Professor + The London Library

It would seem like the The Professor would love the London Library that just came out in Breaker Bay

Free programs? Any non-virus? How ideal for the adaptable Professor.

However, it seems he needs a new philosophy if the London Library is going to be the keystone of this new deck archetype.

From what I can imagine with my knowledge of Netrunner so far, the London Library is a versatile tool for the Professor, but perhaps not the janky powerhouse it could be. This is a card that would augment the Professors usual style of building the perfect rig with extra tricks to supplement his arsenal of Programs and cash.

The brilliant minds here at Stimhack I think can take this further though and that’s what I want to discuss…

How can the Professor and the London Library come together to make a really new kickass Professor archetype?

I think that there are too many good viruses for Professor that the library becomes an anticombo. If you’re just going for big breakers you can do that just as well in other IDs.

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The best way I’ve seen London library used is to get a turn of cheap use from a big program before letting it trash at end of turn. I think 2 clicks to have something installed for half a turn is just not sustainable. But getting a turn out of it first before you test run it out of archives or just retrieval run seems pretty decent. And/or just have access to it in paid ability windows with clone chips? As a Shaper, often the worst place for your programs to be is your grip, so I think the play is to use London Library to effectively move your programs to archives while getting some benefit out of them first.

You might use London Library to pull back an Overmind or Lady after using them for a remote play, but its certainly not a sustainable way to use your programs for the whole game.

Kinda swamped with work right now (and trying to make a Comet Tacos deck work… damn you @Zeromus for putting that idea into my head!), so I haven’t playtested it too much. Here’s what I’ve come to so far:

3 credits strikes me as too expensive for what it does. You don’t save slots on combo pieces (still need at least Scavenge, ideally also Test Run) and probably need to run 3 copies, at which point Sahasrara basically becomes superior, as far as pseudo-econ for Prof goes.

You can see the problem as soon as you start considering the quintessential “power-turn program”: Sneakdoor Beta. With the Library, you pay 3 and have a resource out to be able to save 4 credits for 3 Sneakdoor runs. With Sahasrara, you pay 1 MU to get a 2-cred discount on pretty much each of your installs from then on until forever, and can Scavenge it into something else that’s been binned (like, a free Parasite, Faerie, D4V1D - whatever’s needed, really). Not being able to host virii (which are, like, half of every Professor deck I’ve ever built) is the final nail for me right now.

The big problem with this kind of deck, however, is that if you meet someone playing Blacklist, you’re just done. And as El-Ad wrote on Twitter last week, if your netrunner deck folds to a single card, you have a problem :slight_smile:

Shame that Career Fair is not a green card (or that Prof doesn’t have, like, 5 influence), otherwise it’d be very kickass in a Prof build, empowering London Library, Daily Casts and Professional Contacts. As it is, I’d be paying 3 credits for:

  • A free turn of Keyholing
  • A free turn of Sneakdooring
  • Using Femme like a weird Inside Job (potentially repeatable, at the cost of 3 clicks total)
  • D4v1d-related OAI Curtain Wall nukeage

Now… those are extremely potent cases if you notice, but they’re also kinda narrow. Could be worth it as a one-of, potential trick (if you’re running Escher in your Prof deck, for instance, this could go in that slot), but it’s not a full-fledged econ engine (which is the thing he desperately needs). For it to become so, it needs more programs out that are all of:

  • Expensive
  • Not a virus
  • Best used in a power turn (think like Sneakdoor or Keyhole)
  • (bonus) Out of faction for Shaper (to avoid the goddamn “Kate does it better™” problem :stuck_out_tongue: )

So… fingers crossed that this cycle has some of that?

p.s. if the hosted program didn’t count against your MU (it’s on the Library computers anyway, right?), it would become much more interesting - letting you get good uses out of things like the afforementioned Keyhole/Sneakdoor or a SMC with your memory full. I don’t think it does that, though - no mention of such a feature on the card text.

The only good use for London Library I can see is Hayley + Library + Chameleon (next pack) + LLDS Processor.

You can auto-bounce the Chameleon before the trash, and they come in each time with pumped strength. Hayley saves you the click to make it all work, and you can run Dinosaurus risk free. Splashing in a singleton D4VID and Femme seems like value too.

I’m not sure about the rest of the deck though.It would probably include some number of RnD/HQ Interface, Modded, draw and something to find all these pieces.

Also, something to stop the corp from scoring 20 points while I set this all up would be nice too.

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:smile:

What about…Sacrificial Construct?

It sounds kinda nuts, but we can use it to host a Femme/other critical program we need RIGHT NOW, and basically put off the click to bring it back until next turn. Useful if that remote looks safe but then you Opus, Gamble, Femme, Run. Use the SC to keep that Femme alive, and they can’t even safely play in the remote on their next turn. Then safely bounce the Femme back.

It’s almost certainly not great, but it is a way of saving a program that would otherwise be trashed. All-Nighter does the same thing, but is more flexible.

You can do early game femmes to break into servers (trashing them, test running them back, trashing them again) pretty easily. And then move that into an overmind game plan once you’ve got enough memory down. But, it’s jank at heart and its not professorial enough. I’d say if you were already playing a deck with 3x femme and blue sun was giving you a hard time, try this card out… but otherwise, giant meh.

I’d rather use those on faeries; but yeah, you could buy yourself a turn with a program that way. Neat interaction, but not competitive. Too many resources.

I tend to agree. It would be nice to see a maligned card from Core set come back with a vengeance for such a janky combo. :smile:

Alas, it was maligned for a good reason. It’s not a bad card, just not as good as other things.

It’s not bad in shaper as faerie 2-4; Play 1 mimic, 1 faerie, 3 clone chip, 3 construct and you’ve got a recipe for a very fast deck. Play the cypher suite & lady with it too. I was playing that at worlds before Calim-Kate ever took off and split with Dave Hoyland, taking out his NEH deck in 6 turns or something crazy like that. It’s just a lot of spots dedicated to it and it doesn’t hold up well against glacier decks when you have to run servers potentially too many times.

Here’s an “upgraded” and untested version of my worlds deck, packing both the library and construct. Feel free to play with it. The ability to clot-lock an NBN deck with sac-construct is next level meta games ;). (Maybe not good though).

Chaos Strike | Mark II

Chaos Theory: WĂĽnderkind (Cyber Exodus)

Event (16)

Hardware (5)

Resource (6)

Icebreaker (8)

Program (5)

15 influence spent (max 15)
40 cards (min 40)
Cards up to Breaker Bay

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

Autoscripter too.

Remember that programs on London Library are installed and keep their printed install cost, so they’re legal targets for Scavenging out. So you could use London Library as a stand-in Test Run for those times you happen to draw your Morning Star or whatever. I don’t know how useful that is, since you’re still limited by how many Scavenge you draw (and you can’t play Retrieval Run in The Professor), though.

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I think London library is better in kit, where you’re in more need of an inside job that bypasses the inner most ice

As with all Jank, it seems better out of Chaos Theory.

40 cards, 3 Femme, couple Siphon, maybe a Vamp. Just seems better. Janky Inside Job is not good unless you have a way to exploit it.

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Ooh, with London Library you can get free Knights!

… Oh right, nevermind. :frowning:

grumbles about poorly worded rules and wanders off again.

I do like D4V1D with London Library. It’s better than you expect. I was running a Ken deck using Library with Femmes and a David, and Blue Sun couldn’t keep me out of any one server that I decided was MINE that turn. Should be adaptable to Professor…? (Except I guess you lose the Autoscripter I was using.)

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Good call!

I have been having fun messing with LLDS and Chameleon in Kate.

Alternatively, Kit would open some doors with Chameleon and scavenging Torch on London Library would give you a pretty good early-game setup. I was having good luck with scavenging Morning Star on it as well, I could see it as a tool for big-riggin’.

The library combos with Technical Writer since it is a new install every turn.

You can get to point where discount off Library and credits on Tech Writer offset loss of two clicks to use it. Using it to drop a Lady saves 4 and gains 1 for Tech Writer.

The key is that you don’t want to be in a situation where just hosting the same program over and over is the best option. The Library gives you flexibility. You want to play in a way that uses that flexibility.