GRNDL Supermodernism

Decklists
1

I’d like to talk about a deck that I’ve been playing for a while; It’s fast, it’s dangerous and a couple of weeks ago I won a 27 person BABW qualifier with it. Here’s the list as it stood then (cards up to Underway were legal):

Hypermodernism 3.1: You’re Going on the List.

GRNDL: Power Unleashed (Fear and Loathing)

Agenda (11)
2x High-Risk Investment (Order and Chaos)
3x Hostile Takeover (Core Set)
2x Oaktown Renovation (Chrome City)
1x Posted Bounty (Core Set)
3x Project Atlas (What Lies Ahead)

Asset (5)
2x Blacklist (Breaker Bay) [color=#FF8C00]••[/color]
3x Snare! (Core Set) [color=#DC143C]••••• •[/color]

Operation (15)
2x Fast Track (Honor and Profit)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
3x Power Shutdown (Mala Tempora)
3x Restructure (Second Thoughts)
3x Scorched Earth (Core Set)
1x SEA Source (Core Set) [color=#FF8C00]••[/color]

Barrier (6)
2x Changeling (Up and Over)
3x Meru Mati (Breaker Bay)
1x Spiderweb (The Underway)

Code Gate (5)
3x Enigma (Core Set)
1x Quandary (Double Time)
1x Wendigo (First Contact)

Sentry (5)
3x Archer (Core Set)
2x Grim (Opening Moves)

Other (2)
2x Chimera (Cyber Exodus)
10 influence spent (max 10)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Underway

Decklist published on NetrunnerDB.

Supermodernism in other IDs has been discussed a reasonable amount recently, but in case you aren’t familiar with the archetype the plan is to score out agenda points as quickly as possible behind cheap ETR ICE, with scorched earth keeping the Runner from being too greedy with their early runs. It’s often fine to leave R&D undefended for a few turns, especially with the chance that one of the Snares puts the runner into Kill range.

I feel that GRNDL is the most powerful ID for playing this type of deck, as the early game economic advantage lets you begin scoring immediately. I normally expect to score my first agenda by turn 3 or 4, ideally an Atlas that can then chain into more agendas or fetch SEA/Scorch if the opportunity arises. Most of the agendas in this deck pay out as you score them, allowing you to sustain the economic advantage for as long as possible.

The main limiting factor for the deck is influence. You need to spend 2 on SEA source, and with only 8 left there isn’t much room for importing power cards from other factions. Luckily this deck doesn’t have to pay the 3 influence Jackson tax, functioning fine without him. 3 Snares were my default way to spend most of the influence for a long time, but I’ve also been testing Casting Call, and there are other cards that may be worth including.

I’d love to hear people’s opinions on the deck, and I encourage you to try it if you enjoy playing tense, fast paced games of Netrunner. It can feel unforgiving sometimes, and winning once the runner has their rig set up can be a challenge, but the early game power is very impressive.

7 Likes
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UK citizen? Check
Scorched Deck? Check

Need I say more as why people fear the British?

10 Likes
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I’ve been experimenting with this deck too (because I got saddled with GRNDL as my ID for a random ID tournament…).

I’ve played against variety of IDs, including Sunny, Noise, Valencia, Kate, and Leela.

I’ve had wins when my opponent did something crazy and floated tags gambling I wouldn’t have a Scorched Earth.

Other than that, I’ve lost every game. It has a number of problems:

  1. The SEA-Scorched Earth threat isn’t real early game, as there’s only one SEA Source in the deck and it’s hard to score an overadvanced Atlas early while maintaining a money advantage. Runners can and will run wild and free early on, and statistically this strategy will win them more games than it loses.

  2. Power Shutdown has done almost nothing - I have used it more for pushing through an Indexing/R&D lock by trashing my top cards, rather than trashing programs/Clone Chips. There is plenty of cheap stuff being installed, and runners have tons of recursion. Smart Shapers won’t run with an SMC out until you install-advance, or if they do run they will pop SMC for a breaker.

  3. Archer isn’t good any more. Even if you can land one, the loss of the agenda point delays you by at least a turn and usually 2-3.

  4. Blackmail wrecks you. Valencia (and even weird Noise decks doing strange bad pub things) will crush you.

  5. Faust wrecks you. The kill is the only hope you have against these decks, and between Imp, I’ve Had Worse, Plascrete, money races and only one SEA Source in the deck, you have no hope.

In short, it doesn’t threaten the kill very well and it needs a way of winning that isn’t reliant on the runner not having the right breaker or doing something stupid (e.g. getting dragged into kill range by a Snare!). It’s worth making direct comparisons to Butcher’s Shop here, because both decks are the same idea. But Butcher Shop’s kill flexibility (through Plascrete, forcing runs due to Breaking News, no need for a full combo all at once thanks to Midseasons, assets helping the money race, no bad pub) is far superior, and the scoring potential (Astro, bluffed as naked assets, overadvanced Beale) also far superior. This plays into spiky, porous ice (Pop Up, Gutenburg, Data Raven) leaving GRNDL struggling with its mess of end the run and impotent program trashing.

All that said, it’s maybe the best GRNDL deck around. Casting Call might give it a lot more teeth than Snare!, as it can let you score against a broke Valencia even with Blackmail.

5 Likes
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I’ve been trying a Haarpsichord deck that runs similar to the Supermodern playstyle. The ID provides multi-access defense that snare! once did, and it has the FA option as well as the gear check rush game plan early. It isnt perfect and I’ve only just started testing with the ID, but the deck went undefeated at a small GNK so it’s certainly worth looking into.

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Good work on this Don, I know you have long had a good reputation with it, even amongst the Scorch-happy folk of the UK such as myself.

I would say once you showed me the list, the lack of Jackson terrified me. This might be because of Noise decks I’ve been rocking since 2013, and the random mills taking away some key pieces, Imp emptying your hand, and the ICE being vulnerable to Parasite, etc. How are you finding your Noise match up?

The other thing is, Jackson is good for draw. So if you want to get to the SEA Source, Scorched or other cards quicker, he’s really useful for that (plus get them to access before using so you can land a SEA if wanted).

Regrettably we’ve not played in living memory, but if you’re up for some OCTGN / Jinteki as some point, I’d happily have a go with a Noise match up and see if I get my house burned down, or you end up with cards to protect yourself. :smiley:

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How do you protect Blacklist? I can see how it can be strong, but how do you protect it without having to put it in your scoring remote, stopping you from using to score out?

I’ve been playing a similar deck for fun, but I’ve always been able to only build a single remote without spreading my ice too thin

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Kudos on the win especially sans Jackson Howard!

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Having piloted the deck a decent chunk myself, pre-Faust, it was extremely hard to lose against Noise (unless he got super lucky). You go far too fast against Noise: rushing is absolutely amazing against him for any deck and this is a deck teched to do just that.

I’m not sure on the matchup post-Faust (as I’ve not played it), I’d guess it’s a bit more fair but probably still GRNDL favoured.

Not as good as Anonymous Tip! Fast Track is pretty much for-sure better than Anonymous Tip, too! Don explained it well as to why he chooses Fast Track over Tip: When you Anon Tip, you want to see exactly one agenda and you probably want it to be Atlas. Fast Track giving you that as a sure-thing and costing no influence means it’s a straight swap. There are few times I wish I’d draw into Scorch as opposed to an Agenda (and digging for 2-3 of 4 cards in your deck is maybe misguided anyway).

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I really don’t think this is true at all any more. Noise used to rely on Parasite/Sucker to get into the scoring server. There simply wasn’t enough time for him to pull together the money, the sucker tokens, and not get killed all at the same time. If Noise mulligans for Faust and aggressively pressures HQ/R&D with Imp, there’s little the corp can do.

(Contrast with HB, where you have Ash, Biotic, maybe SanSan or Caprice, Architect, Eli, and lots of bluffs to drop into a remote.)

But Jackson isn’t going to help, and I agree on his exclusion from this deck.

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@Xenasis I piloted almost a straight copy of this from your nrdb list to a GNK and a couple weeks of play. GRNDL ID and everything. It won the GNK, locked out a Kate (I had to build a new scoring remote), and Scorched 1 win. It was with Old Hollywood and man does Casting Call destroy snare. Fixes all the problems described.

Though over the two weeks I’ve found it better for me out of Titan. I do play 3x Geothermal instead of 2x High Risk in that and less Grim (1).

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How do you ever actually tag anyone with only one SEA Source and no Data Raven or False Lead?

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I’ve been playing variants of Modernism heavily for well over a year now, and I consider the third Snare unnecessary, and in fact detrimental to the deck. The archetype still has the problem it always has: remote lock. While you can technically win without ever IAA or IA, the chances you will pull that off are very slim. This deck folds to PP Kate. She can race you for money and lock you out of your remote very quickly. The deck had a much better chance before Kate started playing Atman again. Atman at 4 solves the advanced Changeling problem very quickly.

This deck used to perform admirably against Noise. With Faust, I consider the match-up almost unwinnable. You can no longer rush agendas early behind a single- or double-ICEd remote. Your version exacerbates a bad match-up by playing without Jacksons. I haven’t tried Blacklist in this archetype; maybe it’s better than I would assume. As others have said, my experience with it is that protecting your centrals and 1 remote is already difficult enough (most the time I leave HQ open for a long time out of necessity).

I congratulate you on your success with the deck. While I continue to return to the archetype over and over, I have found it difficult to consistently beat any reasonable Shaper list in some time. I still play it because it’s one of the few Corp decks that is actually fun for me, but I consider it definitively tier 2 at best. Personally I have been playing it out of Argus since O&C, GRNDL before that.

Another card I’ve dropped and never looked back: Chimera. It folds to Parasite, which is a liability in such a red meta.

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I’ve been messing around a similar looking-ish list in Titan, and I’ve found the same problem with Chimera. The problem is that I have no idea what to put in it’s spot, since so often I really just want an ICE that reads both Sentry and ETR, but doesn’t cost 4 (lookin’ at you, Guard) or read Destroyer. But Chimera just folds to the 3 biggest decks around: Faust Noise, PPVP Kate, and Reg-ass MaxX. It’s a point of frustration.

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There’s always Caduceus, although Kate’s link is annoying.

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Yeah, but if you’re running bad pub, Caduceus is really, really shit.

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If you’re running bad pub, you only need the Caduceus until you rez the Grim or the Archer anyway, right?

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Hm, that’s actually not a terrible point. I’ll give it a shot =)

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For his list that would be less helpful, though, because he’s set on GRNDL. I think he should switch out two Snare! for Data Ravens.

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Or Casting Call. Arguably 2 Raven, 2 Casting Call, 1 SEA may be a better influence breakdown.

Shadow might be better than Chimera, and Traffic Accident isn’t crazy in a world full of tags.

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In general I find that tracing ICE is pretty bad when combined with the bad publicity. I’ve been testing a version with Swordsman instead of the Chimeras as I agree it is weak to parasite and I wanted to see if Swordsman was good enough against Faust.

1 Like