Replicating Perfection is on wasting as much of the runner's effort as possible, which is very different to most Corp strategies of maximising the Corp's efforts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most decks also found room (and Influence) for either Crisium Grid or Ash 2X3ZB9CY, which are similar in that they both further frustrate the runner's efforts once they have broken through Ice on a server, with Ash better at defending Agendas as a Caprice alternative, while Crisium Grid is more commonly placed on Central servers to defend against damaging runs like Maker's Eye, Account Siphon, Wanton Destruction, Keyhole, Legwork etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Operations</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Partly because Replicating Perfection works so perfectly with Assets there's actually relatively few Operations being played in these decks, especially when you look outside the staple six economy Operations: 3x Hedge Fund, 3x Celebrity Gift. Cereberus was one player to differ from the accepted wisdom around Celebrity Gift, and if you read the comments he makes about his deck he says he playtested both Celebrity Gift and Medical Research Fundraiser and found that it was better to give the runner credits rather than information. It's not been a popular decision, but it's interesting that the option to remove Celebrity Gift is there if you agree with him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Outside of those cards the Corp pretty much always finds space for a copy of Interns to reinstall trashed Sundews/Caprices, and then most recently we've seen players trying to find Influence to play Enhanced Login Protocol. The synergy of Enhanced Login Protocol with a Replicating Perfection plan of taxing clicks from the runner is obvious, and so it's obvious why players have been trying to find space for it. The reason that Enhanced Login Protocol isn't being played more heavily appears to be that it is competing for card slots and Influence with some of the better cards in the deck... arguably Alex White (who ignored Login Protocol) got to play a Tollbooth and an Ash in it's place, and they are both strong cards in their own right, and both also fit perfectly into Replicating Perfection.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">*****</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Before we look at the Ice makeup of Replicating Perfection I think it's really useful to stop and take stock of what we've seen so far. We've got six different decks, winners all, and you have to say that at this point the differences between them are few and far between. They play the same Agendas, the same economy Assets and Operations, the same card draw Assets, and the same Upgrades. This is what a Replicating Perfection deck is, and all these players pretty much entirely agree on how to build it best. The consistency is remarkable.<br /><br />But also look at just how single-minded these decks are. Economy aside, virtually the entire deck is focussed on hating the runner.</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agendas that are hard to score</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Assets that are powerful and hard to trash</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Upgrades that make runs hard to complete</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Where other decks might split focus a little, with some cards that help the Corp and other cards that punish the Runner, Replicating Perfection is all hate. Slow the runner down. Slow them down some more. Then when they're slowed right down... slow them down even further or send them back to the start. It's the Replicating Perfection obsession.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Ice</b></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v-ZQHiRYUBw/VU9BiLnrgTI/AAAAAAAABCY/AKB70RYzO0E/s1600/RP%2B-%2BIce.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="482" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v-ZQHiRYUBw/VU9BiLnrgTI/AAAAAAAABCY/AKB70RYzO0E/s640/RP%2B-%2BIce.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To Grail or not to Grail, that is the question...</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WiMlyIGcQqg/VU-LTGfxj7I/AAAAAAAABE8/Zbn-t4hTFco/s1600/merlin.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WiMlyIGcQqg/VU-LTGfxj7I/AAAAAAAABE8/Zbn-t4hTFco/s200/merlin.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H29RD4kFHjc/VU-LS8ExL5I/AAAAAAAABE0/xayMe4PUIfc/s1600/lancelot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H29RD4kFHjc/VU-LS8ExL5I/AAAAAAAABE0/xayMe4PUIfc/s200/lancelot.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8Ct0vtVHeWA/VU-LTK4OA9I/AAAAAAAABE4/VXHtehMaYCE/s1600/galahad.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8Ct0vtVHeWA/VU-LTK4OA9I/AAAAAAAABE4/VXHtehMaYCE/s200/galahad.png" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It should be immediately apparent that what we're dealing with here are two very different blocks of Ice, which happen to coincide neatly with Pre/Post SanSan Cycle coming out. The three Store Champs decks all played a Grail Ice layout, while the later Regionals winners all played with more traditional taxing Ice, with the Influence spent on the Grail Ice converted into Influence spent on Eli v1.0 and Tollbooths. The shift away from Grail Ice appears to have come about because of wider changes in the Netrunner metagame, rather than because of any particular cards being printed in SanSan Cycle that have led to the change.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) Grail Ice is less effective against Pre-Paid Kate McCaffrey decks because it takes time to build a hand of Grail Ice to attach to those installed, and you need to be hurting Kate early in the game.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />2) Kate brings Self-Modifying Code, and new Anarch decks in Order & Chaos bring Parasites back into the fray, both of which hurt Grail Ice. It's harder to surprise the runner with program trashing with SMC around, and both Lancelot and Galahad are easy targets for Parasite destruction (not to mention each Grail you kill probably pulls a Grail out of hand to be installed, making all Grail worse).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's combined to mean that Grail Ice, the post-World Championships flavour of the month, has been replaced by the old stalwart taxing Ices. Although the Grail/traditional difference is very real, affecting more half of the Ice played in these decks, the roles that the Ice play are really quite similar - this is demonstrated in the table below which divides the Ice up according to the definitions I laid out in <a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/shields-up-understanding-ice.html">Shields Up!</a>.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fVwcmV2o_n8/VU-Spcsvp4I/AAAAAAAABFo/vXBI_hcx1R4/s1600/RP%2B-%2BIce%2BTypes.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fVwcmV2o_n8/VU-Spcsvp4I/AAAAAAAABFo/vXBI_hcx1R4/s640/RP%2B-%2BIce%2BTypes.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Look at how much these decks lean on Ice that taxes the Runner, and also on 'Analogue' Ice that retains it's value once Icebreakers are installed. Binary ETR Ice, the cornerstone of so many Corp decks as they're the cheapest way of stopping Runners from completing runs, are given only a minor sideline role. In Replicating Perfection those Ice are perhaps the least desirable, and ideally saved only for Remote servers - RP wants to layer annoying taxing Ice over Archives/R&D and HQ in order to maximise the fact their ID ability forces the runner to go there. If you put an Ice Wall over HQ the runner can just bounce of it at the cost of a click, but if you put a Tsurugi over it then the runner has to pay credits to avoid damage before they can jack out.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fiw5z5EqYO0/VU-TupgZmjI/AAAAAAAABFw/jfOarpuxbEs/s1600/Pup.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fiw5z5EqYO0/VU-TupgZmjI/AAAAAAAABFw/jfOarpuxbEs/s200/Pup.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aKhWpHo4NfM/VU-TumMByBI/AAAAAAAABF0/12nQjKG6i6U/s1600/tsurugi.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aKhWpHo4NfM/VU-TumMByBI/AAAAAAAABF0/12nQjKG6i6U/s200/tsurugi.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-epn7jgDl5h0/VU-TugDsxOI/AAAAAAAABF4/C6woS7od6co/s1600/Tollbooth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-epn7jgDl5h0/VU-TugDsxOI/AAAAAAAABF4/C6woS7od6co/s200/Tollbooth.jpg" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The core taxing Ice that is being used here is Tollbooths, Pups, and the net damage sentries like Tsurugi and Cortex Lock. Since Cortex Lock became available it has replaced a lot of the Tsurugi that were previously being played - although the taxation effect of Cortex Lock is often less than it was for Tsurugi the card is cheaper to rez and, critically, a lot harder to dispose of with the likes of Parasite. Pup is one of the cards that I think does the most to make Replicating Perfection work - for the super-low cost of a single credit the RP deck drop a Pup over a Central server and immediately begin taxing the runner two credits or two cards. Being able to make a server unpleasant to run on WITHOUT costing the earth is a big help for Replicating Perfection as it tries to secure all three Centrals with something nasty. </span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u9Vz_kKN5ag/VU-U1OUX11I/AAAAAAAABGY/TMsk0tAX_Wg/s1600/Eli.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u9Vz_kKN5ag/VU-U1OUX11I/AAAAAAAABGY/TMsk0tAX_Wg/s200/Eli.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IRnZrgz_11Q/VU-U0zMC3oI/AAAAAAAABGM/v63P94VaAiQ/s1600/lotus.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IRnZrgz_11Q/VU-U0zMC3oI/AAAAAAAABGM/v63P94VaAiQ/s200/lotus.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5MHhtOUjt38/VU-U1MHX5rI/AAAAAAAABGQ/mEJegI2pMbs/s1600/Susanoo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5MHhtOUjt38/VU-U1MHX5rI/AAAAAAAABGQ/mEJegI2pMbs/s200/Susanoo.png" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even then on the remote servers you don't really want binary ETR Ice, because you want the runner to have to invest more credits to get through the Agenda behind, making it even more frustrating for them hit a Caprice Nisei or a Future Perfect, lose a Psi game and have to go back to the start.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After throwing the tricky taxing Ices over Central servers the next step for RP is to add build a taxing remote server and begin pushing Agendas, and that's where Lotus Field, Eli v1.0 and, once again, the trust Tollbooth come in, sometimes supported by the likes of the expensive Ashigaru or worldbending Susanoo-No-Mikoto. Even on remote servers the likes of Quandary, Wraparound or Himitsu-Bako are only sparingly used... it's simply not in Replicating Perfection's interests to give the runner an easy ride through any of its Ice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Again, look at how single-minded the Ice is, here. Outside of the Grail Ice variants there's pretty much no threat to trash programs, just layer upon layer of credit/card taxation and mid-sized ETR Ice that can't be easily brushed aside. As I discussed in Shields Up! trashing programs is a great support for Binary ETR Ice, because killing an Icebreaker effectively turns your Ice back 'on', but in Replicating Perfection the Ice is tough and can look after itself, still successfully taxing the runner once their rig is assembled. Simply carrying more strength and more subroutines is more important than attempting to kill the runner, or the runner's rig. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Replicating Perfection remains super-focused on its goals through almost every card in the deck and, like all good decks, it picks the Ice that works best to it's goals, not 'the best Ice'.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Beating Perfection</b><br /><br />So, that's what Replicating Perfection look like. It's a deck designed to tie the runner in knots, drain them economically while keeping the rewards just out of reach - it's like playing at a bent casino where the house never lets you win. How do you beat Replicating Perfection? Well as I'm just returning to the game I'm afraid that's a question I'm not best placed to answer, but from looking at what I've learned from this analysis I have a few theories about how to go about it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) <b>Be an economic powerhouse.</b> RP wants to force you into poverty and keep you there, but if you can secure a guaranteed supply of credits then you can turn the tables, trash the Corp's dripfeed economy and leave them in the poorhouse instead. Recurring credits of some form will be particularly valuable - RP is setting up for a long game so short term economic boosts may not be enough, but you also know that RP isn't going to come after your rig in any meaningful way. This means you've got time to build up a powerful economic engine, and can be pretty sure that the Corp isn't going to come and blow it up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2)<b> Avoid running until you need to. </b>RP taxes you every time you leave the house, so stay home and choose your moments, don't keep throwing away clicks and credits just to take a shot at accessing cards from R&D or HQ - with a deck of The Future Perfect and NAPD contract, and only 9 Agendas to shoot for, you're not going to win fast anyway so don't rush. Y</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ou've got to make every run count, and use the downtime to prepare correctly for the next one. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3)<b> Play efficient breakers.</b> Against RP finding a way to play Torch over Gordian Blade is great value, the same for Battering Ram over Corroder. You'll be up against big Ice a lot, you'll be running against it a lot... pay the upfront cost (or cheat it in with Scavenge) and you'll make a big saving in the long run. RP will give you the time to install that rig, and it won't try and trash you big guns once they're out. Have them ready.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4) <b>Kill the Ice</b>. Replicating Perfection is one of the best decks for squeezing value out of their Ice, both by having their ability force you to interact with it when you don't want to and by playing a slower game where you'll make more runs against it. In the long run it's often better to kill the Ice outright rather than tangle with it multiple times. Parasite the small stuff, Femme the big stuff, do whatever you can to avoid breaking the Ice on the Corp's terms.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those are some of the ideas that immediately occur to me, but I know there is a wealth of knowledge out there of how best to take on Replicating Perfection so please feel free to enlighten me about the ways you've found to take it on by leaving it on the Comments section.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Appendix - Influence</b></span></div>
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Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-37853252753649965692015-05-07T05:49:00.000-07:002015-05-07T06:11:22.896-07:00Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">I've a confession to make: I've fallen off the wagon.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">After more than a year since I swore off Netrunner I am back advancing agendas and trashing assets. Perhaps, deep down, this was always going to happen, after all I never did really try that hard to sell my cards - I just left them on a shelf gathering dust, but ready to be recalled if need be.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">Last monday I went to a new board games club, and before the games start they tend to play a few games of Netrunner while they wait for people to turn up. They had three players, so I jumped in and played a game with one of their decks, managing to score the winning agenda on my last click before he scored it and won the game. I remembered why I liked Netrunner.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">On Tuesday I bought Order & Chaos and logged back into NetrunnerDB.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">On Wednesday I sat on the floor of my spare room surrounded by Netrunner cards, building decks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">On Thursday I pestered the local Netrunner players to come to the shop and play Netrunner.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">I didn't so much fall off the wagon as take a flying leap from it.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_OvMlfS_PyI/VUti5cOpDPI/AAAAAAAABBo/6e5IBEjjs_4/s1600/Pesci.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="368" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_OvMlfS_PyI/VUti5cOpDPI/AAAAAAAABBo/6e5IBEjjs_4/s640/Pesci.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Joe always took playing 'Tag n Bag' a little too seriously</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;"><b>You Know Nothing, Jon Snow</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">I have a lot to catch up on, pretty much the equivalent of two full cycles as I missed Honor & Profit as well as all the data packs since then, which I'm gradually picking up as I get up to speed. My starting point has been trying to use Order & Chaos cards, as that's the big box I started with. This has proven quite easy for Anarch - I took one look at Maxx and realised her ability was awesome, read Eater, read Keyhole, read Eater again, read Account Siphon, read Eater again, then made a deck. It turned out I was about 5 cards off the Maxx decks that were big a couple of months ago (I didn't have Joshua B or Wanton Destruction).</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">For Weyland building a deck to use Order & Chaos was more challenging, which it turns out reflects Weyland's new (to me) position as the whipping boy of the Corporations. I missed the Government Takeover/Punitive Counterstrike interaction so dismissed that Agenda, built a shell game Gagarin deck that I didn't like, realised Housekeeping was nuts and tried to go dedicated Tag n Bag, then finally it all morphed into an update of an old Weyland deck that I had previously blogged about: Great Wall of Weyland, incorporating the 'constellation' Ice of Wormhole, Asteroid Belt and Orion.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">So far Ive enjoyed dipping my toes back into the Netrunner waters. Compared to when I left it feels like things have really changed, with Criminals relegated somewhat, Fast Advance not quite so prevalent (with the recent addition of Clot in particular), and Replicating Perfection finally maturing to full power. I think it's also key that Anarchs finally got some draw power with Inject and I've Had Worse, which was always that factions biggest weakness. Coming to opinions like that hasn't been immediate and there's still many cards from Lunar Cycle that I've never even seen, but most people I speak to don't realise just how little I know about Netrunner at the moment, which has led to some pretty amusing conversations...</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;"><b>Them:</b> "I was playing Near Earth Hub for a long time but since Clot got printed I'm not sure how good it is so I've built an RP deck with the Grail Ice instead. But now that Stealth Andy is being replaced by Prepaid Kate do you think I should be dropping the Grails?"</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;"><b>Me: </b>"Well I know that RP is Replicating Perfection, but what's Near Earth Hub, Clot, Grail Ice, Stealth Andy or Prepaid Kate?"</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">or</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;"><b>Them:</b> "You're playing Weyland without Crisium Grid, eh? Do you feel that the meta is swinging away from needing Crisium Grid so much now that Keyhole Anarch is less common?"</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;"><b>Me:</b> "What's Crisium Grid?"</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;"><b>Know Thy Enemy</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">I'll get there eventually, and hopefully I will be able to bring some of you along with me for the ride. Netrunner is a game where understanding the metagame is vital - to know what Ice/Icebreakers to use you need to know what Icebreakers/Ice everyone else is using. To know whether to run a remote server you need to know which Assets/Upgrades/Agendas are in fashion.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">To be successful at Netrunner you need to do your homework, and with that in mind I'm going to begin a series of looking at successful decks of various archetypes by finding a selection of decklists and analysing the similarities and differences between the decks. What is considered essential, and what is open to be changed? How have decks changed since SanSan Cycle began? If you want to play Card A then which card does it usually replace? I did something similar to that for <a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.com/2013/12/worlds-2013-andromeda-analysis.html">Andromeda after the 2013 World Championships</a> (which, ultimately, was the article I wrote that convinced me to play Andromeda for the next four months) and I know people found that helpful, so hopefully I'll be able to come up with something good on the current crop of decks.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">First up in this series of articles will be <b>Replicating Perfection</b>, and if you've any archetypes that you would like me to focus on then please put it in the comments, and the ones that catch my interest will be added to the list.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">Until then I will leave you with the Weyland deck I made, which I briefly mentioned above. It's not a world beater but it works, and it makes use of one of the most ignored identities in the game: Because We Built It.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;"><b>Great Wall of Weyland: Stargazer Edition</b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;"><a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.com/2013/10/decklists-not-just-same-old-thing.html">(based on an old deck discussed here)</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">Weyland: Because We Built It</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">Agendas (11)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">2x Hostile Takeover</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">2x Firmware Upgrades</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">3x Project Atlas</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">2x Geothermal Fracking</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">2x Priority Requisition</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">Assets (6)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">2x GRNDL Refinery</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">2x Thomas Haas</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">2x Jackson Howard</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">Upgrades (2)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">1x Red Herrings</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">1x Crisium Grid</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">Operations (13)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">3x Beanstalk Royalties</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">2x Commercialisation</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">3x Trick of Light</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">2x Shipment From Kaguya</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">3x Hedge Fund</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">Ice - Barriers (6)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">3x Ice Wall</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">3x Hadrian's Wall</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">Ice - Code Gates (4)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">2x Quandary</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">2x Wormhole</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">Ice - Sentries (5)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">3x Caduceus</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">2x Archer</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">Ice - Other (2)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">2x Orion</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">Summary: Advance Ice, Commercalise, Trick of Light: Profit! The most recent additions were twofold to increase the taxation effect - dropping Fire Wall for Hadrian's Wall (if you’re going to tax the runner, tax the runner) and finding room for Red Herrings. These two changes were both funded by including GRNDL Refinery over a Thomas Haas and a Jackson Howard, with GRNDL Refinery giving me money to rez Hadrian's Wall and freeing up influence to include a Red Herrings.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">Compared to the original Great Wall of Weyland the constellation Ice adds a new layer of threat for the opponent to consider when you've facedown advanced Ice and also beefs up the BWBI ability. Each free advancement counter you place can now save as much you 3 credits, which makes the ability much more effective. The Ice is big, threatening to programs, ends runs, and doesn't cost the earth to rez... all good things for Ice to be.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14.5666675567627px;">It is top tier? Probably not - it's effective but far too linear with not enough surprises for the Runner to deal with. But it definitely works well enough to score Agendas and win some games and it's an excuse to use BWBI, so if you like it then have a go and let me know how you got on!</span></span><br />
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Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-52644398797595809582014-06-05T10:15:00.000-07:002014-06-05T10:15:23.101-07:00Lucky Is As Lucky Does - A Study In Variance<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's been a long while since <a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.com/2014/04/im-not-even-supposed-to-be-here-today.html"><b>my final Netrunner tournament report</b></a> got cut off midway through by the onset of extreme apathy. Apologies to those still waiting on tenterhooks to learn about how that random tournament went (short story: I won some games of Netrunner and lost some other games) but since then I haven't lifted an Icebreaker or Asset in anger, and to be honest I haven't really felt like I missed a thing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However something happened this past weekend that has given me something that I want to write about, and a lesson that I think it's important to try and teach. This is going to be a blog inspired by my experiences at the Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix in Manchester, but fear not Netrunners because I think the lessons apply to most card games, Netrunner included. I'll try to keep it grounded enough in clicks and credits that you can follow me.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QcL42G5ARC8/U5CV4M_hOrI/AAAAAAAAA7I/Gg-E2CvSB04/s1600/Grand-Prix.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QcL42G5ARC8/U5CV4M_hOrI/AAAAAAAAA7I/Gg-E2CvSB04/s1600/Grand-Prix.png" height="147" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I want to talk about a vitally important (but often-ignored) topic: I want to talk about Variance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Variance 101</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Variance is a term that that comes originally from statistic and probability analysis, and it has bled into CCGs/LCGs primarily via the players who crossover into Poker tournaments. In a nutshell Variance is used to define how much each individual result can be expected to vary away from the average result. For example, consider if I asked a hundred people to pick a number between 0-20, the average would be 10. If I then asked a hundred people to pick a number between 8-12 the average would remain 10, but the answers would be much more tightly grouped. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a 0-20 range there is a higher 'variance' on the possible answers than in an 8-12 range.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Variance is closely related to what you may classically have thought of as being 'lucky' or 'unlucky'. In truth the terms are pretty much interchangeable but because luck tends to bring a lot of superstitious connotations along with it most serious players prefer to talk about variance. Once you stop talking about luck and start talking about and understanding variance you can start to take control of that element of the game you are playing and you can make it work for you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let's talk about what happened to me in the Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix in Manchester.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QRoq5qy0Cac/U5CYI8bYxWI/AAAAAAAAA7g/G7IWm48-MKU/s1600/magic_the_gathering_a1_by_dj_fahr-d4f558c.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QRoq5qy0Cac/U5CYI8bYxWI/AAAAAAAAA7g/G7IWm48-MKU/s1600/magic_the_gathering_a1_by_dj_fahr-d4f558c.png" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Firstly: I don't play Magic: The Gathering. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't get me wrong, I used to play Magic <b>A LOT</b>. Back in the late 1990's I was probably playing Magic up to a dozen hours a day and when I wasn't playing Magic I was thinking about playing Magic. It was something of an obsession. I was playing in tournaments every week, I was travelling around the UK to PTQs and (once or twice) earning my stripes on the Pro Tour - I wasn't great at the game but I was definitely very good at it (probably in the top 1% of players). In the 2000's I walked away from Magic before returning between 2005-13 as a coverage writer, working for Wizards of the Coast at Grand Prix and Pro Tours by providing match reports, players interviews and strategy insight. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So it's not like I was completely out of touch with the game, but I had pretty much stopped playing entirely. I've worked out that before Grand Prix Manchester my last tournament had been the <i>Gatecrash</i> pre-release nearly 18 months earlier, and before that it was Grand Prix Toronto at the back end of 2010.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On top of being out of the game a long time my preparation for Grand Prix Manchester was precisely zero. On the Friday I phoned a friend who was at the venue and asked him to register me into the tournament, and he agreed to lend me a deck to play. On Saturday morning I collected the 75 cards I was going to play with and sat down to play Round 1. I wasn't there to win, I was there to hang out with my Magic friends. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The format was Theros Block Constructed and I hadn't even seen a single Theros card. I didn't know what <u>any</u> of the cards in my deck did. I didn't know what <u>any</u> of the cards in anybody else's deck did. I didn't know <u>any</u> of the decks in the format and I didn't have any byes to help me out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In short: I didn't know jack and I was starting from the basement against players who knew more, played more, and in many cases had the head start of byes. I was dead meat and I knew it. I figured if I did really well I might be able to win more games than I lost and finish on a 5-4 record after the first day, but I knew even that was a serious long shot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was a realistic chance I would finish dead last, but o</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ut of over 1,400 players I finished 81st and won $250, with a final record of 10-1-4.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why did I do so well? Because I embraced variance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Variance in Deckbuilding</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not all decks are made equal. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We commonly talk about decks being 'better' or 'worse' than other decks and while it's certainly true that good and bad decks exist there is also another subtle factor that is often overlooked - how much variance the deck allows to occur. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some decks are capable of getting a particular opening hand or combination of cards that will mean it beats almost anything that the opponent can do - it's just an unstoppably powerful opening that either wins outright or puts you so far ahead that it's an unassailable lead. The price for having this potential for extreme success is usually including the potential that whenever your opening hand is poor, or you don't see that particular combination, you're at a significant disadvantage. These types of decks are high variance strategies - they can be extremely powerful in one game, then completely impotent in another. Other decks, however, can build in layers of redundancy and support so that they're very consistent in executing their strategy, although the price for that reliability is usually that they sacrificed the potential for that unstoppable knockout blow. High variance is 'go big or go home', while low variance is 'we'll be there or thereabouts'.</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6TzyUBvprhA/U5CZID5PbwI/AAAAAAAAA7o/EGtOMf163DE/s1600/ffg_gabriel-santiago-core.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6TzyUBvprhA/U5CZID5PbwI/AAAAAAAAA7o/EGtOMf163DE/s1600/ffg_gabriel-santiago-core.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A classic Netrunner example would be the difference between the Criminal IDs: Gabriel Santiago and Andromeda. Andromeda's huge opening hand size means that she is very consistent at seeing the cards she wants to see - she's the poster child for a low variance strategy. Gabe starts the game without Andromeda's 80% opening hand size boost but what Gabe brings to the table is a powerful ability to gain a lot of credits freely and easily once he's set up. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Compared to Andromeda's reliable and steady approach, Gabe is high variance - he's far more likely to draw an opening hand that doesn't hold Desperado/Account Siphon/Icebreakers, but if he DOES draw those cards then he is virtually always more powerful than Andromeda thanks to the free credits he gains from accessing HQ. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Variance can also be a factor of how much the deck wins/loses depending on the deck it plays against, for example Cerebral Imaging is quite a high variance strategy in that it is very strong against most Runners but very weak against Gabe's Sneakdoor Beta and HQ accessing plans. Individual card choices can also make significant impacts on the variance of a given deck - choosing to take out three copies of Plascrete Carapace to play Same Old Thing is a double-edged sword as you've made your deck much worse in matchups against Scorched Earth but better in matchups against pretty much any other Corp deck... you've increased the variance of your deck. Another classic example is Anonymous Tip vs Jackson Howard - Jackson Howard is steady reliability while Anonymous Tip is short term power traded for long term consistency. Maker's Eye vs R&D Interface is similar from the runner's point of view.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vutGMUU4eFQ/U5CZ3fO4YOI/AAAAAAAAA7w/nIakssiHyoQ/s1600/Plascrete.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vutGMUU4eFQ/U5CZ3fO4YOI/AAAAAAAAA7w/nIakssiHyoQ/s1600/Plascrete.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PRntED99xGc/U5CaZ0RW_oI/AAAAAAAAA78/nry_2O4B7ro/s1600/cerebral-imaging-infinite-frontiers.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PRntED99xGc/U5CaZ0RW_oI/AAAAAAAAA78/nry_2O4B7ro/s1600/cerebral-imaging-infinite-frontiers.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xx2yzC6bYwA/U5CaZzu9EZI/AAAAAAAAA74/Grui8iAeL0s/s1600/anonymous-tip.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xx2yzC6bYwA/U5CaZzu9EZI/AAAAAAAAA74/Grui8iAeL0s/s1600/anonymous-tip.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Variance is therefore a characteristic of the deck you choose to play and it's in your power to determine how much variance you allow into your strategy. Hopefully you see now how we can begin to take control of variance and use it to our advantage. We've taken a series of steps away from the idea of "I am lucky" being a characteristic attached to you that was out of your control, and how those steps have brought us to "I have chosen to use a high variance strategy" - a characteristic attached to the decisions you've made in deck construction/selection.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Variance is another tool in your deckbuilding arsenal. Learn when to maximise and minimise its influence and it will serve you well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Making Variance Your Friend</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I talked earlier about an example of asking people to choose a number between 0-20, well lets turn that into a game. We're going to use dice to choose a number between 1-20 with the aim being to roll the highest number, but you've got a choice about which dice you want to use:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A single 20-sided dice (1x D20)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two 10-sided dice (2x D10)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Three 6-sided dice (3x D6)</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lets compare these options:</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uzq6Bd9yCdo/U5CbBgPWUHI/AAAAAAAAA8I/hT7G_q7AR4E/s1600/Dice1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uzq6Bd9yCdo/U5CbBgPWUHI/AAAAAAAAA8I/hT7G_q7AR4E/s1600/Dice1.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What sounded like a pretty simply decision is in fact quite complex. The D20 is a high variance strategy - you've got the highest chance of rolling a number of 16 or more (25%) but also the highest chance of rolling 5 or less (also 25%). At the other end of the scale is 3xD6, which is the low variance strategy - it's impossible to roll a 1 or a 2 as your worst possible result is to roll three 1s, but it's also impossible to score 19 or 20. With 3D6 the odds of rolling particularly low or high scores is much lower than it is with a D20 (just 4.6%) and in fact the variance is so low that you've got a 48% chance of rolling a pretty middling score between 9-12! Sitting in the middle of the variance range is the option to roll 2xD10, and in fact this option has a little unfair advantage over the others - it's impossible to score just 1, but still possible that you'll score 20 by rolling two 10s - the Mean score is therefore slightly higher and the odds of scoring a high number are better than your odds of scoring a low number.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, in the unlikely event that somebody ever offers to play this game with you, statistically you should play with 2xD10.</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m5gRFkWsprA/U5CcjBwHdxI/AAAAAAAAA8Q/2u9A0TwARqM/s1600/dice.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m5gRFkWsprA/U5CcjBwHdxI/AAAAAAAAA8Q/2u9A0TwARqM/s1600/dice.png" height="213" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But that's not all, in fact I'm just getting warmed up. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The above is true if the game only involves two players, but what if there's more players? What if there were 8 players all rolling dice with the prize going to the highest number? If that's the case then you can be pretty sure that at least one of your seven competitors will roll a high number, so in order to win you'll need to roll at least a 16 to have any chance of winning, and ideally something like an 18 or 19. Suddenly that D20 option starts to look pretty good - it gives you a 25% chance of rolling 16 or more, and you've got a 5% chance of rolling a straight 20, while the 2xD10 only has a 1% chance of scoring 20 and the 3xD6 can't score it at all!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So if you're playing the game with 8 players, you probably want to use the D20.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But that's not all, let's take it even further! What if we change the prize structure of the game? What if instead of giving out prizes just to the winner we just give out prizes to the Top 6 players, with the Top 2 players getting a a bigger prize than the others? Now you've got a really tough decision to make. The best way of ensuring you don't roll one of the lowest two numbers and miss out on a prize is by rolling 3xD6, but if you roll 3xD6 you're probably ruling out your chances of finishing in the Top 2 and getting the biggest prize. The D20 becomes a huge wild card because you could get nothing or everything, while the 2xD10 plan sits back into the middle of the pack - you've got some chance of coming in the Top 2 and a reduced chance of missing out entirely. What it comes down to now is a personal choice - what's important to you? Do you want to win the big prize or do you just want to avoid coming away empty handed?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I could expand this example further and further if I cared to. What if the prize structure was weighted with big prizes at the top but very little at the bottom? What if the difference between 6th and 1st was pretty small but coming 7th meant missing out on a lot? Beyond that there's a metagame - what if you think a bunch of people are going to choose to roll D20, how does that change your decision? What if you think most people will roll 3xD6? What if there was the option to roll 5xD4?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We'll return to the dice game shortly, for now let's talk about how I decided what deck to play in the Grand Prix.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Variance, Skill and Heroics</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At Grand Prix Manchester there was a choice of three decks available to me and the one that I ended up playing was the one that seemed like the strategy with the highest variance: U/W Heroic. </span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G0qZ2yLppeg/U5CdaYmxufI/AAAAAAAAA8Y/qiC0qBpgRqo/s1600/Battlewise_Hoplite_MTG_Theros_Willmurai_910.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G0qZ2yLppeg/U5CdaYmxufI/AAAAAAAAA8Y/qiC0qBpgRqo/s1600/Battlewise_Hoplite_MTG_Theros_Willmurai_910.jpg" height="465" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was entirely deliberate. My one real target at Grand Prix Manchester was to win enough games on Saturday to make the cut into the second day, with the chance to win up to $4,000 for the ultimate winner of the tournament on Sunday. To qualify for Sunday I would have to win AT LEAST seven of the nine rounds on Saturday, each of which would be played against players who knew the format far better than I did. To use the dice example: I needed to roll a high number if I was going to progress to play on Sunday because there were another 1,400 players all trying to roll a big score as well and I needed to be in the top 10% of scores.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I've mentioned, there were three decks that my friends had available to choose from, each of us would play one of these decks:</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_k8o4G8xiQk/U5Cd0t6bd2I/AAAAAAAAA8s/d8lDm4Axk-Q/s1600/Courser.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_k8o4G8xiQk/U5Cd0t6bd2I/AAAAAAAAA8s/d8lDm4Axk-Q/s1600/Courser.jpg" height="200" width="143" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>WBG 'Junk'</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Junk' is perhaps the defining deck in Theros Block Constructed, bringing together most of the best cards in the format into a single deck (Sylvan Caryatid, Courser of Kruphix, Fleecemane Lion, Elspeth, Hero's Downfall). Undoubtedly 'Junk' is a very powerful deck but it was also going to be one of the most commonly played and you could expect to face many matches against virtually identical decks. 'Junk' was the low variance option - very solid and very reliable, but with little ability to create rapid blowout wins. In dice terms, it's 3xD6.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n01NhjH0a40/U5Cd0uzqDCI/AAAAAAAAA8o/3ISgJmWi16I/s1600/Scourge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n01NhjH0a40/U5Cd0uzqDCI/AAAAAAAAA8o/3ISgJmWi16I/s1600/Scourge.jpg" height="200" width="143" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Mono-Blue 'Scourge'</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpman14/day1#9"><b>The mono-blue control deck my friends had built </b></a>was a good metagame contender, in that it played cards that weren't naturally amazing but which were well-positioned against the most popular decks in the format (Whelming Wave, Scourge of Fleets, Perplexing Chimera, Prognostic Sphinx). Scourge was the 2xD10 option - it was quite consistent because there was a lot of redundancy in the cards it played but there were some matchups that were distinctly better than others, so there could be a higher range of variance due to your matchups.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KuEmncTuuIM/U5CebT4MtbI/AAAAAAAAA84/P7eXILsp5hs/s1600/hoplite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KuEmncTuuIM/U5CebT4MtbI/AAAAAAAAA84/P7eXILsp5hs/s1600/hoplite.jpg" height="200" width="143" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>U/W Heroic</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The high-variance option, U/W Heroic pretty much always wins or loses the game in the first few turns. You need to play a creature on your first or second turns, and then you need to rapidly make it both bigger and unblockable by layering Aura cards onto it, each Aura triggering the creature's 'Heroic' keyword to make the creature bigger (Netrunner parlance - you're playing Darwin and 16 copies of The Personal Touch). By the fourth turn you either have a huge unblockable creature that the opponent couldn't deal with, or you've probably lost. U/W Heroic could beat any deck with the right draw, but a bad draw could easily leave you helpless. That's pretty much the definition of a high variance strategy... </span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8u3LNL9S4sY/U5Cd0seo1sI/AAAAAAAAA8w/pEhSaO7QMqA/s1600/hero.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8u3LNL9S4sY/U5Cd0seo1sI/AAAAAAAAA8w/pEhSaO7QMqA/s1600/hero.jpg" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9NnXgGtHQrs/U5Ciko8XUOI/AAAAAAAAA9c/IlQamAYdwxM/s1600/Aquaeous.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9NnXgGtHQrs/U5Ciko8XUOI/AAAAAAAAA9c/IlQamAYdwxM/s1600/Aquaeous.jpg" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bytFMc4DM60/U5CikhIGeeI/AAAAAAAAA9g/uGEQ3QGjfac/s1600/ordeal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bytFMc4DM60/U5CikhIGeeI/AAAAAAAAA9g/uGEQ3QGjfac/s1600/ordeal.jpg" height="200" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's was another factor behind my decision to play the high variance strategy, though, and it's a critical one. Rather than just needing to score in the top 10% of players I knew that I was going to be one of the worst Magic players in the Grand Prix. Not because I'm completely rubbish at the game but because I was completely out of practice and completely out of touch with any of the cards or decks in the format, while most other players had been practicing for weeks. I needed enough positive variance to not only score within the top 10% of players in the room, but enough positive variance to also wipe out my natural disadvantages in this particular format. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can feed the impact of player skill into the dice game to illustrate how much this changes your decision making. Let's say you can apply a modifier to your roll of between -5 and +5: a -5 is somebody playing the game for the first time, while a +5 is the best player in the world. Let's repeat that game of the 8 players trying to roll the highest number, but now let's see how the decision changes for a player with -2 modifier, and a player with a +4 modifier (for the purposes of the example we'll assume everybody else in the game has a 0 modifier).</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nkEwhEPagTc/U5Ce9_sajvI/AAAAAAAAA9A/765bqAe88JQ/s1600/Dice2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nkEwhEPagTc/U5Ce9_sajvI/AAAAAAAAA9A/765bqAe88JQ/s1600/Dice2.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A -2 modifier probably accurately reflects where I was at going into Grand Prix Manchester - if it had been 1998 and I was playing regularly and on top of the format I might be worth as much as a +3, but my complete ignorance of the format was easily knocking 5 points off that, leaving me at -2. From that position the odds are stacked against me whichever dice I choose to use, but although the D20 gives me the highest odds of rolling a low number and crashing out of the tournament straight away it's also the one that gives me my best chance of scoring something that might be high enough to make the cut. </span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dbUwhAw-Xpk/U5Ce96aFfLI/AAAAAAAAA9M/Yu-DDmOG7GQ/s1600/Dice3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dbUwhAw-Xpk/U5Ce96aFfLI/AAAAAAAAA9M/Yu-DDmOG7GQ/s1600/Dice3.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A +4 modifier probably represents the very best players who were at Grand Prix Manchester - your Kai Budde's, Samuele Estratti's and Martin Juza's of this world. To the best players a high variance strategy like rolling the D20 represents an unnecessary risk - a 30% chance that you'll still wind up in the bottom half of the results. Rolling 2xD10 instead gives you the same chance of rolling a high number and doing well and halves your risk of a low number (15% vs 30%). You can also go one further and cut those odds again by rolling 3xD6, although this time you also cut your chances of rolling a really high number.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix many of the top players will choose to roll 3xD6 every time. They know that in an open field of 2,000 players their chances of actually winning the top prize are slim no matter what deck they play, but they want to ensure that they finish in/around the Top 100 where they can pick up some money and valuable Pro Points. It creates a pattern repeated again and again at Grand Prix around the world - the Top 8 and winner are rarely one of the very best players in the world, but if you check out who came in the Top 64 you'll find the same names popping up time and time again, quietly putting away cash and Pro Points outside the Top 8 limelight. Grand Prix are such big and competitive events that it's impossible to guarantee finishing in the money every time, but by playing a low variance strategy the best players maximise their chances of consistently doing so thanks to their skill advantage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Summing Up</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Replacing 'luck' with 'variance' brings it under your control. When you're building and selecting your deck you are able to make decisions that will either increase or decrease the amount of variance you will experience when you play the deck. Increase variance and you buy a shot at getting lucky, decrease variance and you limit the risk of being unlucky.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What are the factors you need to take into account?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>How many people do you need to beat?</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The more people you're up against the harder it is to finish ahead of all of them, and the more positive variance you will need in order to be the champion.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>How are the prizes distributed?</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This can make a huge difference to your decision. Two Netrunner tournaments could have exactly the same players in but require completely different approaches. Consider how you would approach a tournament where the thing you really wanted was a Top 8 playmat and alt-art card, then consider how you would approach playing in Nationals where the prize for first place is a flight and invite to Worlds while second place only gets a playmat. With so much of the prize pool focused onto first place a higher variance strategy becomes more attractive.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>What does success look like to you?</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is personal choice - you may enter the same National Championships and say "Realistically I just want to finish in the Top 4, if I win that's amazing but just being in the Top 4 would be great". That requires a different approach than that of a player who says "I want to go to Worlds - second place is as good as last" - the second player should embrace variance and try their luck, win or bust.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>How good are you, relative to the other players?</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This can require some real soul-searching, but if you decide that you're either significantly better or significantly worse than the people you're up against it can be a powerful factor. It helps in deciding whether you attempt to limit the impact of variance and simply win games by being better at the game, or whether you throw caution to wind and let the fates decide if you can perform way above your skill level should allow.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At Grand Prix Manchester I was dead meat going into the tournament. I didn't know what any of my own cards did, let alone the cards of anybody else. But despite all this I finished ahead of 1,320 other players, coming 81st and winning $250.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Did I get 'lucky'? Yes, of course I did (as well as playing pretty well, IMHO, given my ring rust). But I had made a decision to allow myself to be lucky. I had weighed up my chances and decided that my best chance of success was to play a high variance strategy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Did I get 'lucky'? Yes, but I was also smart.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ezZj4vtVJ2c/U5ChTs77MqI/AAAAAAAAA9U/PaVrRDdjnJk/s1600/Dirty+Harry.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ezZj4vtVJ2c/U5ChTs77MqI/AAAAAAAAA9U/PaVrRDdjnJk/s1600/Dirty+Harry.png" height="297" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The classic line from <i>Dirty Harry</i> is "do you feel lucky, punk?". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When it comes to working out how you should approach variance in Netrunner (or any game) the real question should be: "do you <u>need</u> to to be lucky?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well. Do you?</span><br />
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Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-67483544972000734152014-04-19T12:28:00.000-07:002014-04-19T12:39:28.118-07:00“I’m Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today!” – Part One<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Didn’t you quit?”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Are you having second thoughts, then?”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"What are you doing here?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I thought you’d stopped playing”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Word travels quickly around the Netrunner grapevine and it seemed every round I had to explain what I was doing playing in another Netrunner tournament. It’s a fair question and my answer was the oft-quoted line from the movie <i>Clerks</i>:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I'm not even supposed to be here today!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F_YoMDG6iAw/U1LJ3c7ahHI/AAAAAAAAA6M/9jt1mHHHgTQ/s1600/Clerks.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F_YoMDG6iAw/U1LJ3c7ahHI/AAAAAAAAA6M/9jt1mHHHgTQ/s1600/Clerks.gif" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my defence, I hadn’t lied. I am quitting Netrunner. In fact I had already quit - my decks were disassembled and my cards were packed away for shipping. Then my girlfriend told me she was going down to London for the weekend to see family and I was left with a long Easter weekend on my own with no plans. And a Chronos Protocol tournament scheduled. In my home town.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I guess some greater power obviously has plans for me that don’t involve quitting Netrunner, so I spent last night hastily building some decks back up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is what I played at the Chronos Protocol Tour:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AndromE3da</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Andromeda Dispossessed Ristie</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TtZiiogdx-g/U1LNTCD2v0I/AAAAAAAAA6w/lYF6PmlYkRU/s1600/02083.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TtZiiogdx-g/U1LNTCD2v0I/AAAAAAAAA6w/lYF6PmlYkRU/s1600/02083.png" height="400" width="286" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Event (20)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Account Siphon</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Dirty Laundry</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Forged Activation Orders</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Hostage</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Inside Job</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Special Order</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Sure Gamble</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hardware (8)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Desperado</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x e3 Feedback Implants</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Plascrete Carapace</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x R&D Interface ••••</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Resource (5)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Bank Job</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x John Masanori</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Kati Jones</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Professional Contacts ••</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Icebreaker (9)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Corroder ••••</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Crypsis</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Faerie</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Femme Fatale</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Mimic •</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Yog.0 •</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Program (3)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Datasucker ••• </span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/4359/androme3da">See this deck at NetrunnerDB</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the latest iteration of my hugely successful Andromeda deck. I’ve never really laboured the point so let me make it now, seeing as I'm leaving.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Andromeda. Is. Nuts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This deck began life as the World Champion deck from November and throughout virtually the whole of Spin Cycle I haven’t had to change a single card. I found room for a 3rd Faerie, partly to protect against Power Shutdown and partly because Faerie is just really good. The final changes were to drop the Emergency Shutdowns and Easy Marks to play an E3 Feedback Implants and Bank Jobs – this is a direct response to the rise of Bioroid glacier decks, both in HB and Jinteki:Replicating Perfection. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ApFKqEG6RTo/U1LNfUCAffI/AAAAAAAAA64/teL9APNjKDE/s1600/02024.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ApFKqEG6RTo/U1LNfUCAffI/AAAAAAAAA64/teL9APNjKDE/s1600/02024.png" height="320" width="229" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">E3 Feedback Implants should really have been mentioned in my list of <a href="https://www.blogger.com/"><b><span id="goog_59626846"></span>cards that have got better since Caprice Nisei and NAPD Contract arrived</b><span id="goog_59626847"></span></a>, simply because Eli and Heimdall decks are going to proliferate. When you use E3 Feedback Implants to break Heimdall 1.0 instead of Corroder you spend a click and 2 credits instead of 7 credits, meaning that click you spent saved you 5 credits! 5 credits for a click is a CRAZY payback (3 credits for clicking past Eli). Bank Job replaced Easy Mark because the number of economy assets gives you that many more targets for your heist, and because it helps you fight the economic taxation twice as well as Easy Mark does.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How good is this deck? Through five Store Championships and then this Chronos Protocol tournament today I have played 30 rounds of Swiss with Andromeda and won 25 of them – <b>an 83% win rate</b> at the sharp end of some very competitive tournaments.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Andromeda. Is. Nuts. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Throughout Spin Cycle I have remained absolutely convinced that Andromeda was the best Runner by a considerable margin. When you switch from playing any other Runner to playing Andromeda (and playing her well) the step up in power level is simply absurd. But as much as I’m a devout Andromeda fan I’m prepared to finally accept that Gabriel Santiago is now right on her shoulder in terms of power level, and maybe even slightly ahead because he copes with the new taxation decks much better. Gabe’s HQ-running ability helps fight off the tax and Sneakdoor Beta spreads their central defences 50% thinner, making it much harder for the taxation Corps to fight Gabe to a standstill. Andromeda can certainly adapt to win those matches but Gabe is naturally superior in them, much the same way Andromeda’s consistency makes her naturally superior against the rush/Fast Advance decks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Four Horsemen</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">NBN Making News</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ludUlXbZv48/U1LNNEVz_lI/AAAAAAAAA6o/FDUNk7IrLbA/s1600/01080.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ludUlXbZv48/U1LNNEVz_lI/AAAAAAAAA6o/FDUNk7IrLbA/s1600/01080.png" height="400" width="286" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agenda (11)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x AstroScript Pilot Program</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Breaking News</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x NAPD Contract</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Project Beale</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Asset (5)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Jackson Howard</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Melange Mining Corp.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Upgrade (4)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Caprice Nisei ••••</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Red Herrings</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x SanSan City Grid</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Operation (11)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Hedge Fund</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Interns</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Restructure</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Subliminal Messaging</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Sweeps Week</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Barrier (6)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Eli 1.0 •••</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Wraparound</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Code Gate (7)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Pop-up Window</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Quandary</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x RSVP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Tollbooth</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sentry (5)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Dracō</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Ichi 2.0 •••</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Shinobi •••</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Tsurugi ••</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/4360/nbn-four-horsemen">See this deck at NetrunnerDB</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Halfway a theme deck, this list came about from my wanting to use Shinobi in NBN: Making News and really not taking the tournament at all seriously so being prepared to simply try stuff out for a lark. Although I made this on the night of the Chronos Protocol (so had 0 testing) I had spent the Store Champs playing NBN in various guises so I was comfortable that my deck wasn’t going to be completely awful. </span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yevWYanEl44/U1LMWC9jvzI/AAAAAAAAA6Y/knybXQmaBnk/s1600/Horsemen.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yevWYanEl44/U1LMWC9jvzI/AAAAAAAAA6Y/knybXQmaBnk/s1600/Horsemen.gif" height="363" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The theme is The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, with four big pieces of Ice headlining my defences and catching out unwary runners:</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Famine (Tollbooth)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A staple in NBN for good reason, Tollbooth represents Famine as it keeps the Runner poor and unable to pay for food.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pestilence (Ichi 2.0)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ichi 2.0 is an excellent card to splash into NBN: Making News because you get to benefit from that trace to both tag the runner and deal a Brain damage. I played Ichi as my 13th-15th Influence in a deck with 3x Scorched Earth and he won me a game when a runner faceplanted into him on R&D, so I was happy with his inclusion in this deck.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">War (Tsurigi)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tsurigi was the last addition to the deck, with those final two influence points wavering between Archer and Heimdall 1.0. I felt that Heimdall would give me too many expensive pieces of Ice and Eli was already covering Barriers off, while although Archer was a great card I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to rez it. I had two Breaking News to RFG for Archer, but even if I had a 1pt Agenda to lose the fact that everything else in my deck was worth 2 pts meant I would probably be condemining myself to needing 8 points to win because I was unlikely to ever get to 7. Tsurigi offered a middle ground – a reasonable cost, a piece of ETR Ice I would be happy to rez and which had an impact and which offered good taxation even after an Icebreaker was around. There were two other factors which I specifically liked about Tsurigi – if anybody was deliberately running low on cards to avoid Sweeps Week they could easily get flatlined by unexpected Net damage, and I really felt like Tsurigi was good Faerie-bait, leaving them defenceless for a more painful Ichi or Shinobi hit later on.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Death (Shinobi)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A one-card kill if you can pull it off, and the Trace works with NBN: Making News, but the downsides are that you need a LOT of money to kill a runner with Shinobi (unless they run blindly into it) and the Bad Publicity doesn’t really work with the rest of the deck – either the taxation plan or the NAPD Contracts. But what if it worked? What if? With dreams of killing the runner on their first turn as they stumble onto R&D with their last click and no credits... I had to give it a try!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And because you simply can’t have an apocalypse with an Antichrist:</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Antichrist (Caprice Nisei)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yeah, she may look innocent, pruning her little bonsai tree over there. Doing the gardening. How adorable. Don’t be fooled, she’s the devil incarnate. Kill her. KILL HER WITH FIRE!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Outside of that my deck is pretty standard NBN fare, I think, but I made sure I was playing A LOT of economy to be able to rez my big ice and win Shinobi credit wars. The one random-ish card is Interns, which I really like because it’s so flexible in this deck, with several distinct modes: recur SanSan to push for the win, recur Caprice Nisei to maximise taxation, recur Melange Mining Corp to build cash, or simply use it to install a 3rd or 4th layer of Ice while keeping credits open to rez it. There’s some taxation, some fast advance, and some threats of random big Ice killing the runner if they screw up. Somewhere between those three points I felt like I would be able to win some games, and maybe even win a couple in a cool way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So those were the decks I played, and in Part Two I'll give you a tournament report of how they fared for me as I embarked on the Chronos Protocol Tour for what was </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Absolutely Definitely Probably Maybe My Last Ever Netrunner Tournament Ever</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">!!!</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lZNJeWwOPQ8/U1LMyEiQbjI/AAAAAAAAA6g/tR_xLq8ufC0/s1600/chronos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lZNJeWwOPQ8/U1LMyEiQbjI/AAAAAAAAA6g/tR_xLq8ufC0/s1600/chronos.jpg" height="224" width="640" /></a><br />
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<br />Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-77813827563045165832014-04-14T09:28:00.002-07:002014-04-14T09:28:58.256-07:00Double Trouble - Caprice Nisei, NAPD Contract and... Morning Star?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Double Time is here, and with it comes yet another shot in the arm for Corporation decks with powerful new cards. No longer can Corp cry foul at the power of Runner decks because the pendulum of power is swinging inexorably towards the men with suits and spreadsheets.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are many powerful cards in Double Time but there are two in particular that I want to talk about because they're probably the most influential and game-changing in this data pack, and they work well in tandem: Caprice Nisei and NAPD Contract.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Be5vIGgGRS0/Uz1RN1ya__I/AAAAAAAAA20/q4dTQFhzIA0/s1600/Caprice.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Be5vIGgGRS0/Uz1RN1ya__I/AAAAAAAAA20/q4dTQFhzIA0/s1600/Caprice.png" height="320" width="229" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zoXHPlba2gs/Uz1RN7eFuDI/AAAAAAAAA24/mWoB1jCak_4/s1600/NAPD.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zoXHPlba2gs/Uz1RN7eFuDI/AAAAAAAAA24/mWoB1jCak_4/s1600/NAPD.png" height="320" width="229" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These cards combine to threaten widespread changes to the Netrunner metagame which has remained dominated by Fast Advance builds - Biotic Labor and SanSan City Grid - or the impending threat of flatline from aggressive Weyland builds - Scorched Earth. Those three cards are all high-influence and high-impact cards that define the Corp strategies to a large extent, one representing Weyland, one NBN and one Haas-Bioroid. In Caprice Nisei the Jinteki shareholders finally have a high influence powerhouse to rival the others, although she plays very differently and requires different tools to support her.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can explain what Caprice Nisei does by going back to <a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.com/2014/02/shields-up-understanding-ice.html"><b>my blog about the different types of Ice</b></a>. Caprice sits behind your Ice defenses and adds an extra unbreakable End The Run effect, although one that you can't always rely on. If you wanted to try and fit Caprice into one of the pigeon holes I used for classifying Ice (even though she's not Ice) then she would probably count as Analogue ETR in that she's designed to end runs, is certainly not Binary as she's unaffected by Icebreakers, and that quite how much she costs to get by her is entirely analogue - anywhere from 0 credits to infinity clicks and credits! How long Caprice delays the runner for is largely random - it could be that they get in first time, or it could be at the twelfth attempt - but If the runner runs Caprice enough times they will eventually slip by your psychic detective and trash her. For this reason Caprice works MUCH better with analogue Ice than with Binary Ice - if the Runner can plow through your Ice cheaply and quickly then Caprice can't hold them off for long, but if your Ice is big and expensive enough to break then the Runner will have to pay dearly for each Caprice lottery ticket they buy and may well decide it's simply not worth trying to get in at all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--J5vng-5g-0/Uz1RvQSKI4I/AAAAAAAAA3E/0xZdAmVApH8/s1600/Ice+Wall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--J5vng-5g-0/Uz1RvQSKI4I/AAAAAAAAA3E/0xZdAmVApH8/s1600/Ice+Wall.jpg" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D6ViXT8W1cE/Uz1Rvh2X0_I/AAAAAAAAA3Q/CF5JUAa0amk/s1600/hive.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D6ViXT8W1cE/Uz1Rvh2X0_I/AAAAAAAAA3Q/CF5JUAa0amk/s1600/hive.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qDbLrSFJGxc/Uz1Rvvc4svI/AAAAAAAAA3Y/WudKM3IEp-U/s1600/Heimdal.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qDbLrSFJGxc/Uz1Rvvc4svI/AAAAAAAAA3Y/WudKM3IEp-U/s1600/Heimdal.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Ice that support Caprice Nisei decks are therefore almost the antithesis of the Ice that support Biotic Labor/SanSan decks. Cheap Binary ETR Ice like Ice Wall and Wraparound are far less useful than Analog Ice like Eli v1.0, Heimdall v1.0 or the new Hive in Weyland. Similarly the default Enigma and the new Quandary are less attractive than Viktor v2.0, and in Sentries Rototurrets and Neural Katana are weaker cousins to Ichi v1.0 or Tsurigi with their many subroutines. You want big strength Ice and lots of subroutines so that the Runner has to bleed credits to get past even after their rig is established, and Caprice will be waiting to play Rock-Paper-Scissors at the end of their run... "you paid 7 credits and didn't access any cards. Unlucky. Want to try again?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SocTgOD11aw/Uz1SLdV9qxI/AAAAAAAAA3g/q-MgPOm2OI0/s1600/GLC.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SocTgOD11aw/Uz1SLdV9qxI/AAAAAAAAA3g/q-MgPOm2OI0/s1600/GLC.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2NiEwViBqB8/Uz1SLfzgVlI/AAAAAAAAA3k/fQCxPB79lpg/s1600/sundew.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2NiEwViBqB8/Uz1SLfzgVlI/AAAAAAAAA3k/fQCxPB79lpg/s1600/sundew.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9HLI1Eh4B68/Uz1SLZ0OfyI/AAAAAAAAA3o/Hw9vmaeq06k/s1600/Eve+Campaign.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9HLI1Eh4B68/Uz1SLZ0OfyI/AAAAAAAAA3o/Hw9vmaeq06k/s1600/Eve+Campaign.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rezzing a Heimdall instead of Ice Wall takes money, and money takes time. These new decks are slower and greedier so the Ice defenses are typically supported by heavy duty economy Assets that will deliver huge cash benefits if left alone by the runner (with taxing Ice in front of them to deter the runner from trashing). This is a second seismic change, after the impact on Ice choices, which is that these decks largely abandon the Operation-based economy (Beanstalk Royalties, Sweeps Week, Green Level Clearance) that we've seen from Corps in Spin Cycle and often return to the more old school cards like Melange Mining Corp, Adonis Campaign, Eve Campaign, Sundew in Jinteki and even PAD Campaign.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So far we've talked about how Caprice Nisei has created an opportunity for new deckbuilding strategies but where does NAPD Contract fit into all this? It turns out that NAPD Contract fits perfectly into a deck that has a lot of taxing Ice but little Binary ETR. Fighting through a bank of Ice and Caprice Nisei (and cards like Ash or Red Herrings as well) only to find yourself unable to pay 4 to steal NAPD Contract when you access it is an enormous kick in the teeth to the runner. NAPD Contract joins Nisei MkII as the best possible Agendas for a taxation Ice strategy, not just safe in your remotes but also in R&D and HQ. NAPD Contract also has fringe benefits with Caprice Nisei - if the Runner is on 5 credits when they break through your Ice you know you are safe to bid 2 credits with Caprice, even if the Runner matches your bid and access NAPD Contract they'll be a credit short of stealing it! Finally, the downside on NAPD Contract is that you can't run Bad Publicity with it easily, but in a taxation/Caprice strategy you have already avoided Bad Publicity like the plague anyway (if you're smart)!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let's pause now to give you a look at what these new decks might look like, one in Haas-Bioroid and one in Jinteki...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>HB Redcoats Caprice NAPD</b></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j9hCpAOItfc/Uz1boS5H4wI/AAAAAAAAA5c/i2dPKrab7xg/s1600/ETF.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j9hCpAOItfc/Uz1boS5H4wI/AAAAAAAAA5c/i2dPKrab7xg/s1600/ETF.png" height="400" width="286" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future (Core Set)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agenda (9)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Accelerated Beta Test (Core Set)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x NAPD Contract (Double Time)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Priority Requisition (Core Set)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Project Vitruvius (Cyber Exodus)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Asset (10)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Adonis Campaign (Core Set)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Aggressive Secretary (Core Set)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Eve Campaign (Humanity's Shadow)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) •</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x PAD Campaign (Core Set)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Upgrade (4)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Ash 2X3ZB9CY</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Caprice Nisei (Double Time) ••••• •••</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Operation (7)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Interns (Mala Tempora)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Restructure (Second Thoughts)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Barrier (8)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Eli 1.0 (Future Proof)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Heimdall 1.0 (Core Set)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Heimdall 2.0 (Creation and Control)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Wotan (Second Thoughts)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Code Gate (6)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Quandary (Double Time)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Tollbooth (Core Set) ••••• •</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Viktor 2.0 (Creation and Control)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sentry (5)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Ichi 1.0 (Core Set)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Ichi 2.0 (Creation and Control)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Rototurret (Core Set)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a variant of the upcoming 'Red Coats' Haas-Bioroid deck that has been picking up Store Championship wins at the end of the season, and you can see here many of the hallmarks of what I was talking about above - multiple economy Agendas, big Taxing Ice and upgrades like Caprice and Ash to protect their Agendas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Quicksandteki</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jinteki: Replicating Perfection</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agenda (10)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Braintrust</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Fetal AI</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x NAPD Contract</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Nisei MK II</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Asset (16)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Encryption Protocol ••</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Jackson Howard ••</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x PAD Campaign</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Ronin</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Shock!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Snare!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Sundew</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Upgrade (6)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Caprice Nisei</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Hokusai Grid</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Operation (3)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Celebrity Gift</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Barrier (5)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Eli 1.0 •••</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Wall of Thorns</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Code Gate (4)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Chum</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x RSVP ••</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Tollbooth ••</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sentry (5)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Ichi 1.0 ••••</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Tsurugi</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This Jinteki deck relies on the power of its identity, forcing runners to hit Centrals before coming to look at remote servers. That alone wastes clicks and plays into the hands of Caprice Nisei, but on top of that ALL of the ice is intended to be expensive to break with the classic Icebreaker rig - there isn't a single Binary piece of Ice in the deck! It's painfully expensive for the runner to get anything out of this deck, which then compounds the issue with long term drip feed economy from Sundew and PAD Campaign, and Encryption Protocols to make trashing even more painful. When Honor & Profit arrives this deck will benefit from the addition of cards like Inazuma, Komainu and The Future Perfect to further tax and frustrate the runner.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These two decks are very different in cards but very similar in ultimate strategy - overload the runner's economy. An initial layer of Ice is there purely to slow the early game bleeding of Agenda points and protect economy assets. Those assets provide the Corp with the cash to install a second layer of defenses - Ice, Caprice, or Ash - and slow the game even further. At this point the runner's short term economic gains from cards like Sure Gamble/Daily Casts/Dirty Laundry are probably a distant memory, and even top notch Desperado/Datasucker rigs can't make accesses cheaply enough to make runs economically. Sucks for the runner, but the Corp's assets are still pulling in more money and laying down yet more Ice and then the runner is shut out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So you fight the economy assets, right? But that's expensive too. If the runner trashes Eve Campaign and PAD Campaigns the Corp doesn't benefit but the runner is bankrupting themselves in the process which just helps the Corp anyway. And all the while the Runner is having to worry about having money aside for Ash, Caprice or NAPD Contract. Nothing comes cheap and most runners simply don't have the funds to pay for everything they need.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, as the runner, how do you fight this? I think Caprice Nisei triggers changes in Corp decks that have some surprising knock-on effects in how Runner cards are valued. First of all, here are some Runner cards that we are used to seeing a lot of, but which I believe get worse as Caprice Nisei bleeds into the metagame:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ei8EflNS0M4/Uz1S3mUgnUI/AAAAAAAAA30/1XxzsKgBgnY/s1600/Corroder.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ei8EflNS0M4/Uz1S3mUgnUI/AAAAAAAAA30/1XxzsKgBgnY/s1600/Corroder.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_4wF1NTV2f8/Uz1S75R8pdI/AAAAAAAAA38/poGITPZHfzs/s1600/Datasucker.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_4wF1NTV2f8/Uz1S75R8pdI/AAAAAAAAA38/poGITPZHfzs/s1600/Datasucker.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-du4u4y3-0hQ/Uz1TAOWLxPI/AAAAAAAAA4E/1pw5NWiPUlU/s1600/Desperado.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-du4u4y3-0hQ/Uz1TAOWLxPI/AAAAAAAAA4E/1pw5NWiPUlU/s1600/Desperado.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2pzNRR6hHbg/Uz1TUUYJdwI/AAAAAAAAA4Q/9B9PEvjQFQ4/s1600/dirtylaundry.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2pzNRR6hHbg/Uz1TUUYJdwI/AAAAAAAAA4Q/9B9PEvjQFQ4/s1600/dirtylaundry.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SJZIaAbS094/Uz1TUW_T-6I/AAAAAAAAA4Y/j7O_pJiMO9g/s1600/Inside+Job.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SJZIaAbS094/Uz1TUW_T-6I/AAAAAAAAA4Y/j7O_pJiMO9g/s1600/Inside+Job.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-23CO6ChU9_k/Uz1TUT_5lJI/AAAAAAAAA4M/H1sEuvgUxXM/s1600/R&D+Interface.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-23CO6ChU9_k/Uz1TUT_5lJI/AAAAAAAAA4M/H1sEuvgUxXM/s1600/R&D+Interface.jpg" height="200" width="143" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the best Runner cards today, Corroder, is actually one of the biggest problems with facing Caprice Nisei taxing decks. Corroder is perfect to face Ice Wall, Wraparound, Himitsu-Bako or Wall of Static but becomes incredibly expensive against cards like Heimdall v.1 (7 credits), Hive (6 credits at full strength) or Wall of Thorns (5 credits). As soon as you pay that sort of money and run into a Caprice Nisei on the far side the Corroder seems a lot less like value for money. Datasucker and Desperado are two cards that suffer from the Corp giving you no cheap runs, they're still great cards (Datasucker in particular can really help with big Ice) but can no longer be relied upon to power you through time and again, paying you back more than you invested in making the run, because the taxing Ice is so expensive to hit. If you're running the classic Mimic/Yog.0/Datasucker rig it's entirely possible that the Corp will be able to cover all their Centrals with sizeable taxing Ice you need Datasucker counters to break and then purge Viruses, effectively locking you out for good. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dirty Laundry is similar, although the effect is more pronounced - a taxing piece of Ice in place can quickly make Dirty Laundry a losing proposition and although you get valuable cash back that happens AFTER the run, meaning you're 2 credits down when facing Caprice or Ash, or trying to steal an NAPD Contract. Inside Job is similar again - against a big taxing piece of Ice an Inside Job is going to be a money saver but the difference is that you can no longer rely on Inside Job as a cheap way to snipe Agendas in the early game - there are more cards that will be installed that look like Agendas, and Caprice Nisei loves randomly cancelling any Event runs and wasting your investment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, R&D Interface is less about either Caprice Nisei or NAPD Contract and more about the rise of Jinteki decks in general. When Jinteki is around in the metagame you will have to be VERY careful about playing multi-access cards that could mean you access multiple Ambush cards at once and I think there is a swing between R&D Interface and Indexing on the cards. Indexing allows runners to dig deep while avoiding accessing cards they don't want, although the downside to Indexing is having to plow through taxing R&D twice in order to steal any Agendas you see.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So much for cards that I think have got worse, here are some Runner cards that I think get better in a Caprice Nisei metagame:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BsyoQFtH85c/Uz1UDF2AbTI/AAAAAAAAA4s/L1J0Z5SIQBM/s1600/Morningstar.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BsyoQFtH85c/Uz1UDF2AbTI/AAAAAAAAA4s/L1J0Z5SIQBM/s1600/Morningstar.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2DTCZG6I7BA/Uz1TuJzn8yI/AAAAAAAAA4o/UIo7iHMAhhI/s1600/magnum+opus.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2DTCZG6I7BA/Uz1TuJzn8yI/AAAAAAAAA4o/UIo7iHMAhhI/s1600/magnum+opus.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v90o43qv41w/Uz1UHLlNp1I/AAAAAAAAA5Q/C3aJppTdXXE/s1600/Kati+Jones.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v90o43qv41w/Uz1UHLlNp1I/AAAAAAAAA5Q/C3aJppTdXXE/s1600/Kati+Jones.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3lt_0Asm1NI/Uz1UDNssLxI/AAAAAAAAA48/57hEq7VCEZs/s1600/Parasite.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3lt_0Asm1NI/Uz1UDNssLxI/AAAAAAAAA48/57hEq7VCEZs/s1600/Parasite.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cwk44Yl5vnU/Uz1UDESrXOI/AAAAAAAAA5A/NGI3hw7MqTk/s1600/Indexing.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cwk44Yl5vnU/Uz1UDESrXOI/AAAAAAAAA5A/NGI3hw7MqTk/s1600/Indexing.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-to8-74T_gYc/Uz1UD3cmehI/AAAAAAAAA5I/ZzDtfUVw-PY/s1600/Whizzard.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-to8-74T_gYc/Uz1UD3cmehI/AAAAAAAAA5I/ZzDtfUVw-PY/s1600/Whizzard.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">*** Edit - in the original entry of this blog I had misremembered Morning Star as a STR 7 base breaker, and thus got a little overexcited about it's meta-busting potential. I've amended the following paragraph to allow for that ***</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Morning Star is a card that can have a big impact on the Caprice Nisei/taxing matchups because it changes the nature of what their Ice actually does. If we go back to<b> <a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.com/2014/02/shields-up-understanding-ice.html">my article about Ice types</a></b> for a second time I mentioned in my analysis that the the classification of each piece of Ice changes depending on the type of Icebreakers you play against and what Morning Star does is transform pretty much all the Analog Barriers in the game into Binary ice that you can crush with a single credit. Eli, Bastion, Rainbow, Wall of Thorns and Hive - Corroder hates playing against all these cards but Morning Star doesn't care. Throw in some help like a Datasucker or Personal Touch/Dinosaurus and the Morning Star smashes through the Heimdalls of this world too - only an advanced Hadrian's Wall or well-positioned Curtain Wall truly can stop the Mjolnir of Icebreakers!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Switching Corroder for Morning Star critically damages a key part of the taxing Corp's gameplan. If you can get through the Ice cheaply then you can afford to run multiple times against Caprice. If you can get through the Ice cheaply then you can afford to trash the economy assets behind them. If you can get through the Ice cheaply then you can score NAPD Contract when you access it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joining Morning Star in hogging precious MU is Magnum Opus, which is the runner's best option for simply overpowering the Corp's taxation Ice by drowning you in credits. Where other economy cards like Sure Gamble, Daily Casts and even Account Siphon are one-shot affairs that will soon see their credits hurled against a big piece of Ice in a single access, the Magnum Opus keeps paying out for the entire game. Similarly Kati Jones increases in value for the same reason - she's the economy Resource that is reusable and forms a key part in ensuring that the Runner economy can stay strong enough for long enough to match the Corp's Eve Campaigns and PAD Campaigns in a longer game.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indexing and Parasite are two cards that both gain and lose value at the same time. I already discussed why I think Indexing becomes an attractive option to R&D Interface when Jinteki brings more Snare! and Shock! into the metagame, but that it requires multiple runs through taxing Ice to secure those Agendas, and in Parasite there's another double-edged sword. If Corps are running Eli instead of Wall of Ice and Viktor 2.0 instead of Quandary then Parasite takes a big hit because Ice is that much bigger, but on the other hand the game is going to last longer and being able to remove an expensive piece of Ice with Parasite is probably the most efficient long term solution to many of the taxing pieces of Ice you'll meet. What swings Parasite towards gaining more than it loses, in my eyes, is twofold - if your deck is focussed on breaking Heimdall and Tollbooth then you will benefit from a cheap answer to Wall of Ice and Quandary in the form of Parasite - and if Jinteki is coming to the party then cards like Tsurigi and Komainu are likely to be among their taxing Sentries of choice, and both are juicy Parasite targets due to their Strength/Subroutines imbalance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The final card I want to highlight is Whizzard, and the Master Gamer has been waiting a long time for his moment in the sun. For the longest time the go-to Anarch Identity was Noise, with many games won by simply flipping a dozen cards into the Corp's Archives over the course of the game then cashing in multiple agendas at once. Jackson Howard spelled the end of that strategy when he was printed because the Corp could now shuffle the Agendas back into R&D. It seemed as though Whizzard was primed to take over but in fact Jackson Howard also nerfed the gamer as well as the punk because by adding more draw power to Corp decks Jackson Howard played a key role in switching Corps away from asset-based economies into being able to reliably keep up a supply of Operation economy cards - just as Whizzard was rubbing his hands at trashing Adonis Campaign and PAD Campaign those cards got taken out of Corp decks. Then partway through Spin Cycle Reina Roja came along, everyone got excited about playing with Caissa and Whizzard went for a lie down and a sulk. But now might be his time. If Caprice Nisei is bringing longer games back, and with it asset economies, then Whizzard could be the perfect man for the job of fighting the Corp's economy and keeping them poor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm going to finish by showing you a sample Runner deck that I believe is well-equipped to fight Caprice Nisei. I'm going to hold my hand up and admit that this deck is almost entirely untested, I simply pulled 45 cards out of my binder and threw them into combat, but the results were pretty much exactly as expected - Morning Star and Whizzard combined to shred the game plan of both the Replicating Perfection and Weyland Big Ice decks I played against. The Replicating Perfection deck had repeatedly left my successful Andromeda deck gasping for air but with this Whizzard deck the matchup was for more comfortable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While I'm sure a lot is wrong with this deck as it is, I'm happy that it's heading in a direction that has real benefits to bring out as the deck is refined...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Magic Hammer</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whizzard - Master Gamer</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Event (11)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Déjà Vu</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Quality Time •••</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Special Order ••••• •</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Sure Gamble</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hardware (7)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Cyberfeeder</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Grimoire</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Spinal Modem</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Resource (9)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Armitage Codebusting</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Daily Casts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Kati Jones</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Liberated Account</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Icebreaker (7)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Corroder</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Mimic</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Morning Star</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Yog.0</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Program (11)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Datasucker</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Imp</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Medium</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Parasite</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Self-modifying Code ••••• •</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All the Influence spent goes on improving consistency, which has long been the bane of Anarch decks I've seen, while the rest of the deck is quite familiar, I guess. There is lots of economic resources and plenty of MU available for all the tricky viruses to sit alongside Morning Star. Playing two banks of Consoles is something that looks pretty ropey but you HAVE to get that +2MU down if you want to support Morningstar + Datasucker + Parasite in your rig. Having five cards to find (plus three Quality Time to help you power through and find them) means you should see a Console early in >75% of your games and while in some matchups the downside of Spinal Modem will prove horrible, in other games those 2 recurring credits will be a perfect compliment to your fighting a taxation Corp.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The real trick is combining a deck that can cope with Caprice Nisei with a deck that can still move quickly enough to threaten Fast Advance. Anyway, as I said this is 100% a very rough draft, but indicative of what type of decks I think may arise to tackle Caprice Nisei, if she comes to be a large part of the metagame. It could just as easily be built in Shaper, I guess, using Test Run/Scavenge to get Morning Star out (and then you've got that tempting Paintbrush/Morning Star combo to look at) but I wanted to run the Parasite package alongside Morning Star, which sent me down the road to Anarch and Whizzards ability.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><b>The Bottom Line</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All told, I think NAPD Contract and Caprice Nisei are going to make very real and sizeable changes to the Netrunner metagame. A lot of people are exploring how to maximise them in Corp decks but I'm just as interested in how the Runners will respond, and I can see some fascinating possibilities opening up that may challenge the accepted wisdom about a lot of cards. Until now competitive Runners have really only have to worry about variations on a single theme - quick Corp decks looking to get to 7 Agenda Points as quickly as possible by any means necessary. If a genuinely different Corp deck style comes to the fore it is likely to lead to radical changes on the Runner side, and that could freshen things up considerably by challenging some well-established preconceptions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fingers crossed!</span></div>
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Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-75875065410700023672014-04-10T04:44:00.000-07:002014-04-10T04:50:34.564-07:00"Half of North America just lost their Facebook"<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Satellite Uplink will be shutting down. Like George Clooney in <i>Gravity</i>, I'm detaching the cable and drifting off to admire the view.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've enjoyed my time playing Android: Netrunner and greatly enjoyed writing this blog, but I think my time with the game is ending.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I didn't blog much throughout the Store Championships because I was playing and thinking about the game so intently. Unfortunately that seems to have been my undoing - I played in 5 Store Championships over 6 weeks and somewhere along the line I simply overdosed on Netrunner and stopped enjoying it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My Store Championship journey was a very positive one - each event was 20+ players with 5 rounds of Swiss and I made Top 4 in all but the last one, which is a record I'm proud of. But for all my winning ways by the last two Store Championships I was making a lot of mistakes and losing games that I shouldn't have lost. Analysing why those mistakes had started to creep into my game told me something important: I'd stopped caring. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was no longer enjoying playing Netrunner, I was no longer interested in the games, and as a result I was sleepwalking into bad situations and bad decisions. My knee jerk reaction was to quit the game and sell my cards but enough people gave me sage advice to take a break and recharge that I decided to do so. However several weeks down the line I find that I still have no enthusiasm for the game. There are no decks I want to build, no cards I want to experiment with, no identities I want to explore, and no matchups I want to play.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think that means it's time to leave.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This may well not be my final blog, though. One of the ironies is that as much as I'm bored of Netrunner I still enjoy writing about the game and I remain very proud of this blog, so even though I don't enjoy playing any more there may be a few things I find time to write about before I finally turn the lights off.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If so I hope you'll continue to do me the honor of reading my words.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dave</span>Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-69513941232469293182014-03-12T07:27:00.004-07:002014-03-12T09:53:30.342-07:00The Chronos Protocol - Who Will You Vote For?<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Store Championship Season is only halfway done and already attention is beginning to slip onto what is coming beyond that, which in Europe is the upcoming Chronos Protocol Tour. At the end of last year the US players got their chance to vote on which runner Identity would be added to the game (correctly choosing to flip "The Collective" the finger) and now European players will get the chance to decide between two Corp identities who are vying for the Chronos Protocol. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the decision between The Collective and Laramy Fisk was being made there was a huge number of games being played on OCTGN that helped guide the decision that The Collective was simply too powerful, but<a href="http://84.205.248.92/slaghund/slagview.aspx#"> <b>so far there are less than 100 games being played with the two Chronos Protocol identities combined</b></a> so this is still a decision that is up in the air. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whether you're wondering where to cast your vote, or looking on anxiously from across the Atlantic Ocean and hoping your pick will be the one given the nod, taking a look at the two Corp IDs that may shape the game in future is a worthwhile venture...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Haas-Bioroid</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Haas-Bioroid received a bunch of new Identities in Creation and Control but none of those identities really helped with one of the Corp's key themes, which is Brain damage. Brain damage isn't something we've really seen in competitive environments too often, but it's something that is very popular with non-competitive players and I know a lot of players would like an Identity that played towards that theme.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Permanently removing all copies of a card from the runner's deck is also a new and very attractive effect. In Magic: The Gathering effects like this have a long-running place in the game, from the original Lobotomy through the staple spoiler Cranial Extraction. Surgically removing a card from the opponent's deck has proven a useful control on abusive combo decks, and it's an effect we've not seen in Netrunner yet.<br /><br />There are two key words in that last sentence that I want to address as I explain why Haas-Bioroid will not be gaining my vote. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first of those words is 'surgical'. Randomly choosing a card from your opponent's hand is the opposite of a surgical strike - I wouldn't go into hospital knowing that the surgeon is going to use ippy-dippy to decide what vital organ he's going to remove! Attaching such a powerful effect to a mechanic that is ultimately random is something that I am very wary of introducing to the game. The difference between removing all copies of Daily Casts or removing all copies of Corroder is a huge one and it's one that neither player has much control over. Hit Daily Casts and the runner frowns but carries on, hit Corroder and it could be effectively game over as early as the runner's first click. Should that sort of swinginess really be attached to a random effect?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second of those words is 'combo', and I would argue that to some extent every Runner deck is a combo deck, with the various parts of the rig representing the combo the runner is trying to assemble. In Magic: The Gathering cards like Cranial Extraction dissuade many players from playing combo decks but in Netrunner the runner doesn't have much choice about the matter. Yes, the runner can build a deck with backup breakers so they don't fall over if a particular Icebreaker is lost, and to some extent it would be desirable if Chronos Protocol became a reason why more Fracters than Corroder were played, but there are other cards where there aren't so many options available. Plascrete Carapace comes to mind as a great example - do you want to drop down to a maximum hand size of 4 AND lose all your Plascrete Carapaces at the same time, just because of a unlucky card picked from your hand?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ultimately, I feel the Haas-Bioroid version of Chronos Protocol introduces an undesirable element of luck into the game - games could easily by lost by receiving an early Brain damage that strips a vital component from your deck. This impacts non-competitive decks attempting to do something cool as much as it does competitive decks (oops, I took Blackguard... good luck!). It makes Brain damage so potentially unpleasant that runners will avoid running, making the game less interactive, and I think it would become a constraint on future cards being printed that deal Brain damage.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jinteki</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the moment Jinteki only has two Identities but that is about to change, with three more coming in Honor & Profit in just a month or two. The new Identities all support new play styles but the core Jinteki theme of sizzling the runner with Net damage will remain the domain of Personal Evolution. The Chronos Protocol would give Jinteki players a new Identity to play with their core cards, and a whole new way of looking at Net damage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />One of my key reasons for disliking the Haas-Bioroid version of Chronos Protocol is that it over-emphasises a random effect, whereas for Jinteki my main reason for liking this ID is that it REMOVES a random effect and introduces a skill decision in its place. This is a good thing, particularly for good players who are most likely to gain value from the information and decision they are being presented with. Currently Net damage in Jinteki really only serves one purpose - kill the runner, or threaten to do so - but under the Chronos Protocol the nature of net damage changes completely and becomes pro-active disruption and control of the Runner's capabilities, with the Corp able to plan around the cards the runner is holding, and also work on a strategy to discard certain types of card (remove Icebreakers, remove economy). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How will Chronos Protocol change how Jinteki is played? Well, you only really need to think about one card to see how much it changes things - Neural EMP. Neural EMP is commonly played in Jinteki decks but in Personal Evolution this card is virtually always held in hand until multiple copies are ready to flatline the runner after they hit an unfortunate Snare!. In Chronos Protocol Neural EMP becomes a card that you play at the earliest opportunity to snipe the best card or Icebreaker from the runner's hand. Not just EMP, any card that does only a single Net damage hugely gains in value - Swordsman, Shock! and even Data Mine become serious problems that the runner can't ignore. Cards that deal multiple net damage, like Neural Katana, actually gain less from Chronos Protocol than Swordsman would - discarding 3 cards at random gives you a higher chance of taking the best cards anyway - and I really like that Chronos Protocol would flip the value weighting behind what net damage cards are good and which are bad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another point in the Jinteki favor, to my eyes, is the respective position of the Corps in competitive play. Jinteki is a distant 4th in any rankings of Corp performance, while Haas-Bioroid already has an excellent ID in Engineering the Future and one of the most threatening new strategies in Cerebral Imaging. By comparison Jinteki is in a very weak position (pre-Honor & Profit) and I'm not yet convinced that the cards coming in Honor & Profit will change that much for the better. Moreover, if Nisei Division or Tenin Institute become the basis of a competitive new Jinteki deck I think that will be at the expense of Jinteki doing what Jinteki has always done best, which is dealing Net damage. Regardless of whether Jinteki remains the runt of the litter I would like to see a new Identity give Jinteki players options around how to play with all the Net damage cards at their disposal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The only downside I can see in the Jinteki version of the card is that it might just be a slightly TOO competitive. In non-competitive play the surgical sniping of your best cards is going to rapidly piss players off and the way that strong players will use the identity to pick apart any misbuilt deck makes this an identity that is pretty merciless on inexperienced runners. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, to my mind the decision is clear - Jinteki vs Haas-Bioroid is really a decision between skill & creativity on one side and a random chaotic factor on the other. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a player who enjoys Netrunner as a game, rather than as a coinflip to decide if we get to play a game or not, my vote is only going one way...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...but where would your vote go?</span></div>
Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-15075066289276015022014-03-07T10:10:00.001-08:002014-03-07T10:10:58.133-08:00Brainbuster - the 'Purple' Jinteki deck<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just as I did during the Plugged In Tour I have been browsing the winning decklists from the Store Championships currently going on, always on the lookout for new and interesting deck ideas that I can put into the spotlight. I found one such deck riding high on the 'Popular' rankings of NetrunnerDB.com, which proves it has also caught the eye of a lot of other players as well, and that was Brian 'x3r0h0ur' Cassidy's Haas-Bioroid deck, the delightfully-named "Brainbuster" - the winning Corp decklist from the Store Championship in Fort Wayne, Indiana.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I knew I was going to write about this deck so built it up and played a few games with it earlier this week then got in touch with Brian to see if he had a few words to say. Brian kindly agreed to send me a few words over. Normally I would describe this deck to you myself and slip in a few quotes from the creator but Brian did a lot better than just send me 'a few words' so for this edition of Satellite Uplink I'm pretty much going to hand the floor over to Brian completely and only chip in now and then.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First things first, the decklist...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>HB Brainbuster - Store Champion Clem's Fort Wayne IN</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future (Core Set)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agenda (11)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Accelerated Beta Test (Core Set)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x False Lead (A Study in Static)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Project Vitruvius (Cyber Exodus)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Sentinel Defense Program (Creation and Control)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Asset (12)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Adonis Campaign (Core Set)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Cerebral Overwriter (Creation and Control)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Edge of World (Cyber Exodus) ••••</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Eve Campaign (Humanity's Shadow)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) •••</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Operation (6)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Neural EMP (Core Set) ••••• •</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Barrier (8)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Eli 1.0 (Future Proof)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Heimdall 2.0 (Creation and Control)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Paper Wall (Mala Tempora)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Code Gate (4)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Enigma (Core Set)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Viktor 2.0 (Creation and Control)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sentry (8)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3x Fenris (True Colors)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Ichi 1.0 (Core Set)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1x Ichi 2.0 (Creation and Control)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2x Swordsman (Second Thoughts) ••</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/2816/hb-brainbuster-store-champion-clem-s-fort-wayne-in">See this deck on NetrunnerDB</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Where did the inspiration for the deck come from?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #4c1130;">First let me get this out of the way. I completely stole this deck from this: </span><a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/2246/2013-haunted-s3-1st-place-corp-deck">http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/2246/2013-haunted-s3-1st-place-corp-deck</a> <span style="color: #4c1130;">and then adjusted for economy and ice differences, and agenda weaknesses. His was more of a rush deck mine is more of a Jinteki-style - a "play the game at whatever tempo works" type deck.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>It seems to me to be almost a "Purple Jinteki"deck - replacing the Net threat with Brain damage and the deck also benefits from the stronger Agenda mix and Campaigns to create more uncertainty about what remotes actually are. </b></span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is the Jinteki comparison fair?</b><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Absolutely, it plays similar to a Jinteki in that the prickly ice work to dissuade the runner from making runs before the breaker suite is up, and anything that slows down criminal is very good. At the same time, it is prickly BECAUSE people tend to run early against HB thinking they can click through anything bad. This is where Fenris makes the deck sing. Keeping people guessing on remotes is a huge deal, so I don't mind seeing my traps go to the trash as long as my opponent doesn't know my exact deck composition. Like most trap decks, knowledge is the greatest weakness. I do acknowledge that Bad Publicity from Fenris it hurts the asset based economy, so typically I'll put a cheapy ice over it to offset the bad pub.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Brian's point about the Runner's expectations is a really good one. When you sit down vs Jinteki one of the key cards on your mind is not running into a Neural Katana without having a Sentry breaker handy so runners can be quite cautious. But when you sit down vs HB you're usually thinking about cards like SanSan City Grid and Biotic Labor - playing more aggressively because you can click by any nasty Bioroids, and until you've got programs installed you're not worried about Rototurret, Ichi or Grim. Fenris is waiting to devour that sort of runner, though, a Jinteki-style piece of Ice when they're not expecting it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What also works very well is that every agenda can be advanced any amount of times and still be scored and benefited from. This is why I don't run 3/5's. The deck that was the inspiration for this deck (nearly identical) did, but I felt like Sentinel Defense Program slotted so well with EMP and Overwriter, maybe even a stuck Fenris, that I had to take out 3/5's. Once you score a Sentinel, CO becomes more terrifying than Junebug because you get the extra 1 damage, and the 2 advancements typically on it are non-replaceable. If the runner has seen EMP in my hand they know they are VERY limited on the damage they can take but vs Junebug you can just draw more cards beck.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #4c1130;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MJjjGdw9cV4/UxoH91yzPOI/AAAAAAAAA00/1xAQX_wnE_Y/s1600/Vitruvius.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MJjjGdw9cV4/UxoH91yzPOI/AAAAAAAAA00/1xAQX_wnE_Y/s1600/Vitruvius.png" height="320" width="229" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another key point is that every agenda can be played advanced to benefit. The least of which is Accelerated Beta Test, but you have Jackson Howard or can play an ice from hand on archives if you fail hard, or install the next 3/2 if you have a big scoring window (maybe an icebreaker trash with Ichi, or a bad runner play). A Project Vitruvious overscored by 2 allows a single neural EMP to become 3, so whenever that window comes up you automatically have all 3 of your 'combo pieces' in hand, and Vitruvius is also nice for Econ recovery (its taxing to trash eve several times) and refilling a small hand if the runner surprises you with a Sneakdoor.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also another thing is that every card works together from agenda to asset. False Lead seems odd, but it works tremendously with the deck. First if an Overwriter is hit, with or without a Sentinel Defense scored, you can False Lead to keep the runner's hand size down, enabling the Neural EMP finish. You can also use it to sap the clicks the runner planned on using to click through Ichi or Heimdall (face down of course, no runner should be dumb enough to faceplant into it with a False Lead scored).</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think the Agendas in Brian's deck are one of the main reasons why the Jinteki style of play works here but doesn't work so well in Jinteki. Jinteki decks frequently play A LOT of 3/1 Agendas to get to their 20 points and that's a really inefficient way of scoring Agenda points. Compared to Jinteki the stronger mix of 3/2 Agendas in this deck means Brian's deck hits 4 or 5 Agenda Points in half the time of a standard Jinteki deck, which gives the runner less time to set up before they have to start tackling tricky remotes. That's a critical point in the Jinteki-style game plan, because it's at that point that the runner has to start worrying that your next remote server is a game-winning Agenda - it's the stage of the game where you're most likely to hit them with an Edge of World or Cerebral Overwriter (or just get them to burn energy accessing Eve Campaign) - and it's a stage of the game that this deck reaches much more rapidly than Jinteki itself does.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As well as the Agenda points Brian is spot on that the deck benefits from the Agendas all working towards his key goal - spitting out more Ice with Accelerated Beta Test, recurring Neural EMP with Project Vitruvius, dealing more damage with Sentinel Defence Net and all the great tricks with False Lead that Brian already described. Those sorts of Agenda synergies are at the heart of some of the best Corp decks but they've always been absent from Jinteki... not so in this "Purple Jinteki".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Compared to Jinteki, the Purple Jinteki deck's agendas are both better at winning via Agenda points AND better at winning via flatline. IMHO they're the key reason to go purple.<i> </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>You ignored Green Level Clearance and Blue Level Clearance in favor of the Campaigns economy, how does that help?</b></span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Assets turn on no-advance play, especially behind an iceberg server. No one wants to run down a server of Ichi 2.0 and a few other friends only to have Jackson leave the building on them. Also assets pose an interesting tax and if you get good at knowing when to play them out and when to rez them then the runner can be strongly disincentivized from running the Centrals. Also it works against handsize, forcing clicks to check remotes that are facedown. With 20 ice I can afford to make it semi-mildly taxing to run and trash an Adonis Campaign, and painful to trash an Eve Campaign.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Which is a nice segue into Eve. Eve is awesome. People always ignore her. Runners make the critical mistake of thinking "well he spent 5 and now he's made that back, so I'm losing the exchange if I go trash it". This is a super-bad analysis that even good players can make. The problem isn't that you lose more than the corp makes, its that the corp has money at all. I would posit that sometimes its FINE to trash Eve with 4 credits on her, or Adonis with 3, if that means bettering your position and hurting the corp in the right way. Also Eve's turn 1 siphon bait. She is best played alongside an Adonis. This is key if they hit the Adonis and trash it, then run Eve, they won't trash her too most likely. If they hit her first and trash her they're usually too broke to want to or even be able to trash Adonis. Lots of runners see these before they're rezzed and won't trash them too, which is a huge mistake. That is the cheapest shot you'll have at trashing that bad-boy, so you better do it before I put a Fenris or Ichi over it or something. Remove the whole notion of "well it costs him x and costs me x" from your thinking - runner to corp money means nothing unless you're being traced.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is more a point about good play than this deck in particular, but it's one well worth making clear. Boiling things down to "I spend 3 to stop you gaining 4" is a decent shorthand but it's only a small portion of the real story when it comes to deciding when to trash Assets. Sometimes it's worth spending 6 breaking into a server to trash Adonis and stop them gaining 3, but other times it will be more important to hang onto your money than spend 3 trashing a full Adonis. If the runner's economy is stronger than the Corp's then smashing down economy assets is a great strategy as it's critical to keep the Corp poor, but if you're in a weak position then it's not usually worth getting into a pissing contest with the Corp over money and saving what pennies you do have for when it really matters.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ice construction was important, with lots of ETR ice to stick behind Bioroids and behind Ichis to ensure actual breakers have to come out. In fact, as posted on NR:DB, it's wrong, I actually run 2 Wall of Static over 2 Eli. </span><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So how does it play? Ideally you want a Fenris on HQ and an Eli, Viktor or Swordsman on R&D. You will get lots of face-plants into HQ so Fenris is well-positioned there, and you can suffer the bad pub just fine. Swordsman ensures no funky Crypsis or Knight play. </span><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then you begin layering ice on the remote because unrezzed ice keeps this deck horrifying. Play out assets only as protected and as you need based on the runner's money situation and breaker ability, and based on your needs.</span><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If your opponent is pensive or an identity that prefers to build up then feel free to install and advance 2 times, especially on Agendas like Sentinel Defense Grid. Once that's on the board the game changes - Edge of World gets more scary, so if they trash out 1 from archives, awesome. The psychological impact that card has is better than the effect it has in the game. You want 3 ice over your remote if they've seen it, for sure. Paper Wall is an odd call, but I use it for Knight-bait, and post Ichi stopping power, and to power up Edge of World. It's fantastic to be able to rez it on HQ first turn as well, to turn on a Fenris on R&D vs Shapers.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even swordsman, my anti-Atman call, was chosen over Wraparound because even though it dies a little harder to a Mimic, and with Fenris, you'll probably see a Mimic, it still does a net damage before the breaker is out, and damage is the key theme.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Swordsman is maybe the one card in Brian's deck which I disagree on strongly because I just don't think 1 Net damage is worth paying for, but if Atman is around in your meta then it becomes a much stronger call. I had considered it vs Gabe Knight but you don't really want to leave Swordsman over HQ because it can't end the run, so they still get in to land and Account Siphon. Overall, though, the Ice does a good job of being awkward to break and threatening Brain damage (half of the Ice does Brain damage).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Any changes you would make after playing it at the champs? Anything from Double Time or Honor & Profit you might include?</b></span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have always been sitting on a next design Tyr's Hand brain damage deck based around EoW and Ronin but this just spoke to me as a much easier and faster flatline deck using brain damage. I don't think I can change a single card slot without being convinced, because it did EVERYTHING I told it to, except when it fed me 5 agendas in 9 cards...and 2 economy cards. That led me to my only loss on the day. As for revisions, it was straight swapping cards from his style to mine that made me end up where I was at - I changed next to nothing after the first game I played with my revisions in.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't think H&P will impact this deck any because its not really Jinteki-style in that it does damage just to hurt your card access, it really looks to just kill you (2 flatline wins and 1 score-out in the Store Champs). Maybe if AI breakers fall out some - Atman sees more hate or something - I'd swap to 2 Yagura or something cutesy, cheap, and effective with the deck, but again, thats card-access damage rather than flatline damage.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A good ending pitch for me is that if you like a deck no one is playing, and that it uses this fact to it's advantage (who expects an HB flatline deck??? especially one that WORKS??!?), then play it. Its a pretty good example of a deck that every single card works with every single other card.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think Brian said it all. To my mind this deck should appeal to a lot of players - I know there are a lot of HB players desperate to deal out those Brain damage counters reliably, I know there are a lot of frustrated Jinteki players who just want to flatline people any way possible, and I know there are a lot of players who just like trying out something different. I don't think Brainbuster sits at the top table alongside NBN FA, HB Rush or Weyland Supermodernism - Brian himself admitted that the surprise factor was important - but what Brainbuster IS, is a functioning dark horse choice. It's a deck that can flatline the unwary, but which also threatens to score 7 agenda points if you play too cautiously. Getting the runner to walk that tightrope between ways of losing is always a great strategy and even more so when, as in this "Purple Jinteki" deck, they won't be ready for a couple of surprises along the way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope you give this deck a try and enjoy it, meanwhile I will keep my eyes peeled for other oddities from the Store Championships!</span><br />
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Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-19272995429509119472014-03-03T09:46:00.002-08:002014-03-03T09:47:11.259-08:00[Spoiler] Quandary<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A real quickie this one, but after I spent so long<b> <a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.com/2014/02/shields-up-understanding-ice.html">writing about the various types of Ice</a></b> it seemed rude to ignore that a fantastic piece of Binary ETR Ice has just been spoiled for the next Data Pack.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Aww! Look how cute the little Data Kitten is!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Quandary may look innocuous but for just a single credit you get to send the Runner scrambling for their Yog.0 or Gordian Blade and investing far more money in getting past. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many decks were playing a set of Enigma as basically their only Code Gates and to most intents and purposes Quandary is an improvement. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are some situations where the lower Strength of Quandary is a definite downside (Parasite, Atman) but in most circumstances Quandary will give you 95% of the value you get from Enigma at just 33% of the cost and, unlike Paper Wall, if the runner's Icebreaker ever gets trashed the Quandary will switch back 'On' and return to blocking runs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I expect to see Quandary cropping up in quite a few Corp decks, particularly the rush versions.</span></div>
<br />Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-53685624546492397822014-02-26T06:41:00.002-08:002014-02-26T06:41:26.565-08:00SHIELDS UP! - Understanding Ice<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ice is possibly the most important card type in the game of Netrunner - it's what the Corp uses to protect it's Agendas, and it's what the Runner has to structure their whole deck to be able to bypass. There's probably no single topic worth talking about more, and it's why I've labored on it in the past, <a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.com/2013/12/worlds-2013-ice-ice-baby.html"><b>analysing the Ice from Worlds</b></a> up and down and back to front. Stats and numbers from the past are great, but it's also important to understand the theory that drives these successful decks and successful Ice configurations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's the topic I want to talk about today, breaking down Ice into various distinct groups and talking about when to use them, how to maximise them, and also how to avoid your Ice working at cross-purposes to the rest of your deck.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let's start with the absolute basics and work upwards. Ice is what the Corp uses to defend its servers from the Runner, but precisely how the Ice achieves that goal can come in a wide variety of ways. Although Ice comes in a bewildering array of sizes and shapes it can actually be divided quite neatly into two camps:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>ETR</b> - the most obvious way Ice can stop the runner is simply to carry a straight-forward "End The Run" subroutine. That does exactly what it says on the tin and it's perhaps the most commonly-played type of Ice, with common examples being cards like Wall of Static, Enigma or Chimera, right up to the imposing Curtain Wall. Playing with ETR Ice forces the runner to install the appropriate Icebreaker in order to proceed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>TAX</b> - taxing Ice is more porous than ETR Ice as it doesn't carry a fixed "End The Run" subroutine. The runner can usually get past this type of Ice without needing to install an Icebreaker... it's just a matter of how much it will cost them. This 'tax' can come in the form of a Trace attempt they have to pay credits to match, or a Bioroid subroutine that will End The Run if the runner doesn't pay a cost (eg. Viper, Eli) but the tax can also be one that never threatens to End The Run at all imposes a high enough cost that the Runner chooses not to run past anyway (eg. Hunter, Data Raven, Data Hound). </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As well as asking the runner to pay a charge in clicks or credits Taxing Ice can also take the form of more aggressive Ice that deals damage or trashes programs (eg. Chum, Neural Katana, Grim or the deadly Janus) forcing the runner to pay for their access in blood or premium-priced software. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because Taxing Ice doesn't carry a straightforward End The Run subroutine the runner doesn't need to install an Icebreaker to go past, but the cost of not doing so is frequently quite high, meaning the runner will often prefer to find an Icebreaker anyway.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The choice of which Ice to play - ETR or Taxing - is a critical one. It's definitely a point where many players go wrong, often by playing Ice that they like or have seen used effectively in other decks but which doesn't fit into their current deck.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The Bluffers Guide to Ice</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a generalisation ETR Ice is better in the early game when the runner doesn't have any Icebreakers but rapidly gets worse as the runner builds their rig. This means ETR Ice often works best in decks that are trying to score Agendas quickly - put an Agenda behind your ETR Ice then bounce the runner out for a turn and score the Agenda before they can come back equipped with an Icebreaker. You'll see a lot of ETR Ice in decks like HB Biotic Rush but pretty much every deck needs some element of ETR Ice to help them score Agendas in the early game. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By contrast Taxing Ice is actually very bad at protecting Agendas in remote servers as when the runner feels an Agenda point is on the line they are usually willing to pay whatever Tax is necessary to gain access. However Taxing Icet makes repeated runs on Central servers expensive and Taxing Ice often holds its value more once the runner has Icebreakers installed, making it better in slower decks looking to tire the runner's economy out over a longer game (eg. NBN Midseason Replacement decks, or Cerebral Imaging combos).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I want to overlay the next level, though - all this is what the Ice does when the Runner doesn't have an Icebreaker but I want to overlay how the Ice changes function when an Icebreaker is present.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Disclaimer: the following section talks about how Ice changes as Icebreakers are played. I make several assumptions about the Icebreakers you will most commonly face and if you are facing different Icebreakers then you'll have to adjust accordingly. For guidance I'm going to primarily discuss the most commonly played competitive icebreakers - Mimic, Garotte, Ninja, Yog.0, Gordian Blade and Corroder. I will discuss special cases like Femme Fatale, Atman and Knight later.</i></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IDANqdCasHc/Uw336rJvwtI/AAAAAAAAAxE/DmUABJL97Mw/s1600/Enigmra.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IDANqdCasHc/Uw336rJvwtI/AAAAAAAAAxE/DmUABJL97Mw/s1600/Enigmra.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uLN27ryfK7k/Uw34AV2JWZI/AAAAAAAAAxY/EDSJUFo0KVU/s1600/Ice+Wall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uLN27ryfK7k/Uw34AV2JWZI/AAAAAAAAAxY/EDSJUFo0KVU/s1600/Ice+Wall.jpg" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GVrKzvLSvtA/Uw336tFwRbI/AAAAAAAAAxI/wWomnUTSj54/s1600/Chimera.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GVrKzvLSvtA/Uw336tFwRbI/AAAAAAAAAxI/wWomnUTSj54/s1600/Chimera.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1) Binary ETR Ice</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've coined the term 'Binary Ice' to describe ETR Ice that is basically either 'On' or 'Off', depending on whether the Runner has an appropriate breaker or not. The most perfect example of this is low Strength Code Gates like Enigma or NEXT Bronze, which are broken for free by Yog.0, but I would expand the 'Off' side to include Ice that is broken for a minimal credit cost, eg. Corroder will break Wraparound for just 1cr, Mimic will punch through Rototurret or Fenris for 2cr. Where precisely the line is drawn for 'minimal cost' is a subjective one - I think breaking Ice for 3cr (eg. Corroder vs Bastion) is a real grey area that probably depends on efficiently the Runner can generate those credits, but once it's costing the runner 4cr+ to break past a piece of Ice I don't think you can really call that a 'minimal' cost.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Binary ETR Ice, therefore, is Ice that carries a huge amount of value up until the point where the Runner installs an Icebreaker then sees most of that value wiped away. 10 turns into the game it probably costs you more to install an Ice Wall on the end of your server than it costs the Runner to break it, so why bother?</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Binary ETR Ice tends not to care too much about Bad Publicity for the Corp. The Runner can use those credits to break the Ice for free but the Ice wasn't putting up much of an obstacle anyway.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Binary ETR Ice can be supported by effects that trash programs, effectively turning them back 'On' by removing the Icebreakers.</span></li>
</ul>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5DhX3RKWCcA/Uw34niIV4zI/AAAAAAAAAxo/yHzH5mJ_P6M/s1600/Archer.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5DhX3RKWCcA/Uw34niIV4zI/AAAAAAAAAxo/yHzH5mJ_P6M/s1600/Archer.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qVKqMGSP9jQ/Uw34nnFdOII/AAAAAAAAAxk/eLy95nXep6k/s1600/Tollbooth.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qVKqMGSP9jQ/Uw34nnFdOII/AAAAAAAAAxk/eLy95nXep6k/s1600/Tollbooth.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BboQLhU4jWA/Uw34nsOSYEI/AAAAAAAAAxg/3V3I7e6Z5Dk/s1600/Wall+Thorns.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BboQLhU4jWA/Uw34nsOSYEI/AAAAAAAAAxg/3V3I7e6Z5Dk/s1600/Wall+Thorns.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Analog ETR Ice</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Analog' ETR Ice is Ice that carries an ETR subroutine but which is also large enough to still provide a sizeable obstacle to the Runner once they have installed an Icebreaker. We've already discussed that Bastion sits right on the dividing line of being Binary or Analog but some more obvious examples of Analog Ice are cards like Wall of Thorns (5 cr to break with Corroder), Tollbooth (7cr to break with Gordian Blade) or Archer (8cr to break with Garotte, 10cr to break with Ninja!).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While Analog Ice carries on functioning to a high level when the Runner has an Icebreaker this usually comes at a price, with these Ice frequently costing much more to rez than Binary Ice and being vulnerable to cards like Inside Job/Forged Activation Orders/Emergency Shutdown.</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Analog ETR Ice can be badly degraded by handing out Bad Publicity, which gives the Runner free credits to throw at breaking through. The amount that this impacts the Ice depends largely on how much Bad Publicity we're talking about and how much it costs to break the Ice to begin with, but you can find yourself paying over the odds for a Wall of Thorns that's not significantly more of an obstacle to the runner than a Wall of Static.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Analog ETR Ice is often (but not always!) best positioned over Central servers. When there's no Icebreaker around it's expensive to rez something big like a Hadrian's Wall when a Wall of Static would do the same job but once the Runner has an Icebreaker they can pay to punch through the Hadrian's Wall if there is an Agenda on the other side. If it's over R&D or HQ, though, the runner has to pay a lot of cash to get past that Hadrian's Wall just for a 20% chance of hitting an Agenda.</span></li>
</ul>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T5iy5nRvaY8/Uw36nUeZ8GI/AAAAAAAAAx8/0-KwhA4P0nM/s1600/Katana.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T5iy5nRvaY8/Uw36nUeZ8GI/AAAAAAAAAx8/0-KwhA4P0nM/s1600/Katana.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y_upcVU859c/Uw36njNU1PI/AAAAAAAAAyA/apblRWig2Ww/s1600/Shadow.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y_upcVU859c/Uw36njNU1PI/AAAAAAAAAyA/apblRWig2Ww/s1600/Shadow.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OLb6Q0Y7aSg/Uw36nuN-XwI/AAAAAAAAAyI/JUnEO2gcWsc/s1600/Viktor1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OLb6Q0Y7aSg/Uw36nuN-XwI/AAAAAAAAAyI/JUnEO2gcWsc/s1600/Viktor1.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Binary Taxing Ice</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Similar to Binary ETR Ice, Binary Analog Ice is those pieces of Ice where the taxation is virtually entirely removed when the Runner plays an Icebreaker - some good examples are Neural Katana (1cr to break with Mimic vs 3 clicks to redraw lost cards from Net damage) or Viktor v1.0 (completely ignored by Yog.0 instead of taxing two clicks to break the Bioroid subroutines). </span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Binary Taxing Ice usually DOES care about Bad Publicity (unlike Binary ETR Ice). Although it costs a minimal amount to break Binary Taxing Ice the whole point of playing Taxing Ice was to economically drain the runner so handing out any amount of Bad Publicity often runs contrary to that goal</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Binary Taxing Ice can be supported by playing Assets and Upgrades with a high Trash cost, or which further drain the runner's resources (eg. Private Contracts, Eve Campaign, Red Herrings, Caprice Nisei). In this style of play the runner can pay to get get past your Ice but can't achieve anything once they're through.</span></li>
</ul>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NDxVQgaF1I0/Uw3716Z6O_I/AAAAAAAAAzI/3Rd-Z4eR4sI/s1600/Heimdal.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NDxVQgaF1I0/Uw3716Z6O_I/AAAAAAAAAzI/3Rd-Z4eR4sI/s1600/Heimdal.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mFwAXgw9k6U/Uw364GSatRI/AAAAAAAAAyc/1qKGiLKi7d0/s1600/Flare.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mFwAXgw9k6U/Uw364GSatRI/AAAAAAAAAyc/1qKGiLKi7d0/s1600/Flare.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7VBc255TS6A/Uw3639dCOhI/AAAAAAAAAyY/Ktfr4Losqow/s1600/Viktor2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7VBc255TS6A/Uw3639dCOhI/AAAAAAAAAyY/Ktfr4Losqow/s1600/Viktor2.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Analog Taxing Ice</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You've probably got the hang of this by now but Analog Taxing Ice is the bigger pieces of Ice that still require some effort to break through once the Runner has their Icebreakers, and in many cases it may even be cheaper to carry on paying the tax instead of breaking the subroutines with an Icebreaker! The popular barrier Eli v1.0 is perhaps the cheapest Ice that we can consider Analog Taxing Ice, as even with a Corroder in play it costs 4cr to break through and it may well be better to use 2 clicks instead. Other examples might be Flare (5cr to break with Garotte, 7cr to break with Ninja, or fight the Trace attempt) or the big Bioroids like Heimdal, Janus or Wotan (frequently easier to click past than break with Icebreakers).</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As with Binary Taxing Ice, Bad Publicity usually works against the principle of taxing the runner's economy with Taxing Ice - you will rapidly destroy Eli v1.0 as a tax if you hand over Bad Publicity counters. But...</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...some big Analog Taxing Ice (particularly Bioroids) can be so prohibitively expensive to break with Icebreakers that even Bad Publicity doesn't help much - if you hand the runner 3 Bad Publicity credits he'll may still click past Janus v1.0 and take a Brain damage rather than spending another 7cr of his own money to break all the subroutines with Garotte or Ninja.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the top of this section I said I would discuss the impacts of some of the non-standard Icebreakers, like Femme Fatale, Knight and Atman. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Femme Fatale's ability to bypass Ice makes her virtually unique and it's easy to explain both her power and popularity when you understand the difference between Binary and Analog Ice - Femme is perhaps the best card for converting troublesome Analog ice into Binary Ice, which can completely disrupt the structure of the Corp's defenses. A Tollbooth could cost you 7cr to break with Gordian Blade or 1cr to bypass with Femme Fatale, a Heimdal could be swung past for 3cr instead of 7cr, and even the lethal Archer or Janus become little more than speed bumps once they're in Femme's sights. </span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Bu43wOdcrJo/Uw37v3F09-I/AAAAAAAAAzA/rWrb1iS6hAY/s1600/Atman.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Bu43wOdcrJo/Uw37v3F09-I/AAAAAAAAAzA/rWrb1iS6hAY/s1600/Atman.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_luWvA6T3iQ/Uw37hJZbgFI/AAAAAAAAAyw/mM3RYh0uMLo/s1600/femma.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_luWvA6T3iQ/Uw37hJZbgFI/AAAAAAAAAyw/mM3RYh0uMLo/s1600/femma.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mClamKcmMNo/Uw37hJti1RI/AAAAAAAAAy0/XlKUWTEAy9o/s1600/Knight.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mClamKcmMNo/Uw37hJti1RI/AAAAAAAAAy0/XlKUWTEAy9o/s1600/Knight.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Knight is a popular AI Icebreaker that targets Ice in a similar way to Femme Fatale, but because it costs 2cr to break a subroutine with Knight the effect is different - more like converting everything into a taxation Ice. When the Runner knows that they will be running Knight they can prepare to pay this taxation with the minimum fuss, while for the Corp having your Binary ETR strategy converted into a Tax strategy can be enough to force them into trashing their Ice and installing a new piece of Binary ETR Ice in it's place. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The final card to talk about is Atman, once a scourge of Corp decks but now reduced to a bit-player the Shaper AI still warrants a mention because she does something different again as Atman has the potential to turn EVERYTHING into Binary Ice so long as she is kept stocked with enough Datasucker counters to reduce their strength. That was the power of the Katman decks - although it might take time to deploy the full 2x Atman, 2x Datasucker rig was capable of making light work of virtually any server. Many decks today use Atman as another type of Femme Fatale, bringing her in to troubleshoot particular problem pieces of Ice and make them Binary when other traditional Icebreakers might leave them Analog. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Exemplary Examples</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To show you how the Ice you use can be mapped to match your deck's objectives let's look at a couple of successful decks and see how their Ice was sculpted to suit their purposes....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/2631/travis-day-plugged-in-winner"><b>Deck #1: HB Fast Advance</b></a></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fkBmgANpj4g/Uw38Vw_HniI/AAAAAAAAAzU/GQ3jDU6Gqac/s1600/Ice+Wall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fkBmgANpj4g/Uw38Vw_HniI/AAAAAAAAAzU/GQ3jDU6Gqac/s1600/Ice+Wall.jpg" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sgDmkynZ7Mc/Uw38cq3VTrI/AAAAAAAAAzg/STty_aB4tqU/s1600/Grim.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sgDmkynZ7Mc/Uw38cq3VTrI/AAAAAAAAAzg/STty_aB4tqU/s1600/Grim.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kRBGSFota_U/Uw38cig3JwI/AAAAAAAAAzc/JtuCRem8GQA/s1600/Biotic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kRBGSFota_U/Uw38cig3JwI/AAAAAAAAAzc/JtuCRem8GQA/s1600/Biotic.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This deck was one of the early winners in the Plugged In Tour season last year and I like it because it very clearly demonstrates the Binary ETR Ice in action. There is a very clear plan here - the Barriers and Code Gates are all Binary ETR Ice that support the deck in rushing out it's early Agendas. As those Agendas are 3/2s the deck can move quickly to install them behind Ice without having to invest in advancing them, and the ability of Engineering The Future pays back as the deck makes that rapid expansion of installs. The deck forces the runner to installs Fracters and Decoders to break through this Ice but because the deck is also moving quickly the Runner may not have time to find a Killer for Sentry Ice, leaving them exposed to the program trashing of Rototurret and Grim, which then send them back to square one. The deck's cheap binary Ice is turned 'Off' by the Icebreakers but program destruction turns it back 'On' again. Notice also that Travis had no qualms about running the full playset of Grim - the Bad Publicity he was handing out wasn't a problem if the Runner didn't have any Icebreakers to spend it on!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As well as the Ice that the deck DOES play some of the most interesting choices are about the Ice that it DOESN'T play. When Travis posted his winning decklist onto the BoardGameGeek forums one of the very first questions he was asked was this one:</span><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Why do you run Grim instead of Ichi 1.0? And Enigma instead of Viper? Bastion instead of Eli 1.0?"</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the face of it these are all great questions - Ichi costs the same as Grim but trashes two programs and doesn't hand out a Bad Publicity, Viper costs the same as Enigma but has +2 Strength so doesn't fail against Yog.0 and Eli v1.0 costs one less than Bastion and brings a second subroutine. They all sound better than the neutral options Travis decided to play instead, so why was he ignoring his in-faction HB Ice?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hopefully you already know the answer to this question after reading the rest of this blog, the answer being "because those are Taxing Ice, not ETR Ice". Taxing Ice gives the Runner the chance to steal those early 3/2 Agenda that Travis is trying to score. On top of that if you give the runner the option of paying a tax they don't need to install an Icebreaker, and if they don't need to install an Icebreaker then your program trashing Ice loses most (or all) of its value. Travis' deck had a very clear plan, and taxing Ice was not part of that plan.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/1209/-3-4-worlds-nov-2013-jesse-vandover-corpo-nbn"><b>Deck #2: NBN Midseasons</b></a></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gxv8RpdK8-E/Uw38uo4BFtI/AAAAAAAAAzs/Y_thEvKArKk/s1600/Eli.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gxv8RpdK8-E/Uw38uo4BFtI/AAAAAAAAAzs/Y_thEvKArKk/s1600/Eli.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c7GrFpBgXfs/Uw38urULFMI/AAAAAAAAAzw/NChT5Elao04/s1600/Midseason.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c7GrFpBgXfs/Uw38urULFMI/AAAAAAAAAzw/NChT5Elao04/s1600/Midseason.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-M5JNH3V8YdY/Uw38xA-KQqI/AAAAAAAAAz8/K7bcqBVWc3s/s1600/Raven.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-M5JNH3V8YdY/Uw38xA-KQqI/AAAAAAAAAz8/K7bcqBVWc3s/s1600/Raven.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This deck took Jesse Vandover to the Semi-Finals of the World Championships so we know it's a strong deck but it's striking just how different the Ice lineup is from that played by Travis Day in his HB:EtF deck. Of all the Ice played here only 4 pieces carry a hard "End The Run" subroutine that forces the Runner to find an Icebreaker - two copies of Ice Wall and two Enigmas. The other ten pieces of Ice are a mixture of various taxation effects with Eli v1.0 ending the run unless the Runner is prepared to pay a heavy toll in credits or clicks, Shadow and Data Raven threatening to land tags that the Runner must pay clicks and credits to clear, and a lone Ichi v1.0 lurking for unwary last click runs. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like Travis Day's deck, Jesse's deck also has a very clear plan and that is Midseason Replacements. Midseason Replacements is a very powerful card that combines to lethal effect with Psychographics and Project Beale to mean the deck can potentially score 7 Agenda points in a single click! To play Midseason Replacements effectively you need two things to be true - the runner has to steal an Agenda, and you need to have more cash than the Runner when that happens so that you can ensure landing a big Trace attempt. Jesse's use of taxing Ice works perfectly to meet both those aims:</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Runner can score Agendas - only 4 of Jesse's 14 Ice actually End The Run if the Runner doesn't have any Icebreakers. Cards like Ichi and Eli can be clicked through with impunity, and both Shadow and Data Raven do nothing to stop the runner whatsoever.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Runner is drained economically - all this taxing Ice forces the Runner to spend clicks or credits, and in the case of the tagging Ice the threat of building up tags and enabling Psychographics the Runner is forced to spend both clicks and credits clearing the tags after the run is completed.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jesse WANTS the Runner to get into R&D and HQ. He WANTS them to access cards. He WANTS them to score Agendas, so that he can spring his Midseason Replacements trap. What he doesn't want, though, is for the Runner to be able to access R&D or HQ cheaply - stealing one Agenda is perfect, but if the Runner steals three Agendas there could well be a problem. The Ice he's chosen is perfect for this, and for funnelling the Runner onto a diet of slow & steady R&D accesses while Jesse can spend his time building cash and preparing to spring his trap.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Summing Up</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you want a clear example of how the value of Ice changes based on the deck then look no further than the contrast between Jesse's NBN deck and Travis Day's HB, above. Remember those Eli and Ichi that Travis decided not to play in his HB deck even though they were in-faction? Well they're right there in NBN, with Jesse Vandover deciding they were worth spending 1/3rd of his Influence to bring their taxation effects into his NBN deck. It's not the Eli and Ichi are bad cards, far from it, but they didn't work with Travis' game plan while they fit perfectly into Jesse's. Similarly Jesse could have chosen to replace the Eli and Ichi in his deck with the Binary ETR of the Wall of Static and Ice Walls that Travis used (and saved himself Influence in doing so) but that would have run contrary to his plan too - Wall of Static does little to help him force the Runner into slow & steady Central server accesses as it's either a complete block on access or virtually no obstacle at all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They both played completely different Ice but they also both made the right choice, which was to play the Ice that suited their deck's plan.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What you should be taking from this is that the concept of 'good Ice' and 'bad Ice' is too simplistic. The decision between whether to play Eli v1.0 or Bastion/Wall of Static should be more than a simple decision of whether you have the Influence or not, because they do different things. Eli v1.0 will tax the Runner, Wall of Static is Binary ETR, while Bastion can either function as overpriced Binary ETR or as an Analog ETR depending on the rest of your deck. The Ice cannot be taken in isolation from the rest of the deck, and instead you've got to know what your deck is trying to achieve in order to play the correct Ice to support that strategy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hopefully you've found this a cool article (geddit? Ice is cold, see?) and it will help you in designing better defenses for your own Corp decks in the future!</span><br />
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Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-17434060113727633112014-02-19T05:34:00.001-08:002014-02-19T05:34:33.317-08:00Fear & Loathing Set Review<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After leaving us in a bit of a spoiler drought for a while FFG have finally started paying out, with the last week seeing some cards from Lunar Cycle, a few Jinteki cards from Honor & Profit, and now we are getting our dirty little hands on the full Fear and Loathing set - the 5th release in Spin Cycle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is one of the weaker Data Packs we've seen recently, IMHO, so rather than dedicate two big blogs to it I'm going to try and whizz through the Runner and Corp cards all at once. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I couldn't any good icons of Johnny Depp so let's go generic, with the Power Tokens scale...</span><br />
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<span style="clear: left; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" /></a>1</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">Fun? Thematic? Cool? Maybe. Good? No.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Got that? Let's go for it! </span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(and apologies for some of the photo qualities - these are the grainy first shots that leaked out onto the net)</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-autHmobQ3tM/UwSXC8EumOI/AAAAAAAAAuI/8ocoqHNk4so/s1600/Haemorrahge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-autHmobQ3tM/UwSXC8EumOI/AAAAAAAAAuI/8ocoqHNk4so/s1600/Haemorrahge.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BLW6eOTOAL0/UwSXDHtIY2I/AAAAAAAAAuU/MX8fZMCuKY8/s1600/Quest+Completed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BLW6eOTOAL0/UwSXDHtIY2I/AAAAAAAAAuU/MX8fZMCuKY8/s1600/Quest+Completed.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E7rckiM-d9A/UwSXG5B5vbI/AAAAAAAAAuk/n7-ItON4ToQ/s1600/tallie-perrault.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E7rckiM-d9A/UwSXG5B5vbI/AAAAAAAAAuk/n7-ItON4ToQ/s1600/tallie-perrault.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Hemorrhage</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a rule I like cards that add effects onto doing things you already want to do (like making successful runs - hello Desperado, Datasucker, John Masanori...) and a part of me quite likes this card. What I have a real problem with is that using the effect requires a click. That pretty much kills it for me because the click efficiency you get from tagging this onto a successful run is lost when you want to actually use the counters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Quest Completed</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Hey look, Notoriety got color-shifted! In fact Quest Completed is a neat card and one that is almost certainly better than Notoriety - rather than just score 1 point for yourself you potentially steal 2 or 3 points from the Corp, which could be a huge tempo shift. I think it's still way to much effort than it's worth, but while I'd give Notoriety only 1 out of 5 I'm going to give Quest Complete the benefit of the doubt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Tallie Perault</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tallie hands out Bad Publicity whenever the Corp does something shady. Handing out a Bad Publicity is great stuff but this really boils down to what counts as 'something shady'.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Grey Ops</u> - Big Brother, Closed Accounts, Freelancer, Invasion of Privacy, Neural EMP, Power Shutdown, Subliminal Messaging (see below)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Black Ops</u> - Hellion Alpha Test, Punitive Counterstrike, Scorched Earth</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The three cards that really stand out there are Closed Accounts, Power Shutdown, and the new Subliminal Messaging - it's likely that all three of those cards will see play in tournaments. Other cards like Invasion of Privacy and Punitive Counterstrike are on the fringes but not really good enough, while cards like Neural EMP and Scorched Earth tend to only get played as part of a flatline win, when you don't have long enough to enjoy the Bad Publicity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think Tallie is a very interesting card and one that is likely to crop up in quite a few decks - being able to dish out multiple Bad Publicity is very useful and that she's a Connection you can find with Hostage makes her attractive as a splash into Criminal (although 3 influence is a heavy price to pay).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Cybersolutions Mem Chip</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4 credits for 2MU is expensive but there are some decks that want that much MU. I don't see this ever cropping up in competitive decks because you set yourself back hugely by investing in that much MU, but some casual decks will lap up the extra MU for their monster rig.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Alpha</b> and <b>Omega</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These cards obviously come as a pair - for those who couldn't squint to make the card out in that photo Alpha is an AI breaker that can break any OUTER piece of Ice, while Omega is the same for any INNER piece of Ice. Install both and any 2-Ice server is child's play. Great! But is it? Any 3-Ice server makes you go away and find another breaker anyway, so why waste 14 credits on some inefficient AI breakers that don't even get the job done?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know that Kit players will get some value from Omega (Kit's ability is like a built-in Alpha for the first run of each turn) but even then a third piece of Ice scuppers your plan and 7 just feels like far too much for these ultimately limited AI Breakers</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Both cards pull the same rating from me:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Executive Wiretap</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I didn't like Expert Schedule Analyser (which let you repeatedly see the Corp's hand for a successful run, for 0 cost). I'm DEFINITELY not a fan of spending 4 credits and 2 clicks just to flash a look at their HQ. Terrible, terrible card.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Blackguard is one of those cards that just begs to have a deck built around it - Satellite Uplinks, Infiltrations, Lemuria Codecrackers. Those decks will only be for fun, though. Blackguard won't trash cards the Corp can't afford to rez so there's no permanent benefit aside from forcing the Corp to jink left when you want to run right, and at the hefty price of 11 credits for the privilege you're paying a long way over the odds. I like it. It's fun. But it's not good.<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Blackmail</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you can play this card it's IMMENSE. The ultimate server-sniping tool I think it's too early to say just how much impact Blackmail will have on how Runners play the game, but potentially it's revolutionary. If you can create a deck that forces the Corp to leave Agendas sitting in play before scoring them (eg. with The Source) and then sit back and snipe those Agendas with Blackmail then I don't really see what the Corp can do about it. This all requires the ability to consistently have Bad Publicity, and that's the difficult part of the equation, but if you can crack that then there could well be a whole new way to play the Runner, based around Blackmail.<br /><br />As a Corp the existence of Blackmail asks real questions about your approach to Bad Publicity while making Fast Advance techniques more powerful, and arguably making traps or tricky assets like Bernice Mai better as well because they bait out the Blackmails.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It all really depends on how reliably the Runners feel they will have Bad Publicity. Blackmail could be a tournament staple or could be almost entirely unplayed, dependent on the Bad Publicity, but to my mind Blackmail has the<i> potential </i>to be the most important card printed in a <u>long</u> time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A tentative...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CMlbo38lHNE/UwSicwjNOeI/AAAAAAAAAvY/1Wmax0Tt1Iw/s1600/GRNDL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CMlbo38lHNE/UwSicwjNOeI/AAAAAAAAAvY/1Wmax0Tt1Iw/s1600/GRNDL.jpg" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rx-gfPYyaNw/UwSif28T7HI/AAAAAAAAAwU/K88sstvc5DI/s1600/grndl-refinery.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rx-gfPYyaNw/UwSif28T7HI/AAAAAAAAAwU/K88sstvc5DI/s1600/grndl-refinery.png" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2mPa49iyyLQ/UwSiejwHEJI/AAAAAAAAAv8/KTozVeRWX4Q/s1600/Vulcan+Coverup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2mPa49iyyLQ/UwSiejwHEJI/AAAAAAAAAv8/KTozVeRWX4Q/s1600/Vulcan+Coverup.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>GRNDL</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's been a while since we got a new ID in a Data Pack, and in this one Weyland gets GRNDL, which is basically starting the game with a free Hostile Takeover (trading 5 credits for 1 Bad Publicity), although you lose 5 Influence to do so.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On first impressions I don't like GRNDL at all. Hostile Takeover is one of the best Agendas in the game so why is it bad to start with a free one? Well, because you don't start with a whole Hostile Takeover - you don't start with an Agenda point and you don't start with an Agenda you can use to rez Archer, either. In comparison with the excellent Building A Better World I see GRNDL generating less credits over the course of a game and also handing out a Bad Publicity, which is bad (see: Blackmail) and then doing it with 5 Influence less, to boot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My one caveat is that for some reason FFG made a point about dropping the Influence to 10. They had to have a reason. Maybe it's something we haven't seen yet. Maybe something is coming that makes it incredible to have 5 more credits and a Bad Publicity. I don't know. On the face of it, though, I think most Weyland players will stick to Building A Better World instead of swapping it for life on an oil rig.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>GRNDL Refinery</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Weyland loves money but I think the Refinery doesn't pay out quite as much as it first appears - it was a one-shot you could Install-Advance-Trash for 4 credits over 3 clicks, which isn't much better than clicking for cash. Say you compare it to Melange, and Install it one turn then Advance-Advance-Trash - that's 8 credits from 4 clicks, which is 2 more than you get from Melange (which costs 1 to gain 7) but Melange hasn't been trashed and forces the Runner to waste clicks and credits trashing it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So for GRNDL Refinery to outperform Melange Mining Corp it has to sit around for multiple turns without being touched. That's tough to do, and you're taking a huge risk that the runner will come in and steal those credits. Weyland gets plenty of cash from Transactions and in my mind the Refinery is a risk that Weyland doesn't need to take. Do not invest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Vulcan Coverup</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Weyland has some of the best Agendas in the game (Hostile Takeover, Project Atlas, Geothermal Fracking) so it will take something special for Vulcan Coverup to barge into Weyland decks, and although Meat damage is welcome just dealing 2 random Meat damage when you score an Agenda is unlikely to make much difference at all to a game - it doesn't help you push towards a flatline with Scorched Earth. That playing it in your deck risks the runner scoring Bad Publicity is just helping me to make my mind up and ignore this card.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still, it's a 3/1 Agenda and they're never ALL bad...</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pNCMwwMWdRw/UwSid9nFcgI/AAAAAAAAAwQ/lobxGfpr0Ek/s1600/Market+Research.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pNCMwwMWdRw/UwSid9nFcgI/AAAAAAAAAwQ/lobxGfpr0Ek/s1600/Market+Research.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZzOSaX45Fek/UwSifCBlOSI/AAAAAAAAAwY/GS8UOIrdr1Q/s1600/Wraparound.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZzOSaX45Fek/UwSifCBlOSI/AAAAAAAAAwY/GS8UOIrdr1Q/s1600/Wraparound.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Market Research</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Somebody in the FFG team loves to play NBN. If there is any gap at all in NBN's Agenda mix it's that Character Assassination is good but not great. Enter Market Research, which fills in nicely. The current trend at the moment is for NBN to play Midseason Replacements and leave the runner tagged for most of the game, and that plays directly into Market Research's hands. As a possible 4/3 this creates some very attractive 7-point scoring scenarios with Astroscript Pilot Program and Project Beale, and because the runner scores it as a 4/2 it means NBN can functionally play more Agenda Points for its own ends than are in there for the Runner.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I suspect it won't replace Character Assassination in all NBN decks, but it will do so in many.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Wraparound</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Somebody in the FFG team <i>really</i> loves to play NBN. Wraparound is the Barrier gift that keeps on giving - not only is it good enough to replace most Ice Walls that NBN is currently bringing in with Influence, at only 1 Influence of its own Wraparound may actually start replacing Ice Wall in non-NBN decks!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Wait, what? Am I saying that Wraparound is BETTER than Ice Wall?!?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In certain circumstances, yes, it is. Let's break it down...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) Once a Fracter is in play Wraparound is a 0 strength wall for Ice Wall's 1 strength. That won't make a difference against pretty much any Fracter, so it doesn't cost any less to break Wraparound with Corroder or Battering Ram than it costs to break Ice Wall.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) If a Fracter isn't in play then Ice Wall is still vulnerable to AI breakers (Crypsis, Atman) or to being destroyed by a Parasite. At Strength 7 the Wraparound is much better in these situations, although it does still get broken by Knight (nobody's perfect, right?). As a niche benefit, this makes Wraparound a lot better than Ice Wall vs Kit, who loves breaking Barriers with Decoders.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So Wraparound is no worse than Ice Wall vs Fracters, and better vs non-Fracters. The only things counting against replacing every Ice Wall with Wraparound is that it costs 1 more to rez, and in some cases you do actually advance Ice Wall to a higher strength. Balancing those two means Ice Wall comes out just ahead in the race, but in metagames with lots of Atman or Parasites there's a strong case for putting in Wraparound ahead of Ice Wall.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Make no mistake, Wraparound is a fantastic card that demands to be evaluated alongside one of the best piece of Ice ever printed - Ice Wall.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4QOM6QKCevw/UwSidxqy5hI/AAAAAAAAAv0/0eFzvLB89_I/s1600/Sakai.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4QOM6QKCevw/UwSidxqy5hI/AAAAAAAAAv0/0eFzvLB89_I/s1600/Sakai.jpg" height="200" width="143" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kLJ6OEHl_yg/UwSidZyfRpI/AAAAAAAAAvw/nPV3Y9_oZrM/s1600/Face+Yagura.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kLJ6OEHl_yg/UwSidZyfRpI/AAAAAAAAAvw/nPV3Y9_oZrM/s1600/Face+Yagura.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Toshiyuki Sakai</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Toshi got spoiled a long time ago and we've had plenty of time to digest what he does, which is... not much. Toshiyuki Sakai lets you replace a mind game that the Runner already made a decision about (Agenda or Trap)... with the same mind game, only you've given them a bit more information to make their decision with.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This will be played by Jinteki players because Jinteki players play all sorts of garbage and convince themselves they're using some sort of ESP to beat the Runner. In reality it's a waste of space.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Restoring Face</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not usually a fan of cards that remove Bad Publicity and Saving Face isn't much of an exception. The list of Sysops, Executives and Clones is a mixed bag but basically contains cards you don't want in your deck to begin with (Isabel McGuire, Akitaro Watanabe) and cards that are so good you'd be crazy to trash them voluntarily (Jackson Howard, Chairman Hiro, Caprice Nisei). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amazing flavor, though. One of the most thematically strong cards I've seen. I won't play it, but I like it.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Yagura</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yagura is a card that makes me really angry. I love this card. I love the cost, and I love that for that cost you get two subroutines. I love the ability to passively do net damage and I REALLY love the opportunity to filter a card from top of R&D. I love everything about Yagura. That is, I love everything aside from the fact that Yog.0 exists, which means that this beautiful piece of game design is unplayable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fucking Yog.0, man. That card should not exist.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kF8eU-m1nwI/UwSidXWnRII/AAAAAAAAAvs/A6ANeOHb4sw/s1600/Blue+Level+Clearance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kF8eU-m1nwI/UwSidXWnRII/AAAAAAAAAvs/A6ANeOHb4sw/s1600/Blue+Level+Clearance.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s3a3VNRwoiA/UwSieZrmn-I/AAAAAAAAAwE/tL5GErpKvNE/s1600/Strongbox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s3a3VNRwoiA/UwSieZrmn-I/AAAAAAAAAwE/tL5GErpKvNE/s1600/Strongbox.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NXImwvHtr_U/UwStVf9HtLI/AAAAAAAAAwo/-Ioyd_Yo1Vs/s1600/Subliminal-Messaging-Android-Netrunner-Spoiler-e1381507179385.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NXImwvHtr_U/UwStVf9HtLI/AAAAAAAAAwo/-Ioyd_Yo1Vs/s1600/Subliminal-Messaging-Android-Netrunner-Spoiler-e1381507179385.jpg" height="200" width="145" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Blue Level Clearance</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Obviously a step deeper down the rabbit hole than Green Level Clearance, but is Blue Level as good as the original? In short, no. A Double event, Blue Level Clearance gives you a Green Level Clearance with your first click then 2/3rds of one with your second click. It's a solid benefit but in drawing two cards in two clicks you're actually very likely to have to discard at least one of the cards you drew, further limiting what you got from that second click.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think we'll see it played in (some) HB decks - Cerebral Imaging loves it - but I don't think anyone will spend 2 Influence on taking this into another faction.<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ce8Os7xVZyg/UwSaqJI4VGI/AAAAAAAAAvA/SHufpnAyOQw/s1600/815b944d-d7db-4846-8be2-20852a1c9530.png" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Strongbox</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Bioroid version of Red Herrings, only Red Herrings is usually better (when you do you ever get to switch a click for 5 credits). The strength of this is over R&D when you've got something like a Heimdal in front of it - sure you can click through Heimdal but won't have any clicks left on the other side. Bioroids work when they hit a critical mass of click taxing and Strongbox helps with that. But with such a low trash cost would you ever play Strongbox over Ash?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Subliminal Messaging</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It takes a bit of lateral thought to work out what Subliminal Messaging does. If you aren't recurring it then the answer is very simple, which is that it did virtually nothing - you got a credit without spending a click, but had to spend that click to draw Subliminal Messaging instead of a different card in the first place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If the runner doesn't run, however, you get to pick up Subliminal Messaging from the Archvies and get a free credit out of it. That's nice. If you had mutliple Subliminal Messagings in the Archives you can pick them all up, but basically only the first one is worth playing over clicking for a credit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Subliminal Messaging is a card that I'm going to hold my hands up and say I haven't worked out yet. I can't tell if the drip-drip credit benefit you get from Subliminal Messaging (only on turns when the Runner hasn't run) is worth the card slots in your deck. I kind of suspect it isn't, especially considering that modern Runners like Andromeda run A LOT so you won't often be picking Subliminal Messaging up from Archives. Corp economy has got much better throughout Spin Cycle and I feel as though Subliminal Messaging is coming too late to see play.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I can't rule out that Subliminal Messaging does just enough to ensure that it's never bad and always slightly helps, in which case it becomes the first three cards on every Corp decklist.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You want a rating? Ok then...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What did I get right? What did I get wrong? Tell me your own opinions below, please!</span></div>
Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-59052390065142345602014-02-18T03:52:00.000-08:002014-02-18T05:00:32.915-08:00Raging Bull - The Weyland "Supermodernism" deck<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">The first Store Championship in my area came around this past weekend and saw myself and three of the local players that I have dragged into a team for the Champs make the 40 minute train journey down to Stoke-on-Trent and the <b><a href="http://www.guysthatgame.co.uk/">Guys That Game</a> </b>store. I managed to finish in second place, posting a 13-1 winning record in games but missing out on the Regionals bye and a shiny placque despite only losing a single game all day - my 1-7 defeat as a Corp in the Final much worse than my 7-6 victory as a runner.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KBFUFfCLuiA/UwNDASmJgLI/AAAAAAAAArY/0imWcA5ehcI/s1600/BULL+TRANS.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KBFUFfCLuiA/UwNDASmJgLI/AAAAAAAAArY/0imWcA5ehcI/s1600/BULL+TRANS.gif" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Since I put out the rallying call for Manchester Netrunner players to band together we've done a good job of getting increasingly serious and I think everyone involved has raised their game. Working together means you make better deckbuilding and selection decisions, and you've also got extra pairs of eyes watching you play and suggesting how to do things differently. Somehow the four of us all found ourselves backing the same Corp deck - the "Supermodernism" brand of Weyland - while on the Runner side we more divided, taking an Andromeda, a Gabe deck, and two Reina Roja's.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">I want to share with you the the Corp deck that we all played because we had a couple of different views on it...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;" /><br />Weyland: Building A Better World</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agendas (12)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3 Hostile Takeover</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2 False Lead</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3 Project Atlas</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3 Geothermal Fracking<br />1 Government Contracts</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Operations (16)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2 Anonymous Tip **</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3 Beanstalk Royalties</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3 Green Level Clearance ***</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2 Power Shutdown<br />2 SEA Source ****</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3 Scorched Earth</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3 Hedge Fund</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Assets (3)<br />3 Snare! ******</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ice (16)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2 Chimera</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3 Ice Wall</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3 Wall of Static</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3 Enigma</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3 Archer</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2 Grim</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/2154/supermodernism-shutdown"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;">View the deck on NetrunnerDB</span></a></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jKKBueQjYnI/UwNDsUifDqI/AAAAAAAAAr4/R0bqL6nuNUc/s1600/chimera.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><br style="line-height: 18.459999084472656px;" />This is the "Supermodernism" style of Weyland which has long been championed by the US player Martin Presley ("Hoobajoo" on the Boardgamegeek forums). He used it to win a Plugged In Tour last year and then the revised versions of the deck have been picked up by several players since then and it's already won some Store Championships in the last couple of weeks. 100% of the credit for this decklist goes to Martin as I played the exact 49 cards that he used to win his Store Championship in Berkeley.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;" /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Supermodernism has some tremendous strengths - it's quick and powerful, bringing to bear some of the best early End The Run ice (Ice Wall, Chimera, Enigma, Wall of Static) and then pushing Agenda quickly to get to 7 Agenda Points, using cards like Green Level Clearance and Anonymous Tip to keep up the pace and ensure it's never short of Agendas to score. The hard ETR ice is supported by the threat of program destruction from Archer and Grim, bullying the runner into being cautious about running at unrezzed Ice unless they're really ready to tangle with a big Destroyer. </span></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AqA2cjeLdZQ/UwNDseJ6mSI/AAAAAAAAAr0/OfEPz0kuqYM/s1600/archer.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AqA2cjeLdZQ/UwNDseJ6mSI/AAAAAAAAAr0/OfEPz0kuqYM/s1600/archer.png" height="200" width="141" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jKKBueQjYnI/UwNDsUifDqI/AAAAAAAAAr4/R0bqL6nuNUc/s1600/chimera.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jKKBueQjYnI/UwNDsUifDqI/AAAAAAAAAr4/R0bqL6nuNUc/s1600/chimera.png" height="200" width="141" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ejv7qzTAbPY/UwNDsd0eB0I/AAAAAAAAArw/dTrrFrg01ec/s1600/Ice+Wall.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ejv7qzTAbPY/UwNDsd0eB0I/AAAAAAAAArw/dTrrFrg01ec/s1600/Ice+Wall.png" height="200" width="141" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As well as being quick and powerful the deck is also dangerous, with 10 cards dedicated to putting an unwary runner into the ground (Snare, SEA Source, False Lead, Scorched Earth). The final kicker is that all the Agendas in this deck are EXCELLENT once scored, and feed back into the deck's momentum towards a win - Hostile Takeover is money and fodder for Archer, False Lead can prevent the runner drawing cards and clearing tags after hitting Snare!, Geothermal Fracking is two huge pay days and Project Atlas is, well... perhaps the best card in the deck as if you can force it through overadvanced (which you always try to do) it's either SEA Source + Scorched Earth, or Hostile Takeover x2, or Power Shutdown, or money... whatever you need.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wg-3SPeVVG4/UwNEXOgbYKI/AAAAAAAAAsU/YiFVxio7jkg/s1600/Snare.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wg-3SPeVVG4/UwNEXOgbYKI/AAAAAAAAAsU/YiFVxio7jkg/s1600/Snare.png" height="200" width="141" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bICj3i4hr4w/UwNEW2OZ69I/AAAAAAAAAsM/fPmMlqwAxtA/s1600/SEA+Source.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bICj3i4hr4w/UwNEW2OZ69I/AAAAAAAAAsM/fPmMlqwAxtA/s1600/SEA+Source.png" height="200" width="141" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dJHayOLswiI/UwNEXGBHalI/AAAAAAAAAsQ/_GdtMm3rLJI/s1600/Scorched+Earth.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dJHayOLswiI/UwNEXGBHalI/AAAAAAAAAsQ/_GdtMm3rLJI/s1600/Scorched+Earth.png" height="200" width="141" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This all puts the runner into a terrible position: they have to move fast because Supermodernism is scoring Agendas and isn't about to stop, but if they aren't careful they'll faceplant into an Archer or Snare! or leave themselves with too few cards in hand and get nailed by Scorched Earth. Run too slowly and the Corp scores out, run quickly and you die.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;"> </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those are all the strengths of the deck but it also has a couple of key weaknesses. Firstly, if I had to describe this deck as an animal I think it's probably a Bull - quick, powerful, and dangerous describes an angry Bull very well. But like a Bull it often lacks stamina and if it fails to get out to 7 Agenda Points, or fails to gore the runner with Scorched Earth, then it can become helpless. Once the runner is equipped with a full rig - once they can break your Ice and aren't scared of Archer - there's precious few tricks that can surprise the runner and turn things around. With your Bull reduced to a breathless standstill the runner can close in pick you off at will. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second weakness of this deck is Variance - in the pursuit of speed and power the deck takes a calculated risk and plays Anonymous Tip instead of Jackson Howard. The advantages are all about speed - in one click you see 2 extra cards, which with Jackson would take several clicks and a remote server. Those clicks can be the difference between drawing then Install-Advancing an Agenda, or having it sat in hand and doing everything a turn more slowly. It sounds good, but in going for speed the deck lives without the release valve of Jackson Howard for those occasions where it finds itself flooded with Agendas and unable to get them scored. When your hand is good Anonymous Tip is great, but in those games where your opening hand was 3 Agendas and no Ice you really want Jackson Howard like no other card in the game.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;"> </span><br />
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I had personal experience of this in the Final of the Store Championships, where Anonymous Tip cost me the title. I mulliganed my initial hand, receiving a hand of Enigma, Hedge Fund, Hostile Takeover, Geothermal Fracking and Anonymous Tip. That wasn't too bad - two agendas but economy and a playable Ice. My first draw, however, was Government Contracts. I drew a card to look for more Ice, drawing False Beanstalk Royalties, then played Hedge Fund and protected HQ with Enigma. On my second turn I pumped Anonymous Tip and drew two more Agendas and an Ice Wall. That gave me Ice for a remote but I was now flooded with 5 of my 12 Agendas. Instead of helping me escape my problems the Anonymous Tip made things worse - replace it with Jackson Howard in that scenario and I've got a release valve that shuffles 4 of those Agendas back into HQ and we have a game on our hands. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anonymous Tip is in the deck for a reason, but not playing Jackson Howard WILL cost you games at some point, it's just a matter of when.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;"> </span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">VARIANTS</b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">All four of my team played Supermodernism at the Store Championships, with two clear variants appearing among us. Two of us (myself included) opted for the card draw of Green Level Clearance and Anonymous Tip, while the other two players took a more measured approach and spent their influence on Aggressive Secretary, with Restructure for the economy. This is a really interesting shift between the two versions that takes us back to the <a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-three-phases-of-netrunner.html"><b>Three Phases of Netrunner</b></a> I talked about a while back. Supermodernism is a deck that lives entirely within that Second Phase, closing the door on Phase One with cheap Ice then hoping Archer and Grim can keep Phase Three at bay long enough to win the game.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With Green Level Clearance and Anonymous Tip the deck weights towards that early rush - it's do or die, just be too quick and too strong. When you take that card draw out for Aggressive Secretary you lose that momentum in the early stage and are more likely to find yourself playing in Phase Three, but what you gain is a couple of 'reset switches' that can kick the runner back out into Phase Two. Is one version stronger than the other? Well I played the card draw and did well with it, which is the choice of the deck's designer, but they're both tempting options and if I had the space and influence I would probably play both.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aside from the main variant we came up with that used Aggressive Secretary there are a few card choices to talk through:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Corporate Troubleshooter</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />This card game from a version played by Kiv6 from the BGG forums, which is also where we first saw the Aggressive Secretary. The idea of Corporate Troubleshooter is that it means you can guarantee hitting with Archer if you're prepared to stick enough credits into the Troubleshooter and raise Archer's strength. Of all the cards though, we felt this was most situational - it's only good when you've got an Archer unrezzed over a server the runner wants to get into, and lots of credits. Worse, because it's the only Upgrade in the deck a Runner who knows you might play it can predict with great accuracy that your Agenda/Upgrade server is featuring a Troubleshooter, so there's little surprise value.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>The Cleaners</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bAQ0qCD8I4I/UwNH7YXDBLI/AAAAAAAAAtI/QrvsWYAVQEM/s1600/cleaners.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bAQ0qCD8I4I/UwNH7YXDBLI/AAAAAAAAAtI/QrvsWYAVQEM/s1600/cleaners.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An option to Government Contracts, The Cleaners helps your Scorched Earths to pound through Plascrete Carapace. Suddenly SEA/Scorch/Scorch does 10 damage, which is more than a Runner with Plascrete Carapace and 5 cards in hand can survive. Sounds great, so why didn't I play it? Well, half the team did take The Cleaners to Stoke, just on the off chance it made a difference. I switched to Government Contracts on the day of the tournament after 30 or 40 games of playing The Cleaners and it only making a difference once. The problem with The Cleaners is that when you score your 5/3 you're usually quite close to winning on Agenda Points anyway, especially if you then score a Project Atlas with two counters so you can go and find your lethal double-Scorch combo. The difference between the two cards is personal taste, I think, but in my experience the Government Contracts helped more in one day than The Cleaners have helped in a month of testing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Caduceus</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Qg6azR5Zhyc/UwNIRdSe3KI/AAAAAAAAAtQ/8dWnz2KHHNk/s1600/Caduceus.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Qg6azR5Zhyc/UwNIRdSe3KI/AAAAAAAAAtQ/8dWnz2KHHNk/s1600/Caduceus.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Caduceus is an amazing piece of Weyland Ice and it's great early game ETR so why isn't it in the deck? There's a couple of reasons why it doesn't quite fit; firstly you use a lot of Bad Publicity and that quickly wipes out the Trace value of Caduceus, and secondly with a bank of five Destroyer sentries you don't want to force the Runner to install a Sentry breaker before you spring your surprise destroyer. The card in Caduceus' slot is probably Chimera, which is an excellent choice for temporarily holding the Runner away from a remote server long enough to score a big Agenda.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Jackson Howard</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-07VasNefpg4/UwNIXECyg8I/AAAAAAAAAtY/aABIwV49d8Y/s1600/jackson.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-07VasNefpg4/UwNIXECyg8I/AAAAAAAAAtY/aABIwV49d8Y/s1600/jackson.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've already touched on this above. If you are running with Anonymous Tip instead of Jackson Howard then you are playing Hardcore mode. Understand and accept the risk. If you're not comfortable with it then play Jackson Howard. Jackson is a great card that shores up a key weakness in the deck. If you are running without Jackson Howard make sure you are doing so in full knowledge of the possible consequences - the Tip will help you to win games but the absense of Jackson Howard WILL mean you lose a game at some point.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Punitive Counterstrike</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fmictUIqZeU/UwNItIY1_3I/AAAAAAAAAtg/YweA1AUBads/s1600/Punitive.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fmictUIqZeU/UwNItIY1_3I/AAAAAAAAAtg/YweA1AUBads/s1600/Punitive.png" height="200" width="143" /></a></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why are you not playing more Meat damage to support Scorched Earth? Well, because Punitive Counterstrike rarely actually helps you to kill the opponent, assuming they've got a Plascrete Carapace - you don't have the four clicks to play SEA-Scorch-Scorch-Counterstrike so you can still not do more than 8 Meat damage in a turn. If you Counterstrike ahead of the killing turn you MAY remove two counters from Plascrete but a good runner will simply take the damage and leave his Carapace intact.<br style="background-color: white;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><b>FINAL WORD </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My experience is that this deck is very strong and very competitive but if anything it has become a victim of its own success. The more it wins the more publicity it gets and the more Runners learn about it and how to beat it. In my 7 games in the Store Championships I only flatlined one opponent because everyone else knew exactly how to avoid getting killed. I still won, which is a testament to how good the deck is at bullying its way to 7 Agenda Points, but I had to work really hard for every single one of my wins and my teammates were not so lucky, struggling to put much of a winning run together with the deck. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Supermodernism is <u>very</u> good against weak players who simply cannot cope with the speed of the rush and will make mistakes allowing you to flatline them. Against the best players you have to pretty much forget the flatline kill and play for 7AP right from the start. The deck definitely has the chops to win games against strong players who know it well because it can be too strong and too quick, but those wins are hard to come by. A</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">s we go through the Store Championships season I expect to see most experienced Runners get to grips with how to balance the required pressure and restraint needed to tire this Bull out, but if you know your local Store Championship crowd will fall for the flatline then I can heartily recommend Supermodernism as an excellent deck.</span></span></div>
Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-67490115303578147052014-02-14T05:25:00.000-08:002014-02-14T05:25:20.735-08:00All Quiet On The Western Front<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you're wondering why I've been so quiet recently it's because I managed to place myself in a bit of a pickle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Following <a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.com/2014/01/building-better-you-learning-from.html"><b>my own advice</b></a> I formed an intrepid band of local players together into a team to prepare for the Store Championships season. In the last month I've probably played more Netrunner than ever before, and thought about Netrunner more than ever before... I just can't tell you anything about it.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XOy7ie2sgCg/Uv4YmAL63cI/AAAAAAAAAq0/vQLUwFahk4k/s1600/careless+talk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XOy7ie2sgCg/Uv4YmAL63cI/AAAAAAAAAq0/vQLUwFahk4k/s1600/careless+talk.jpg" height="400" width="261" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Normally I wouldn't be too bothered about offering up information about decks I like & decks I don't like, or what I think is good or bad. There's always a chance I'll wind up playing against somebody who reads my blog and it will come back and bite me in the bum, but I'm happy to take that risk. When I'm going to be talking about the decks that my teammates are also playing I think I owe it to them not to spill the beans, though. I don't want to have to explain to a friend of mine why they lost a match just because I told their opponent how to beat them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I've lots to say, and I will say it... just not right now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My first Store Championships is 48 hours away and hopefully I will be able to tell you all about the hjinks that went on. Good luck to everyone taking part in Store Champs in the next few weeks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Remember to lock your S-Foils in attack position!</span>Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-19604212382104911852014-01-24T04:55:00.001-08:002014-01-24T04:55:12.431-08:00It Came From The Web<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Somewhere along the way my blog posts have become monsters. 1,000 words became 1,500, became 2,000, became 3,000... the Godzilla of blogs trampling through Tokyo, leaving me battered and exhausted in its wake.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm going to try and mix it up a bit more so that I'm not left feeling like I can't post anything shorter than War & Peace. I'll still churn out plenty of big pieces but I'll also try to throw out more 'nuggets' of good Netrunner stuff that either occur to me, or which I find scattered in various corners of the internet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today I'm going to point you to three things I've found which are very different, and for very different reasons.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1 - Agenda 7</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agenda7 is a Canadian blog/podcast combo that tackle a whole range of subjects and is definitely worth adding to your regular trawls for good Netrunner info and insight. In the interests of transparency I only found their site because somebody told me that this blog got namechecked on their latest podcast, but if you like somebody then does it really matter how you were first introduced?</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WMc8GRPlfYA/UuJc5g0_StI/AAAAAAAAAqI/fFjDXMKgUrI/s1600/Agenda7.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WMc8GRPlfYA/UuJc5g0_StI/AAAAAAAAAqI/fFjDXMKgUrI/s1600/Agenda7.png" height="435" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />I would return the favor by mentioning them anyway but I'm more than happy to do so because I really enjoyed listening in to their show. My coverage writing career began when I was fortunate enough to be a part of Rich Hagon beginning his stratospheric rise to the Pro Tour booth with a humble 4-man podcast called MoxRadio so I know the Agenda7 format well and know it's an easy one to get wrong, but I thought they did a great job. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well worth a read and a listen!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>2 - OnoSendai</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OnoSendai is a new card database/search tool that has just been launched and it is very swish. I know a lot of people use the tool on CardGameDB, and although I use CGDB's deckbuilder I've always preferred NetrunnerDB for simply finding cards and answering mid-deckbuild questions like "what cards do damage that I've forgotten about?" or "I've got an Influence left to spend, what only costs 1 Influence?".</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3ZQ27g57Fwk/UuJc-ydAlZI/AAAAAAAAAqQ/5-KOWipao8g/s1600/Ono+Sendai+Card+Search.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3ZQ27g57Fwk/UuJc-ydAlZI/AAAAAAAAAqQ/5-KOWipao8g/s1600/Ono+Sendai+Card+Search.png" height="316" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On first analysis OnoSendai is more like NetrunnerDB, although there is a promised deckbuilder coming soon. Many of the functionalities are similar between the two sites but the OnoSendai interface is super-slick and intuitive, with the usual grid of cards updating live as you change filters instead of going away to run a search, and a nifty Itunes-style horizontal card flicking option. A really nice touch is that the Ice and Icebreakers come with a second tab that provides you with the cost required to either break Ice, or be broken by Icebreakers, which gives you a really quick and clear way of comparing cards.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1N87haHFNXo/UuJdExQ1bLI/AAAAAAAAAqY/zplBX7h2Kd0/s1600/Ono+Sendai+Breakers.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1N87haHFNXo/UuJdExQ1bLI/AAAAAAAAAqY/zplBX7h2Kd0/s1600/Ono+Sendai+Breakers.png" height="233" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A deckbuilder tool is coming and I'm sure there will be a host of little improvements to come. For a debut version OnoSendai is very impressive and well worth a look.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>3 - Fear In My Heart's Cyber-Future</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Posted as part of the Imaginary Funerals project this piece might well be a one-off - I don't know if the author intends on writing more about Netrunner in future - but this was a nice little piece I found posted on Reddit earlier today. It's not strategy. It's not insight. It's not card reviews. It's just a really nicely written piece about playing Netrunner. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've felt that same fire many times in different games and I just thought this would resonate with many of you. It's certainly a fitting follow-up to my self improvement Blog last time out. If you can combine this guy's passion for the game with the lessons I dished out you're going to set yourself up to achieve good things.</span><br /><br /><br />Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-10221730450085815112014-01-16T17:37:00.000-08:002014-01-17T00:49:27.859-08:00Building A Better You - Lessons With "The Professor"<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Immediate apologies to players who are here to learn about a certain Shaper Identity - that's not what this is about. Instead, in a rare
moment of ego I decided to Google myself earlier today (come on, we’ve all done
it).</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">Specifically I decided to Google
“Sutcliffe Sligh”, which was a Magic: The Gathering deck I designed about 15 years
ago and which a friend of mine played to become the first UK player to win a
major Magic tournament, crushing the then-vincible Kai Budde in the final of
Grand Prix Birmingham.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">The first link
that Google threw up was an article written by that very friend after he went
on to carve out a successful spot as a writer for StarcityGames.com.</span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
article saw my friend summing up his Magic career, which had taken him from the
kitchen table to Grand Prix wins, Pro Tour finals and World Championship
appearances. It was a series of
recollections but each memory was also a lesson that he had learned along the
way to becoming both a better player and a better deck designer. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WPpYpC4VQqg/UtiH1ZZUwII/AAAAAAAAApg/7sDskVNiylM/s1600/college-classroom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WPpYpC4VQqg/UtiH1ZZUwII/AAAAAAAAApg/7sDskVNiylM/s1600/college-classroom.jpg" height="400" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although
it was written several years before Android: Netrunner even existed, and
written about a different game, many of the lessons apply just as well to competitive Netrunner as they ever did to competitive Magic and are well worth a revision session
today.</span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is well-timed for Netrunner because we've recently had major announcements about the structure of Store Championships and Regional Championships - the building blocks towards the National and World Championships. Taking Netrunner seriously is not for everyone, and the same is true of Magic players, but with some premier tournaments on the horizon things are going to get a little more serious. If you want to be a more successful player or deck designer it’s a good time to go back to
college and learn from "The Professor".<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vTwBPu7JV9U/Uth_Uw3EalI/AAAAAAAAAnw/erbz0CUX20Y/s1600/Professor.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vTwBPu7JV9U/Uth_Uw3EalI/AAAAAAAAAnw/erbz0CUX20Y/s1600/Professor.png" height="320" width="230" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">No, not </span><i style="line-height: 115%;">that</i><span style="line-height: 115%;"> Professor, THIS Professor… Craig 'Prof' Jones - the most successful UK Magic player ever to come from our sceptered isle.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><span style="line-height: 20.69999885559082px;"><a href="http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=14666">You can find the whole of Craig's original article here</a></span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 20.69999885559082px;">. Magic players may understand what he’s talking about a little more than those who’ve never tapped a Basic Land in anger, but for the rest of you I will pull together the most important lessons in Netrunner speak as best I can. </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PROF ON DECKBUILDING<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">“</span></b></span><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">When you’re used to building your own decks it’s easy to get too
attached.”<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a lesson that I think we can all
learn from and if anything it applies even more to Netrunner than it does to
Magic because fewer people pick up ‘netdecks’ off the internet than they do in
Magic. Most of the time you set off to
build a deck with a great dream of what it’s going to do (I don’t think many
people deliberately set out to make a crappy deck) and as you go through the
process of building, playtesting, rebuilding, playtesting again, rebuilding
again (you get the drift) it’s only natural that you will get attached to what
you’ve made. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zw_ydATUSdw/UtiEWb_DkgI/AAAAAAAAAog/kjSjmWPVQzg/s1600/936full-no-strings-attached-poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zw_ydATUSdw/UtiEWb_DkgI/AAAAAAAAAog/kjSjmWPVQzg/s1600/936full-no-strings-attached-poster.jpg" height="400" width="268" /></a><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s really easy become emotionally invested
in your deck and that can just as easily blinker you to its shortcomings. Partly this is because you like the idea
behind it – that’s why you started making it, remember? – but also because
through all the various iterations and refinements you <i>know </i>that your deck has got better.
Those 45 or 49 cards in your hand right now are the best they’ve ever
been. Sure it didn’t work last time but
your deck is <i>better</i> now. Right?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</div>
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zw_ydATUSdw/UtiEWb_DkgI/AAAAAAAAAog/kjSjmWPVQzg/s1600/936full-no-strings-attached-poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nobody sets out to make a crappy deck, and
actually in Netrunner not many truly crappy decks DO get made. But an awful lot of get made that aren’t as
good as the best decks. That's not a terrible thing but it IS going to hold you back when you get to a tournament. The moment when
you recognise that the deck you’ve lovingly nurtured for three months has got
better but isn’t going to be good enough is a key one, but it’s not always easy
to have that perspective on your own creations.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One a personal note this is definitely
something that I’ve struggled with in Netrunner. I’ve done it twice, spending months refining
Chaos Theory builds then jumped from Chaos Theory into Rielle ‘Kit’ Peddler and
spending months fiddling around with Cyber Cypher builds and Gordian Blade
builds. Always improving, always
refining, always enjoying exploring the card pool in doing so… in the end I
realised they were never going to be the best deck I could play. They're always going to be there for me to dip back to when I want some fun, but I won't be taking them to tournaments in the near future.</span></span></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“All too often people make the mistake of thinking what their deck<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em>can</em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>do is what their deck <em>will</em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>do<span class="apple-converted-space">“<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></b></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is
HUGE. If every deck starts out with a
great dream of what you want to happen it will almost always be a dream of
something that is <i>possible</i>, but not
necessarily something that is <i>likely</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
example Craig referred to in his article was one that I remember well because I
can still picture the hotel room we shared at Pro Tour Rome where he unveiled
his deck’s grand plan, and I can still picture the look of incredulity that
must have been plastered across my face as he did so. Craig’s deck was all about the best case
scenario – if things went the way he wanted them to go then he would obliterate
his opponent. Unfortunately if they
didn’t go the way he wanted then his hugely unconventional and risky plan would
collapse in a laughable pile and he had left plenty of opportunities for it to
go wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is
one of the key dangers of getting too attached to your deck (see the first
lesson) and it’s one that I think is very relevant in Netrunner, especially for
Runner decks. Corporation decks tend to
come with a bit of a straitjacket that ensures they can’t go too far wrong –
you’ll need X Agendas, and Y Ice, and probably Z economy cards. Runner decks are more freeform and players
have much more opportunity to screw them up by assuming they’ll draw the cards
they want when they want them. It takes
real mental discipline to recognise where you’ve drifted from the likely to the
possible but it’s a key skill you’ll need if you’re to maximise your chances of success.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K-lFC2CUzDI/UtiOcrOjv_I/AAAAAAAAAp4/8WLYqKmSz-c/s1600/ffg_andromeda-humanitys-shadow.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K-lFC2CUzDI/UtiOcrOjv_I/AAAAAAAAAp4/8WLYqKmSz-c/s1600/ffg_andromeda-humanitys-shadow.png" /></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you’re
serious about winning as many games as possible then consistency is VITAL. If you want to know why Andromeda is the best
deck then you can stop right here, because this is the reason. Kate McCaffrey may be able to make a better
rig, Reina Roja may be able to shred the Corp with aggressive start and Keyhole
runs, Gabriel Santiago might play the same cards as Andromeda but have more
credits from HQ runs… but all those decks will randomly lose a certain
percentage of games simply because they drew the <i>right </i>cards in the <i>wrong</i>
order. With her huge opening hand
Andromeda is twice as unlikely to lose games to bad luck as any of her
competitors, and that’s a big deal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="apple-converted-space" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So am I saying you can only play Andromeda because she has more cards? No!!! Please don’t take that away from this lesson. Instead take away that you should work really hard to play a deck that WILL do something, not a deck that MIGHT do something. Make sure you can recover from bad opening hands, make sure you can find your key cards, make sure you don’t need to see too many cards in a specific order. You might not draw them. You might get them trashed. You might lose them to some random Net damage you weren’t expecting. Hope for the best, fear the worst, but plan for the likely.</span></span></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PkPbVfLJ_Bc/UtiFA1gc07I/AAAAAAAAAoo/bIFWPqN_Jb8/s1600/banksy-elephant-in-the-room.27102235_std.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KqSlpEtMo7g/UtiC1s2mCGI/AAAAAAAAAoI/JXK8oUaXDhw/s1600/Team.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9GnsPxZ2TAE/UtiC1ctH5RI/AAAAAAAAAoE/UOg6_7CGFe0/s1600/Borg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s-M36qOBxeE/UtiG7FDj5fI/AAAAAAAAApU/GYdTpuHc0yw/s1600/220px-Analyze_this.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“If someone has a better deck
than yours, play it.”<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ultimately,
this is the brutal bottom line of playing to win. Build your own deck, tweak and refine it as
much as you can. Make it as consistent
and sensible as possible, take out all the wacky combos that you’d love to do
but you know deep down are just showing off.
And if, after you’ve done all that, you still have sufficient
perspective to be able to throw away all that hard work and play somebody else’s
deck… you’ve learnt the discipline to be a better player.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s
not easy. It’s often a bitter pill to
swallow but the best medicines usually taste like crap – that’s how you know
they’re medicine.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s
a lesson Craig learnt just in time. I
met his Survival of the Fittest deck at a PTQ and beat him with my Sligh deck,
even though he knew Sligh was a good matchup for him. A week later we met at another PTQ and Craig
had tweaked his deck to make it better against Sligh. I beat him again. Two weeks after that Craig won Grand Prix
Birmingham playing my Sligh deck. That’s
not an ego-rub for me, BTW because I’ve dumped designs of my own for better decks many,
many times. It’s what you need to do in order to maximise your chances of winning.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Don’t forget the obvious deck.
Most of the time it wins.”<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Obvious
deck is obvious. You know why it’s
obvious? Because a lot of people play
it. You know why they play it? Because it’s good.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PkPbVfLJ_Bc/UtiFA1gc07I/AAAAAAAAAoo/bIFWPqN_Jb8/s1600/banksy-elephant-in-the-room.27102235_std.jpg" height="250" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stealth + Elephant In The Room = Stealiphant</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Playing
the obvious deck is often a dull and functional option.
It’s taking up all the creativity you can muster and flushing it down
the toilet. You won’t be the envy of
your friends and rivals. You won’t be
the internet poster boy for a brand new deck archetype. Strangers won’t stop you in the street to ask
for your decklist.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But
you might win more games.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Boring
+ Efficient = Game Win” is a formula that holds true across a great many games. Desperado is pretty much the poster child for this - a console that gives you a credit is hardly an exciting use of 9 Influence, but it's how you get your Kate deck into the Finals of the World Championships.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PROF ON TEAMS<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Teams are important.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Teams are something that don’t really seem to
be a big deal in Netrunner. Yet. With Store Championships and Regionals around
the corner that could well change – it’s often the bigger tournaments that are
the trigger for local rivals to team up to take on a common foe.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Teams don’t come naturally to players in CCGs
and LCGs, not least because most of the time you’re sitting at the table alone,
playing for you not your teammates. That
said, after 20 years in Magic: The Gathering, World of Warcraft and Netrunner I
can tell you without hesitation that pretty much all the best moments in those
20 years involved other people – friends and teammates. The nature of card games is that you’re going
to get unlucky sometimes, you’re going to lose sometimes, you’re going to get
bad hands or bad R&D accesses where the Runner scores 6 Agenda points with
their first two runs. Teams are a
support network. They’re there to help
you build your deck. They’re there to
watch you play and will you on.
They’re there to talk over your
decisions and help you play better in the future. Teams are great.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the UK’s Store Championships were
announced earlier this week the first thing I asked was “who wants to team up
and take down as many of these things as possible?” and that so many of the
people who have been running my servers and trashing my programs were ready to
team up was great to see.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Turn opponents into teammates. It’s better that way.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tMP0NncCLxM/UtiDhDrqU8I/AAAAAAAAAoU/70M703ANEh0/s1600/Reagan-Gorbachev---resized.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tMP0NncCLxM/UtiDhDrqU8I/AAAAAAAAAoU/70M703ANEh0/s1600/Reagan-Gorbachev---resized.jpg" height="245" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“More people building a deck
together = good.”<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh. Hell.
Yes.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More
ideas, more points of view, more contributions from past experiences. More playtesting, more decks played against,
more options tested – more rigorously and more reliably. When deckbuilding is a collaborative process
and not a lone exercise you can achieve more, in less time, and with a greater
chance of producing a result that is balanced against your likely opponents.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“What
would you do differently? Why? Ok I see that but I was worried about Card
X. Have you played against that much? Yeah, me either… maybe it’s not so important. Have you guys needed Card Y much, I keep
drawing it and it doesn’t seem to do much.
Oh it won a game for you? Cool,
maybe it’s worth keeping in.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know what it feels like to go into a tournament with a deck that I’ve built myself,
tested myself, and has only my thoughts and experiences behind it. I also know what it’s like to go into a
tournament with three teammates whose opinions I trust, and with whom I’ve
spent a month testing a deck, bouncing ideas around, and with whom we all agree
we’re packing the right deck. I’ve won
games with cards that I know wouldn’t have been in my deck if I’d been running
solo.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Teams
make your deck better.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Most of the time you should go
with your team. Sometimes you have to recognise when to split with the herd”<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KqSlpEtMo7g/UtiC1s2mCGI/AAAAAAAAAoI/JXK8oUaXDhw/s1600/Team.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KqSlpEtMo7g/UtiC1s2mCGI/AAAAAAAAAoI/JXK8oUaXDhw/s1600/Team.png" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It
doesn’t matter how good your teammates are and it doesn’t matter how convinced
they are that they’re right and you’re wrong, sometimes your Spidey Sense is
going to tingle anyway. If you just
can’t get on board with what everyone else is doing for some reason then don’t
be afraid to do your own thing. Sitting
there and playing a deck you don’t believe in will not improve your chances.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9GnsPxZ2TAE/UtiC1ctH5RI/AAAAAAAAAoE/UOg6_7CGFe0/s1600/Borg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9GnsPxZ2TAE/UtiC1ctH5RI/AAAAAAAAAoE/UOg6_7CGFe0/s1600/Borg.png" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why
will your Spidey Sense tingle? For a
whole host of reasons. Maybe you don’t
think it suits your playstyle – it’s too controlling and you want to be more
aggressive. Maybe you don’t agree with
your teammates about what decks you think everyone else is going to play. Maybe you just don’t like Gabriel Santiago’s
freaky metal arm. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Teams are good – all
the playtesting and experiences and discussions you’ve had in coming to the
point where you play a different deck to them will still come in very useful in
the tournament – but being in team doesn’t mean you joined the Borg and signed over your free will.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PROF ON PLAYING</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Be prepared to own up to your
own bad plays rather than blaming poor luck.
Accept that some games are just out of your control, and you must be
able to put it aside and move onto to the next round.”<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These
are two key skills. Unless you’re a
freak of probability math you’re going to lose games of any card game – that’s
the nature of drawing cards randomly from your deck - but recognising why you
lost those games and responding to those losses in the right way gives you the best
possible grounding for approaching the next game.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It
can be difficult to see your mistakes for what they are – you made the plays
you did for a reason and you (hopefully) had a logic behind them that you
believed in. Having the discipline to go back and challenge those decisions in
hindsight is one of the best tools you have to improving your chances going
forwards. It’s tempting to see the
Runner accessing an Agenda from the top of R&D to win the game as bad luck –
and no doubt luck played a part in what they accessed – but did you really do
everything that you could to minimise the opportunity to be unlucky? It’s not a straightforward question – did you
allow them to access easily as part of a calculated gamble to win the game? Did you really need to make that gamble?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some
players are very good at spotting their own mistakes. I have a Magic playing friend who can
remember key decision points in games from several years ago, and he can tell
you whether the line of play he chose was correct or not. I don’t have that skill – once my mind is
made up on a course of action I can be quite stubborn about accepting I was
wrong. For players like me it just
becomes another reason why working in a team is so helpful. If I can’t spot the mistakes in my own play I
need other people to spot them for me.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s-M36qOBxeE/UtiG7FDj5fI/AAAAAAAAApU/GYdTpuHc0yw/s1600/220px-Analyze_this.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s-M36qOBxeE/UtiG7FDj5fI/AAAAAAAAApU/GYdTpuHc0yw/s1600/220px-Analyze_this.jpg" height="320" width="216" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
flipside of that self-analysis is to be able to recognise and accept that
sometimes you can make all the right plays and have your opponent pull out a
lucky win despite your best efforts.
There’s no point carrying that baggage around with you for the rest of the day - there’s nothing to be
gained from loading extra importance onto the next game or from feeling as
though the gaming gods are conspiring against you. I’ve seen plenty of players go on ‘tilt’
after a bad game but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game where tilting actually
helped. You’re not a Jedi. You can’t channel your anger like a Sith
Lord and use it to hurt your next opponent, it will just get in the way of making good decisions.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Through
working coverage for Magic: The Gathering I’ve been privileged to meet many successful
players and talk about what the defining moments have been in their growth to
the Pro level of play. Time and again
the answer isn’t about cards, or decks, or plays… it’s psychological. Time and again the tipping point for great
players is when they stop worrying about whether they’re 1-0 down or 1-0 up in
the match, whether they’re 8-0 in tournament or a defeat away from being
knocked out, whether they’re playing for thousands and dollars or nothing at
all. Stop thinking about all that. Stop thinking about the last game or the next
game. Think about this game.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
key to this lesson. Just because you
lose doesn’t mean you made a mistake.
Just because you won didn’t mean you played correctly. But if you make the correct plays every time
you’ll win far more than you’ll lose.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“There are bad beats and bad
drafts, but there are also escape opportunities for the alert…. you have to be able to spot where you can
create the opportunities to be lucky<span class="apple-converted-space"> “<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don’t
ever accept defeat, look for the way out.
We’ve all had Corp hands that just seemed unwinnable – Agenda after
Agenda and no Ice. Some truly are
unwinnable, but some offer a glimmer of hope for those alert to it. Sometimes you’ve got to play for that 5%
chance of winning because the 95% play just prolongs the inevitable defeat –
you’ve got to make the crazy play that shouldn’t work because if you play
conservatively you’re just boxing yourself further into a corner.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This
boils down to being another psychological lesson: as soon as you start thinking
you’ve lost… you probably have. As your
game plan is disintegrating in front of you, as the Runner hits you with a
second Account Siphon and installs Same Old Thing it can be really tempting to
mentally throw in the towel and just go through the motions until you
lose. Draw cards, click for credits, try
to rez Ice… it’s what you should do, right?
But if doing all that is just setting up a drawn-out defeat then don’t
you need a Plan B? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes
you have to accept that Plan A is finished, and once that happens you’ve got to
improvise. What do you need to be true
in order for you to win this game? If it’s
that the top of your deck is economy and Power Shutdowns, that the Runner doesn’t
draw a Clone Chip and that none of your top 10 cards are Agendas then play as
though that’s true. However unlikely
your winning scenario is IT’S YOUR BEST CHANCE OF WINNING. There are no points for being a
well-disciplined loser, but plenty of points for the winner who gave himself
the chance to get lucky.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Craig’s
greatest moment in Magic was precisely this sort of situation. Faced with sure defeat in the semi final of
Pro Tour Honolulu, Craig was moments away from being knocked out by Olivier
Ruel in the deciding game. His deck of
aggressive creatures had been stopped dead – his gameplan called for him to
keep removing Ruel’s creatures and attacking as best he could but there was no
way through. Craig analysed that his
only possible chance for victory was to switch to the defensive, hope that his opponent
wouldn’t be able to attack with all his creatures, then hope that the top card
of his own deck was a certain card… Lightning Helix.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It
was a lot to ask, but Craig had worked out that if he did what his deck was ‘supposed
to do’ he could only stay alive long enough to lose a turn or two later. If he risked it all he could win now. It’s gone down as one of the most dramatic
moments in Magic history…<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Variance can work in your
favour.”</span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Being
lucky is essential. It might sound odd
to finish on this in an article about learning to play better but it’s true. I don’t think many tournaments are ever won
by a player who spent the whole day being unlucky, and in fact I think if every
tournament winner was truly honest with themselves they’d accept that there
were a couple of times when things definitely went their way – they hit R&D
twice and pulled two Astroscripts, or an opponent couldn’t draw a Barrier
breaker all game. That’s the nature of
card games: luck is a factor. The best
you can do is to play as well as you possibly can so that you’re at the top
table when the good luck is being handed out and hope you get a little bit more
of it than the other guys.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everything
about being a good player comes down to minimising how much good luck you
need. Play the right deck, playtest it
enough to make the right decisions, work with other good players to incorporate
their feedback and knowledge, analyse your own play for mistakes and good
decisions, give yourself every chance to win every game. You do all that just to mean you only have to
be slightly lucky to win, not extremely lucky.
But at some point you’ll need the luck and if you don’t take any risks
you’re denying yourself the chance to be lucky.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Relying on your opponent making a mistake is usually a bad idea (assuming your opponent is actually good) but sometimes it will be your only chance. If you sit there and worry about everything he </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">could</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> have in hand, or unrezzed, you could avoid taking the very risks you needed to take to win the game.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You’re
going to be faced with a decision. Play
safe and probably finish 4<sup>th</sup>, or take a risk and finish 1<sup>st</sup>
or 8<sup>th</sup>. If you really want to win then at some point you have to risk defeat, and recognising those moments when they come along is one of the hardest things to get right. It's moments like those where you can get 5 of the best players around the table and never be able to get them to agree on whether the gamble was the right play or not. They're the difference makers.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
guess what you’ve got to ask yourself is "do I feel lucky?".<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well
do, ya, punk?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Corp cards got to use the all-new Evil Pinky Scale, and for the Runners I unveil the Groovy Scale...</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" /></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">1 Groovy - Fun? Thematic? Cool? Maybe. Good? No.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">2 Groovies - Rarely played but will have its moments</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">3 Groovies - Solid card - you'll definitely see this around</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">4 Groovies - A great card - a faction staple</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">5 Groovies - Shagadelic! You'll see this used across all factions</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O37nLHpj6os/UtW1z9SLX1I/AAAAAAAAAnE/uSW21VSFv-o/s1600/True+COlors+1a.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O37nLHpj6os/UtW1z9SLX1I/AAAAAAAAAnE/uSW21VSFv-o/s320/True+COlors+1a.png" width="233" /></a></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #444444; line-height: 115%;">Keyhole</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #444444; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #444444; line-height: 115%;">Lets start with the biggie – Keyhole was
spoiled a while ago and I've never previously liked this card. However enough people have said it's great,
including some of the people whose card evaluations I pay close attention to,
that I've gone back to basics and taken a fresh look.</span><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;">Ignoring the cost and 2MU for now, what does
Keyhole actually do for you? </span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br />
<br />
</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;">Keyhole shows you 3 cards at random from the
Corp's deck, and roughly half the time that will include an Agenda.
You'll be able to trash the Agenda then run on Archives to collect it.
Given unfettered access to R&D you should be able to score an Agenda
every turn by running R&D two or three times the running the Archives.
Because you shuffle R&D after your access you don't get to ensure
that the Corp won't draw an Agenda the way you can with an R&D Interface
'lock' but if you're seeing 6 or 9 cards per turn and the Corp is only drawing
1 or 2 cards you can certainly expect to see Agendas more rapidly. This
is actually quite different to playing Medium, the current Anarch R&D dig
of choice, where it will typically take you longer to score Agendas but you can
be pretty certain that the Corp can't draw any in the meantime. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #444444; line-height: 115%;">Compared to Medium I think
Keyhole is better when you're winning (ahead on Agenda Points, in a dominant
position and able to access Central servers repeatedly for little cost) while
Medium is better in other situations. Medium only needs one run per turn
to really deny the Corp the chance to draw an Agenda. When you're behind
on Agenda points Keyhole leaves the door open for the Corp to score their last Agenda
before your accesses can find 7AP, which Medium doesn't do, and it's worth
noting that the first time you try and steal an Agenda with Keyhole you'll
likely find Jackson Howard ready to rip it away from you, buying the Corp more
time to win.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #444444; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<br />
</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #444444; line-height: 115%;">That said, Keyhole is powerful and I had
definitely dismissed it too readily, although I think many players are too
quick to see its strengths when you're ahead and overlooking the times when you
would rather have Medium. The key for Keyhole (pun intended) is fitting
it into a rig which can afford to access R&D and Archives so easily, and
that's where the 2 MU becomes a bit of a problem. It could be that deck
requires Grimoire to fund that additional MU while supporting the Anarch rig of
Corroder/Yog.0/Mimic/Datasucker, maybe with Djinn to help out. Reina Roja
has already sparked huge interest in Anarch decks and I'm sure many people will
try to use Keyhole as their win condition. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #444444; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #444444; line-height: 115%;">Keyhole can certainly win
games but compared to Medium I think it requires the runner to be in a stronger
position before it can be effectively used and it's not yet clear in my mind
that it's not 'win more' compared to Medium. I think that in situations
where Keyhole will win the game for you Medium would probably also win the game,
although it would take longer to do it. Back the other way I'm not so
sure that Keyhole will always win the game for you in situations where Medium
would have locked the Corp out.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #444444; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<br />
</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #444444; line-height: 115%;">BTW, a nice little difference between Keyhole
and Medium is that you're not accessing multiple cards, and this significantly
de-risks running against Jinteki decks full of Shock! and Snare! If Jinteki takes off then Keyhole definitely gains an edge over Medium & R&D Interface.</span><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Being able to give the Corp a Bad
Publicity is a great ability but giving the Corp the chance to trash your
Activist before he can even Support you isn’t so great. You’ll need to put the Corp between a rock
and a hard place before this actually works out for you so don’t get too
excited about what this claims to do.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" /></a></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Lawyer Up</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lawyer Up brings a mini Quality Time
into Criminal, allowing the Event-heavy decks to keep their hands topped
up. You have to keep in mind that this
is a Double event, though, so unless you’re gaining value from the clearance of
tags this card is less exciting than you might think – versus simply clicking
to draw two cards you’re +1 card (which is just cycling the Lawyer Up) but -2 credits, which isn’t exactly a stellar
trade. The only real value comes from wanting
to clear tags and that’s something that, currently Criminal decks are happy to
ignore doing. Right now I think this is
a lot less thrilling than it looks at first glance precisely because it’s a
Double and Criminals are usually happy to play Tag Me, but if you want tags gone and you want cards in hand Lawyer Up provides both at once as some solid work compression.<br /><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" /></a></span></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" /></a></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Leverage</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even without the restriction of running
HQ I wouldn’t be too interested in this card – it’s much easier to play
Plascrete to avoid Meat damage and simply play well to avoid Net damage. That I have to run somewhere I don’t want to
have to run in order to generate an effect I don’t want to generate is just a
nail in the coffin. Leverage would be a
strong contender for the worst card in the set if that hadn’t been wrapped up
by Starlight Crusade Funding a long time ago.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5VqCvleg8Oc/UtW2dWPXJYI/AAAAAAAAAnc/tm8e1pcUkVo/s1600/True+COlors+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="284" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5VqCvleg8Oc/UtW2dWPXJYI/AAAAAAAAAnc/tm8e1pcUkVo/s640/True+COlors+3.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<b style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Garrote</b></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On initial reactions this seems to have
divided people but I am definitely on the side of the fence that Garrote is a
great addition to the Icebreakers. Up to
now no single Icebreaker has offered an efficient breaking formula and it has
been much harder to break Sentries than any other type of Ice. When I made <a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/worlds-2013-ice-ice-baby-part-ii.html"><b>my analysis of the ice andIcebreakers from the Top 32 decks at Worlds</b></a> I highlighted that there wasn’t a really good Sentry killer, and even explored what two programs you could most effectively
combine (Mimic & Knight or Mimic & Femme being best).<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because of that analysis I feel like
you’re frequently going to devote 2MU to Sentry breaking anyway – either Mimic/Datasucker
or Mimic/Femme or similar – and that Garrote takes up 2MU alone isn’t such a
bad bargain because it turns out that Garrote is SIGNIFICANTLY more efficient
than any other Sentry breaker (see the table below). Yes, Garrote costs 7. Yes, it takes up 2 MU. But you were probably spending 2MU and lots
of credits anyway to install a combination of cards to break Sentries
with. Garrote brings it all in one card,
and one card you can search for with Special Order and which doesn’t cost
Influence.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mEoyeWQl-qA/UtW3QKj-nbI/AAAAAAAAAnk/HX6vlllcP9I/s1600/Sentries+Garotte.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mEoyeWQl-qA/UtW3QKj-nbI/AAAAAAAAAnk/HX6vlllcP9I/s640/Sentries+Garotte.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%;">I don’t know if Criminals are going to
switch from Mimic/Datasucker to Garrote because Datasucker synergises so well
with Desperado, but I do see that their Anarch rig is coming under attack
(Power Shutdown for Datasuckers, Str 4+ Code Gates like RSVP and Inazuma) and
Garrote offers the option to jump out into a Garrote/Gordian rig instead
(similar to<b> <a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/worlds-2013-andromeda-analysis.html">the versions from Worlds that were based on Magnum Opus</a></b>). It’s definitely a possibility I will playtest,
and I also think Garrote is tempting for Shapers to port over into their Test
Run/Scavenge decks.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If your evaluation stops at the cost
and MU of Garrote then I think you’re not appreciating the investment required
to break Sentries with the current selection of Breakers. Garrote is good, not quite Mimic/Datasucker
good but good nonetheless.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>LLDS Processor</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Big woop. No advantage you get from this can possibly
be worth the cost of drawing/installing it.
I heard somebody say you would use it with Faerie/Clone Chip decks… presumably
because the one thing you need with Faeries is some way to dodge the enormous cost
of giving Faerie +1 Strength. </sarcasm><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Sharpshooter<o:p></o:p></b></span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The program-saving version of Deus X,
Sharpshooter is limited use but essential for the decks running Self Modifying
Code as your get-out when you run into an unexpected Archer. I think you can expect to see a couple of
copies played quite frequently in Shaper decks and this quite effectively
neuters the swing towards Grim/Rototurrets in Corp decks. A neat little card that achieves quite a lot
simply by existing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" /></a></span></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PSQ5DokYRgE/UtW2cIg8FnI/AAAAAAAAAnQ/_olSJUAoMdk/s1600/True+COlors+4a.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PSQ5DokYRgE/UtW2cIg8FnI/AAAAAAAAAnQ/_olSJUAoMdk/s400/True+COlors+4a.png" width="400" /></a></span></div>
<br />
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Capstone</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So if you built your deck badly to
include lots of duplicates of cards you don’t want duplicates of, then put lots
of draw effects in so that you keep drawing the cards you don’t want rather
than filtering past them with search effects, this card is good. Alternatively you could punch yourself in the
face repeatedly if you’re feeling particularly masochistic.<br /><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MztYgm4xkpM/UtW1OHFUIoI/AAAAAAAAAnA/GdXy68hwvz0/s1600/Austin+Button.png" style="color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%;" /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Starlight Crusade Funding</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m sure there is going to be a wacky
theme deck of Double events that uses this.
I’m equally sure it will be terrible.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.77777862548828px;">The Runners definitely get the raw side of the deal in True Colors, as has been true all the way through Spin Cycle so far, but each faction gets something that I think is good. The standout card is Keyhole, which follows hot on the heels of Reina Roja and Knight to keep players interested in what Anarchs can do, but I think both Garrote and Sharpshooter will be valued additions to the war against Sentries and program destruction.</span></span></div>
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Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-29349482546207965062014-01-14T04:56:00.001-08:002014-01-14T11:28:04.391-08:00True Colors Set Review - Corp Cards<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the great joys of writing a blog for Netrunner is that the sets come along so frequently that you're rarely short of something to write about. Hurrah, therefore, for the arrival of True Colors spoilers at the weekend. The fourth data pack in Spin Cycle brings us some very good cards, particularly for the Corporation, and for that reason I'm going to break with tradition and start with the Corp.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For once there are a bunch of cards I actually like in this review so I'm going to replace the much-loved Kermit scale for something more suitable - <b>The Evil Pinky Scale</b>!</span><br />
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<h4>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jB_gl-Qe7kk/UtVvJA-nunI/AAAAAAAAAmY/Sp5fxTMyAP4/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jB_gl-Qe7kk/UtVvJA-nunI/AAAAAAAAAmY/Sp5fxTMyAP4/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1 Pinky - Fun? Thematic? Cool? Maybe. Good? No.</span></span></h4>
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<h4>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jB_gl-Qe7kk/UtVvJA-nunI/AAAAAAAAAmY/Sp5fxTMyAP4/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jB_gl-Qe7kk/UtVvJA-nunI/AAAAAAAAAmY/Sp5fxTMyAP4/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2 Pinkies - Rarely played but will have its moments</span></span></h4>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3 Pinkies - Solid card - you'll definitely see this around</span></span></h4>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4 Pinkies - A great card - a faction staple</span></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">5 Pinkies - Knockout. You'll see this used across all factions</span></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Got that? Good. Let's get started...</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-S1tOO4c9o98/UtUwGz2D8YI/AAAAAAAAAlc/4FRsJNeC6X0/s1600/True+COlors+8.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-S1tOO4c9o98/UtUwGz2D8YI/AAAAAAAAAlc/4FRsJNeC6X0/s320/True+COlors+8.png" width="247" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5mRdSq_KMn4/UtUwG6XLXlI/AAAAAAAAAlg/9depzR-ePn0/s1600/True+COlors+9.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5mRdSq_KMn4/UtUwG6XLXlI/AAAAAAAAAlg/9depzR-ePn0/s320/True+COlors+9.png" width="243" /></a></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Veteran’s Program</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can see that some decks may want this – I’ve never seen a
deck that aggressively tries to remove Bad Publicity rather than live with it,
but it’s possible it would exist. There
are some good 3/1 Agendas already and it’s not immediately easy to judge the
relative benefit of removing 2 Bad Publicity compared to, say, generating extra
credits with Gila Hands Arcology or rezzing huge ice with Profiteering, but the
more I think about it the more I convince myself that Veteran’s Program is a
legitimate option. Midgame I can see
that you may add more to your defences by removing 2 Bad Publicity credits from
each run the Runner makes than you would by gaining cash and rezzing another
piece of Ice. It’s still niche, but I’m
prepared to accept that it will see play at some point.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rex Campaign</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Paying 1 for 5 credits is a good result. Paying 1 to remove a Bad Publicity is a good
result. Paying 1 to make the Runner
waste a click and 3 credits is a good result.
But somewhere between waiting 3 turns to generate the effect and giving
the Runner the option of whether their economy is strong enough they can afford
to trash Rex Campaign I begin to lose interest.
I think it’s fine, but with Haas-Bioroid decks already overflowing with
good economy options I’m not sure this justifies a place in the starting team.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y9bV91-zWbw/UtUyEHOQR5I/AAAAAAAAAl8/SOUFI0BD7OE/s1600/True+COlors+5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="289" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y9bV91-zWbw/UtUyEHOQR5I/AAAAAAAAAl8/SOUFI0BD7OE/s640/True+COlors+5.png" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fenris</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think a lot of players overvalue Brain damage, and that’s
why I’m not going to score Fenris too highly – I basically feel like this card
would be fine without the Bad Publicity and the Bad Pub brings it down quite a
lot. Brain damage is a lovely splashy
effect that has been hard to produce, I mean you permanently fry your opponent’s
brain – how cool is that?!? – but dealing a single point of damage doesn’t usually
contribute a whole lot towards you winning the game. As the Runner side I’ve won plenty of games
when my ID has been reduced to a dribbling vegetable by a Cerebral Overwriter
or two, and that’s why I would usually prefer to rez a Rototurret and trash a
program with my 4 credits than deal 1 Brain damage. Fenris is the most reliable way of dealing
Brain damage, and it will see play – it may well see more play as a splash into
Jinteki or Weyland decks hoping for some help in flatlining the Runner – but if
it’s only coming in at Strength 2 (bad vs Mimic/Femme/Garotte) I simply don’t
think it needs the Bad Publicity and to my mind that knocks a couple of stars
off.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Panic Button</b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This card is very niche – installed only as a HQ upgrade it
serves to really only do a few things:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 7pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">1) </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">It’s a cash sink vs Account Siphon. Quite how much cash you’re prepared to sink
into it without winding up with a hand of 4 Agendas and having to pitch some of
them to Archives, I’m not sure, but it definitely helps. The trouble is that the Runner plays Account
Siphon to take away your credits, and if they go into Panic Button rather than
Siphon they’ve still got a partial success from that run. The best case is that you Panic Button into
Operation economy to then rebuild your credits, which isn’t too unlikely but
probably means you lose a turn rebuilding back to the point you were at.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">2) It’s a mild deterrent to running HQ for accesses
– the Runner will have to be careful about when they time that run to minimise
the Corp’s advantage and to ensure trashing Panic Button once they’ve got in. Runners don’t currently focus much on HQ
accesses so that shouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">3) It helps set up combos, so it plays a role in
Custom Biotics and Accelerated Diagnostics decks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m not sure if 1) alone is enough to justify a starting
place in your deck, and I’m not sure 2) matters that much against most Runners. That leaves 3) as the main reason to play
Panic Button, in my eyes. If you’re the
sort of deck where money isn’t really an object and you want to pull as many
cards as possible then Panic Button comes in and helps a lot. <u>If the Runner decides to let it help by
running HQ</u>. Which if they've any common sense they won't.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Shock!</b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ve been waiting for this card ever since it was first spoiled. Adding another access trap to your deck
approaches a tipping point where accessing R&D and HQ becomes extremely
painful. The word I use to describe
these sorts of decks is that they’re ‘spiky’, like your deck is a cactus that
it’s painful to get too near. With
Snare!, Shock!, Fetal AI and the identity power of Personal Evolution you can have
a deck with 20+ cards hurt the Runner simply for accessing them.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dealing 1 net damage isn’t a lot, possibly not enough to
justify taking up a slot in your deck.
In some ways it’s similar to Data Mine, which is a card some Jinteki
decks packed and others would ignore.
But that’s not quite all the story and Shock! has two advantages over
Data Mine – the first is that it costs the Runner 2 credits to trash, which is
a little economic drain that isn’t an obvious element in a net damage ambush. The Runner could hit Shock! in your R&D
and not have the credits to trash it, leaving it there as a further deterrent
in R&D and your HQ. The second part,
perhaps the key part, is that Shock! deals damage from Archives as well, which
Snare! doesn’t do. Shock! will naturally
gravitate to the Archives through the game as it gets trashed or discarded, and
it becomes a defense on that server which is particularly good against
Datasucker decks. Spiky archives is something
that both Personal Evolution and Replicating Perfection are interested in.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shock! is a key part in upgrading the Jinteki net damage
decks, and close to an auto-include. How
good that emerging net damage deck will be is going to be something I’ll talk
about another time.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a></span></div>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JPHPtKoMC3k/UtUyLhYqZDI/AAAAAAAAAmE/6TrPLU_Sznw/s1600/True+COlors+6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="286" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JPHPtKoMC3k/UtUyLhYqZDI/AAAAAAAAAmE/6TrPLU_Sznw/s640/True+COlors+6.png" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tsurugi</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“End the Run unless the Corp pays 1”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That’s an odd subroutine. The Corp pays NOT to stop the
run? Why would they do that?</span><br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Do 1 net damage. Do
1 net damage. Do 1 net damage”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ah, that’s why. Subroutines
on Ice fire in order and it’s important to know that for Tsurugi – if the Corp
doesn’t pay 1 then the Runner gets kicked out before they take damage, but if the Corp DOES pay 1 then
the Runner takes 3 net damage but the run continues. The Corp can’t have its cake and eat it,
though – Tsurugi can’t deal damage AND end runs (unless you’ve got Sensei ahead
of it).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tsurugi begs to be compared to Neural Katana so let’s do
that. Both cards deal 3 net damage but
while Neural Katana does so in a single routine (which is very vulnerable to
Mimic) Tsurugi’s multiple subroutines make it a more effective late game tax on
the Runner. The price of that added tax
is an additional two credits to rez the Ice and one less strength. The Strength doesn’t matter too much except
against Parasite (the -1STR makes no difference to Ninja, and while Femme can
break Tsurugi for 4 credits it had to spend 3 to break Katana anyway) but the
added rez cost is pretty awkward and makes the card an attractive target for
Parasite/Emergency Shutdown/Forged Activation Orders. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think one factor really determines the use of Tsurugi or
not – Bad Publicity. If you’re not
running much Bad Publicity then Tsurugi is a very effective upgrade on Neural
Katana, but Bad Publicity rapidly undermines the taxation from the multiple
subroutines making the added cost unnecessary.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>TGTBT</b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TGTBT is not TGTBT (Too Good To Be True). NBN has perhaps got the strongest Agendas of
any Corporation so TGTBT is up against strong competition to justify a slot in
the deck and it simply comes up short in my view, particularly when you consider how many Runner decks are happy to simple ignore tags anyway. Pro-active tagging decks probably want the
more controllable temporary tag from Breaking News, while decks where tagging
isn’t a centrepiece will find more value from other neutral 3/1 Agendas with stronger
economy boosts.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Sweeps Week</b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Probably the best card in the set, we’re very fortunate that
Sweeps Week costs 2 influence or it would be joining Jackson Howard as another
NBN auto-include in every Corp deck. Let’s
assume that we live in a world where the Runner pretty much always keeps a hand
of 4 of 5 cards, which they have to do against NBN for fear of being levelled
by SEA Source/Scorched Earth. That makes
Sweeps Week and in-faction Beanstalk Royalties (with 4 cards) or a Hedge Fund
(with 5 cards). The faction with Jackson
Howard has been the faction that gained least benefit from drawing all those
cards as it had no economy Operations, so it’s a huge boost to NBN’s that they
can call on Sweeps Week and finally leave behind the bad old days of Pad
Campaigns and Private Contracts.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second half of this card is that it subtly punishes
players of the most successful Runner ID, Andromeda. If you have Sweeps Week in your opening hand
against Andromeda’s 9 cards you can cash it in for +8 credits. +8!!!
That makes Celebrity Gift look like clicking for credits. It’s a huge boost, and arguably gives you the
credits that you might lose to Account Siphon if the Runner comes
knocking. Sweeps Week does NOT ‘kill’
Andromeda - Andromeda may look nice in her fancy red dress but she’s a
streetfighting badass and can certainly handle the Corp having a few more
credits – but NBN was already the hardest matchup for her and Sweeps Week helps
to cement NBN as the faction that handles Criminals the best.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BTW, the odds of drawing Sweeps Week in your opening hand vs
Andromeda: 28% at 49 cards in Making News, 33% at 40 cards in The World Is
Yours. More if you mulligan for it, but
I don’t think it’s worth mulliganing for if your opening hand is otherwise ok.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-knpwzcgZIH8/UtUyRPOTN4I/AAAAAAAAAmM/D5oCTRohg6s/s1600/True+COlors+7.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="288" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-knpwzcgZIH8/UtUyRPOTN4I/AAAAAAAAAmM/D5oCTRohg6s/s640/True+COlors+7.png" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">RSVP</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The NBN Chum”, RSVP is similar to the Jinteki version in
that it’s a Strength 4 Code Gate that makes it hard to pass the next piece of
Ice. RSVP costs 2 additional credits
over Chum but offers significantly more for your money, making it one of the
strongest Code Gates currently printed.
The main advantages of RSVP over Chum are:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">1) If positioned in front of Ice, RSVP means the
runner is helpless vs the next Ice they meet.
Chum makes the next Ice tougher (and punishes failure) but the Runner
can choose if the run continues and if they’re confident they have the right
breaker for the next Ice at +2 Strength then Chum has done nothing. RSVP pretty much forces the Runner to jack
out after the encounter, regardless of what other icebreakers they have
installed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">2) RSVP doesn’t just stop the Runner from breaking
Ice it also stops the Runner from paying to trash assets, beat traces or steal
Agendas like Fetal AI or the upcoming NAPD – cards like Red Herrings or Ash are
excellent behind RSVP. Where Chum is
helpless at the base of a server RSVP can still be extremely frustrating for
the Runner.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">3) I believe (but don’t hold me to this) that
paying 0 credits still constitutes paying credits, and RSVP says the Runner can’t
pay credits. So RSVP blocks Yog.0 from
breaking subroutines, blocks Faerie, blocks trashing Snare! or Off The
Grid. Niche applications, but important.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><i>Edit: This has sparked a bit of a rules debate but more people seem to think RSVP doesn't stop Yog.0 than think it does, so maybe don't go building your red hot RSVP/Off The Grid deck just yet :-). </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The world is crying out for Code Gates above Strength 3 that
matter and RSVP is one of those. Yog.0
and Datasucker will bust through but Yog.0 alone won’t and that’s enough to
mean RSVP will start sneaking into decks, particularly in NBN, while the
interaction with the traps and ambushes in Jinteki could see it bleed over into
that faction as well.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Curtain Wall<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Best (and most misleading) use of flavour text in the
game? Almost certainly. Most overkill in stopping a run in the
game? Almost certainly. 14 is a mammoth amount of credits – not even
Weyland can pay 14 without wincing – but you don’t get much for that extra
money, particularly compared to Hadrian’s Wall.
Hadrian’s is rarely played and I doubt we’ll see much more of SuperHadrians. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Punitive Counterstrike</b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like Shock!, Punitive Counterstrike is a card I’ve been
waiting for since the spoilers first hit.
Combining SEA Source and Scorched Earth into a single card is very
attractive, although the fact that it deals less damage (in most situations) is
very important. While I don’t think this
will see much play in Weyland or NBN who can call on the original Tag n Bag
combo Punitive Counterstrike finally brings Meat damage threat to Haas Bioroid
and Jinteki and that is important. Until
now Jinteki has had to rely on Neural EMP or Ronin for dealing damage on its
own turn, both with their weaknesses, but Punitive Counterstrike now offers
Ronin levels of damage with EMP ease of use.
Punitive Counterstrike works best with 5/3 Agendas (obviously) but where
players only previously had to play around 2 copies of Neural EMP it’s much
harder to play around two Punitive Counterstrikes and a potential 6 meat
damage. Similarly if there is a Haas
Bioroid brain damage deck then it has been desperate for a finisher once the
Runner’s hand size has been whittled down by the likes of Fenris, and Punitive
Counterstrike offers that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think Punitive Counterstrike opens up a couple of new deck
archetypes, and for that reason I’m going to hand it a decent score.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyggO5ulKo/UtUxM4xF6bI/AAAAAAAAAl0/rfUdVfiiWjY/s1600/Dr+Evil+Pinky.png" /></a></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All in all I think True Colors is an excellent pack for the Corp, with something for everybody and pretty much no card you won't ever think about playing. Almost certainly the best Corp pack ever.<br /><br />What did the Runners get? That's going to be up next...</span></div>
Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749009642258326980.post-82610893857942665252014-01-02T10:07:00.003-08:002014-01-13T02:01:50.156-08:00Worlds 2013 - Ice, Ice, Baby - Part II<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this blog I’m going to pick up where I left off in the
first part of my analysis of <a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.com/2013/12/worlds-2013-ice-ice-baby.html"><b>the Ice played by the mostsuccessful decks at the World Championships 2013</b></a><span style="color: red;"> </span>and look at what that mix of Ice means for Runner
decisions about what Icebreakers to run, and why.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OujlQ2etHdk/UsWl8VzSkDI/AAAAAAAAAhc/XlxJjWmd5Fw/s1600/Crypsis+gif.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="306" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OujlQ2etHdk/UsWl8VzSkDI/AAAAAAAAAhc/XlxJjWmd5Fw/s400/Crypsis+gif.gif" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The way I’m
going to do this is by looking at how much it costs each Icebreaker to break
all the subroutines on the Ice played in the Top 32. You may have seen tables like this before, as
they’re quite common, but what the Worlds decklists allow me to do is calculate
an average cost for each Icebreaker based on the relative popularity of the Ice
at Worlds. Quite simply, it matters a
lot more how efficient an Icebreaker is at breaking Ice Wall than it is at
breaking Wall of Thorns because Ice Wall is over a third of all the Barriers
being played!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On top of
this I’m going to factor in the cost to install the Icebreaker in the first
place, and also look at the strength of the Fixed Strength Icebreakers (eg.
Yog.0, Mimic, Morning Star) to see how much you can rely on them to handle the
most commonly played Ice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>For clarity
many Ice and Icebreakers have special abilities that will affect these
tables and frequently make it impossible to produce a definitive cost to
break (eg. advanceable Ice can gain Strength, Snowball gains strength as it
hits multiple Barriers). In most cases I
have ignored these abilities – I tell you the cost to break a Strength 7
Hadrian’s Wall, not a Strength 14 one.
Please bear that in mind for all these tables.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Barriers vs Fracters<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GmmKDh6TlLM/UsWmO-moYfI/AAAAAAAAAhk/kkMjf76FI_0/s1600/Icebreakers1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GmmKDh6TlLM/UsWmO-moYfI/AAAAAAAAAhk/kkMjf76FI_0/s640/Icebreakers1.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
efficiency of Fracters really depends hugely on how cheap they are to break the
four main Barriers (Ice Wall, Wall of Static, Bastion and Eli v1.0) as they
made up nearly 90% of ALL Barriers played in the Top 32 decks at Worlds. That <b>Corroder</b>
is the champion Fracter should surprise almost nobody – Corroder has set the
standard that other Fracters have failed to meet since the Core set – but I was
personally surprised to find that <b>Battering
Ram</b> was only slightly less efficient.
Comparing the two; the Battering Ram costs slightly more to use against
Ice Wall (and the forthcoming Paper Wall and Wraparound) but is better against
the medium-large Barriers and with Eli v1.0 quite common at Worlds it worked in
Battering Ram’s favor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7x4aSul-fzQ/UsWmlmaxQHI/AAAAAAAAAhw/ESjfS1z6HpE/s1600/Battering+Ram.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7x4aSul-fzQ/UsWmlmaxQHI/AAAAAAAAAhw/ESjfS1z6HpE/s200/Battering+Ram.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k4Had_JDMdY/UsWmlrYFW6I/AAAAAAAAAiA/gABK-3aHSFs/s1600/Breach.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k4Had_JDMdY/UsWmlrYFW6I/AAAAAAAAAiA/gABK-3aHSFs/s200/Breach.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HgygkUBY9P4/UsWmqEWYT7I/AAAAAAAAAiM/ZyhREJgiwTc/s1600/Corroder.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HgygkUBY9P4/UsWmqEWYT7I/AAAAAAAAAiM/ZyhREJgiwTc/s200/Corroder.png" width="143" /></a></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The other Fracters
all lag well behind Corroder and Battering Ram, with </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Snowball </b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pretty much doomed to having to pay 1 more than Corroder
to break any piece of Ice after costing more to install and </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aurora</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Inti</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> considerably worse across the board. I also included the spoiled Fracter </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Breach </b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(due in Honor & Profit) and
although it’s a better in-faction option for Criminals than Aurora,
particularly at breaking the bigger obstacles, Breach is overkill on the more
common smaller Barriers. That doesn’t
bode well if you expect to see Paper Wall, Ice Wall and Himitsu-Bako a lot in
the future and that, combined with the Centrals-only limitation, makes Breach
pretty unattractive while Corroder is still available.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next table
looks at the total cost of installing your chosen breaker and then breaking
through X pieces of Ice, assuming the average break cost I worked out above.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mWQ4uw7bK1E/UsWm7reLDNI/AAAAAAAAAiU/NBYlcbFPl9k/s1600/Icebreakers2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mWQ4uw7bK1E/UsWm7reLDNI/AAAAAAAAAiU/NBYlcbFPl9k/s640/Icebreakers2.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When you
factor in the cheap install cost of Corroder it’s clear why it’s by far the
most common Fracter played – nothing comes close, regardless of how many times
you have to break through Ice. I was
interested to see Battering Ram come so close – pretty much the only difference
is the install cost (assuming the 2MU isn’t a problem). However I think that it may be just a moment
in time and if we see players using more Paper Wall, Wraparound and
Himitsu-Bako (based on Jinteki decks getting stronger) in future tournaments
the field will warp even more heavily towards Corroder being the #1 choice by a
large margin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v4ynpWxTn2w/UsWmmLUPkDI/AAAAAAAAAh4/3n-wkRXTn3c/s1600/Knight.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v4ynpWxTn2w/UsWmmLUPkDI/AAAAAAAAAh4/3n-wkRXTn3c/s320/Knight.png" width="229" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ok, it’s the
elephant in the room. Let’s talk about <b>Knight</b>.
In <b><span style="color: red;"><a href="http://thesatelliteuplink.blogspot.com/2013/12/mala-tempora-set-review-runner-cards.html">my set review of Mala Tempora</a></span> </b>I was relatively unkind towards
Knight as I felt that you didn’t get enough of a discount for the restriction
that it could only break one Ice at a time.
I still stand by that point but this analysis has made me upgrade my
evaluation of the card because, as you’ll see shortly, Knight is competitive
with the best breakers in each class. Comparing
Knight and Crypsis side-by-side like this really highlights how much more
efficient it is for a breaker that can smash any type of Ice and I don’t think
I really appreciated that fully at the time I wrote my initial review. I know that some players are working hard to
bring us a Reina Roja deck built around the Caissa and this makes me a little
more confident that they’ll find a working deck down that design path. Knight is a very effective breaker against
virtually all Ice and particularly supports aggressive decks that want to be
able to apply pressure while they wait to find their other breakers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don’t think you can rely on Knight alone – at some point there has to be more than 3 Ice rezzed for your 3
Knights to break, and Str>7 Ice like
Janus v1.0 or Hadrian’s Wall just stops you dead – but Knight definitely has a
role to play.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tF09Hw9gLm0/UsWnAsaCXuI/AAAAAAAAAic/I8kUyC50DFw/s1600/Icebreakers3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tF09Hw9gLm0/UsWnAsaCXuI/AAAAAAAAAic/I8kUyC50DFw/s400/Icebreakers3.png" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The fixed
strength Fracter is the large and powerful Morning Star. For 8 credits and 2 MU you would hope to get
a pretty great Barrier breaker, and that’s exactly what you get. Morning Star basically breaks through
everything but Hadrian’s Wall - of the Ice in the Top 32 the Morning Star broke
94% of them for a single credit and if you include clicking past Heimdal v1.0
that rises to 96%. Hadrian’s Wall is the
Morning Star’s Kryptonite, though, and in case you’re wondering the reason I
gave the Morning Star/Dinosaurus a fail vs Hadrian’s Wall is that a single
advancement counter on Hadrian’s Wall will push it out of range of even a Strength
7 Morning Star. Bottom Line on Morning
Star: if you can afford it (both the credits and the MU) then you get a truly
fearsome breaker and probably the only current Fracter that can persuade you to
throw Corroder away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Code Gates vs Decoders<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Fracter
story was really just a demonstration of why nothing was as good as Corroder,
but when you look at Decoders there is bit more to it than that. Firstly, a good Decoder is a lot less than
the important of a good Fracter because, as I discussed last week, there were
far fewer Code Gates played than there were Barriers (if you exclude Pop-Up
Window and Chum there were roughly half as many Code Gates). Secondly the most commonly-played Decoder is
Yog.0, which breaks all Str 3 or less Code Gates for 0 credits. It’s pretty hard for any other Icebreaker to
compete with “free”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Code Gate
story is then a question of how often you can rely on Yog.0 to work for you,
and if you can’t rely on it then a question how often are you actually going to
hit a Code Gate that HAS to be broken anyway?
Let’s tackle those two questions in order…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cjs-EtDspKQ/UsWoKGN09GI/AAAAAAAAAjE/k-WpJ_jnDm8/s1600/Icebreakers6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="138" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cjs-EtDspKQ/UsWoKGN09GI/AAAAAAAAAjE/k-WpJ_jnDm8/s400/Icebreakers6.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First of all,
</span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yog.0</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> straight-up breaks 80% of all
the Code Gates that were played in the Worlds Top 32 decks – there simply
aren’t enough decent choices with Strength higher than 3 and that makes easy
picking for Yog.0. Worse yet is that you
can click past Viktor 2.0 and potentially ignore Chum completely if you’ve got
a breaker for the Ice behind it, meaning Yog.0 may only actually get stopped by
Tollbooth, just 10% of Code Gates. That
puts Yog.0 in a similar position to Morning Star vs Barriers only it costs less
to install and only takes up 1MU, which explains why we see Yog.0 much more
frequently than we do it’s Barrier-busting brother. Code Gates have it rough and until we see
some decent ETR Code Gates at Strength 4+ (I'm looking at you,<b> <a href="http://netrunnerdb.com/web/bundles/netrunnerdbcards/images/cards/en/05016.png">Inazuma</a></b>) a lot of players will continue to both
avoid playing Code Gates as Corps and put their faith in Yog.0 as Runners.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But let’s say
you don’t want to run Yog.0 – either you know you will face a lot of Tollbooths
in your local metagame or simply can’t fund the Influence cost, what are your
options? Well, interestingly, the answer
is: it depends.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Three Shaper
Decoders share the spoils as the most efficient answer to Code Gates, depending
on how many times you think you’re going to have to break Ice with them. At the top end of the price range is new
arrival <b>Torch</b>, which costs a
whopping 9 credits but then stomps all over virtually every Code Gate it
meets. If you’re going to be running
past Code Gates frequently then your added investment in Torch will pay off –
by the time you’re passing your tenth Code Gate you should be level with the
cheaper <b>Gordian Blade</b>, which has
been commonly considered the go-to Decoder alongside Yog.0. Torch vs Gordian Blade is probably a straight
question of how much Tollbooth you will meet – if the answer is “a lot” then
Torch is worthwhile, but if you’re simply paying your way past Enigma and
Pop-Up Window you’ll never recoup the added install cost.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IBNhw4obI-M/UsWnrjZPhwI/AAAAAAAAAi0/KN_Tbr-eSjw/s1600/Zu.13.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IBNhw4obI-M/UsWnrjZPhwI/AAAAAAAAAi0/KN_Tbr-eSjw/s200/Zu.13.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4EVxxRl_AY0/UsWnjqZjMbI/AAAAAAAAAis/8cGLMJdHOvs/s1600/Gordian.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4EVxxRl_AY0/UsWnjqZjMbI/AAAAAAAAAis/8cGLMJdHOvs/s200/Gordian.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z2O9z2yngEk/UsWnr3NE92I/AAAAAAAAAi4/SGzKPXrdcEw/s1600/Yog.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z2O9z2yngEk/UsWnr3NE92I/AAAAAAAAAi4/SGzKPXrdcEw/s200/Yog.png" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the budget
aisle is <b>Zu.13</b>, who works out
slightly cheaper than Gordian Blade if there are only a few Code Gates around
but then always costs 1 more than the Blade to break pretty much anything but
NEXT Bronze, and that extra credit adds up over time. Because there are fewer Code Gates you need
to break than there are any other type of Ice I think there’s a real case to be
made for Zu.13 being desirable ahead of Gordian Blade, particularly for Anarchs
and Criminals because Zu.13 costs 1 less influence. Is Gordian Blade better than Zu in the Shaper
versions of Andromeda we saw at Worlds?
Yes, probably. Is it better than
Zu and a Quality Time? Maybe not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The other
three Decoders are all queuing up for the chance to look terrible, with none of
them really looking better than the Shaper options at any point – they cost
more and do less. <b>Peacock </b>can at least break a few Code Gates and not feel entirely
terrible, though it gets expensive quickly<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sentries vs Killers<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first
thing that struck me about the Killers, compared to Decoders and Fracters, is
that even the good ones aren’t that good – Femme Fatale and Ninja averaged
about 5 credits per piece of Ice, compared to around half that much for Gordian
Blade and Corroder. The one-shot Faerie
aside it seems like it’s simply not possible to bust through Sentries without
spending a decent amount of cash.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Part of the
reason for that is Archer, which is a monster.
If you can break all the subroutines on Archer without spending double
digits then you’re doing very well. The
Corp had to sacrifice a precious Agenda to rez Archer so it’s only fair that
they get something good, but still… it’s a horrible piece of Ice to have to get
past. It’s important to note that in
this analysis I’ve ignored Femme Fatale’s ability to bypass Ice, which is
probably the best answer to Archer. If
you weren’t fortunate enough to have Archer in the sights of your Femme then
you’ll pay handsomely to get past, whatever your Killer of choice.</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4QcE2nKC_vY/UsWopLetuTI/AAAAAAAAAj8/BS9_ulaC7HY/s1600/alias.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4QcE2nKC_vY/UsWopLetuTI/AAAAAAAAAj8/BS9_ulaC7HY/s200/alias.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mdewd8oV_Wg/UsWopHimzZI/AAAAAAAAAj0/XvNS-yquMOM/s1600/femma.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mdewd8oV_Wg/UsWopHimzZI/AAAAAAAAAj0/XvNS-yquMOM/s200/femma.png" width="143" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xCdQPl0RNf0/UsWopLl6NbI/AAAAAAAAAj4/HhjUV9jIddU/s1600/ninja.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xCdQPl0RNf0/UsWopLl6NbI/AAAAAAAAAj4/HhjUV9jIddU/s200/ninja.png" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you ignore
the Archer question there are three Criminal Killers that head the list of
efficient breakers, each of them very different. </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Femme
Fatale</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> cost a lot to install but it breaks through smaller Ice like Shadow
or Draco very quickly and easily, although larger Ice gets expensive. One way to think of Femme is that she’s
almost binary – you either pass something very cheaply or very expensively – while
</span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ninja </b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is more consistent and breaks
pretty much any Ice for 4 or 5 credits, but only rarely for less than that. One wrinkle in the comparison table – I assumed
Draco was Strength 0 most of the time, but that Corps playing against Ninja
would spend 1 credit to give it +1 Strength, forcing the Runner to spend 3 more
to break it. The spoiled </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Alias</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is the Killer equivalent of
Breach but is actually much more attractive – where Breach is only as good as
other options it looks as though Alias has a significant edge on the
competition – breaking the cheap Sentries like Femme Fatale then pumping up for
the big ones like Ninja. Like Breach it
can only be used on Central servers, but the numbers are solid and I think we’ll
see Alias a lot more often.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Beyond the
Criminal Killers it was interesting that Creeper wasn’t hugely worse than
Ninja, though it’s an expensive way to break Rototurrets and Shadows. There isn’t really a compelling reason to run
Creeper over Ninja, and given the higher cost involved in breaking all the most
common Ice I think Ninja is influence worth spending.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VKM_zrVhz7c/UsWoXmbmjtI/AAAAAAAAAjg/HaH6IiQNMSc/s1600/Icebreakers8.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="193" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VKM_zrVhz7c/UsWoXmbmjtI/AAAAAAAAAjg/HaH6IiQNMSc/s640/Icebreakers8.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The analysis
over time really serves to highlight the efficiency of Alias, once it
arrives. It also shows that the only
reason to play Femme Fatale is her bypass ability – you have to break A LOT of
Ice to make the added install cost pay off.
It’s impossible to evaluate Femme’s bypass ability in analysis like
this, unfortunately – it’s going to have to remain a judgement call for
yourself just how much Femme will save you.
If she’s going onto Archers then she’s an excellent choice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4gj1dPuQbFo/UsWoYTGPvDI/AAAAAAAAAjo/rcWmkDYzyXM/s1600/Icebreakers9.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4gj1dPuQbFo/UsWoYTGPvDI/AAAAAAAAAjo/rcWmkDYzyXM/s400/Icebreakers9.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5rISpC_QNlA/UsWqovopvaI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/DorW86EP0ac/s1600/Mimic.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So far we’ve
seen two fixed strength breakers that beat the vast majority of Ice, but Mimic
is a different story. First of all, the
good news – Mimic breaks most of the most common Sentries, and it breaks them
much more efficiently than a Ninja would.
Now for the bad news – most of the Ice that Mimic DOESN’T break will
trash programs, meaning that the gaps Mimic leaves won’t just see you failing
to complete runs, but also putting valuable Icebreakers into the Heap. More than either Yog.0 or Morning Star, Mimic
really NEEDS the support of Datasucker to make it a viable choice and running
naked with Mimic alone is risky.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BUT<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because there aren't any other particularly cheap Killers the
efficiency rewards from Mimic over Ninja or Femme Fatale are huge, if you can
only find some way to harness them. We've seen that Mimic alone is very vulnerable because it doesn't help against program destruction but Mimic alongside a second Killer can
become a potent combination. The current
Andromeda decks tend to play multiple Faeries, which are emergency escape
chutes against Archers and Grims, and once you know the big Sentry is there you
can go away and build Datasucker counters to go past them. Along with Datasucker you can also pair Mimic
with another Icebreaker…</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T9KxwVoO3Ow/UsWoXi6sFXI/AAAAAAAAAjc/28m-LnkcKsA/s1600/Icebreakers10.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T9KxwVoO3Ow/UsWoXi6sFXI/AAAAAAAAAjc/28m-LnkcKsA/s400/Icebreakers10.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ve left Ninja in as a comparison, but you can see immediately how combining Mimic’s efficient </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">answer to the most popular Ice can combine profitably with another Icebreaker to fill in the gaps.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5rISpC_QNlA/UsWqovopvaI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/DorW86EP0ac/s1600/Mimic.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5rISpC_QNlA/UsWqovopvaI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/DorW86EP0ac/s320/Mimic.png" width="229" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
Mimic & Faerie combination is clearly the most efficient, though unless you’ve
got a ready supply of Clone Chips and Sacrificial Constructs you can’t rely on
Faerie for more than one nasty piece of Ice.
The Mimic and Knight combination is surprisingly effective, and if you
used a click or two on the two Ichi Sentries it would be even better. As an in-faction solution for Anarchs I think
this is a powerful combination that we’ll see frequently, with Mimic breaking
the bulk of Sentries to share the load with Knight, and Knight taking out the
occasional big hitter than Mimic can’t deal with. The combination of Mimic and Femme Fatale
makes sense if you assume that Femme will bypass Archer, but without that help
the synergy between Mimic and Ninja is much better - Mimic breaks everythin</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">g Strength 3 or less,
and Ninja is efficient at getting up to Strength 5 for the bigger Ice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With no
single Killer proving an efficient answer to Sentries it looks as though “Mimic
& ???” is the most attractive rig available for runners who are looking to
settle in for a long game.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Conclusions<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, what did
I learn from all this? Well I can
probably sum it up as:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Knight
is a lot better than I thought it was.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Corroder
is the best Fracter.</span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">By far.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Yog.0
is detrimental to Ice diversity. Inazuma will be very important.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Zu.13
is actually a decent option to Gordian Blade.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Sentries
are hard to break. Period.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Alias
is going to be strong when it arrives.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Mimic
needs backup.</span></span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope you’ve
all found my Ice/Icebreaker analysis as useful to read as it was for me to write,
and may it bring you look in the upcoming Store Championships!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Until next
time… adieu!</span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Edit:<br />Garotte has been spoiled in True Colors. He trumps all current Sentry Breakers...</span><br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Et8938kFc3o/UtO5Xe2A0pI/AAAAAAAAAk0/SbdL5gRCPl0/s1600/Sentries+Garotte.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="176" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Et8938kFc3o/UtO5Xe2A0pI/AAAAAAAAAk0/SbdL5gRCPl0/s640/Sentries+Garotte.png" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
Stay On The Leaderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450238947689261754noreply@blogger.com0