If I went to 2 clone chip, I would probably go for the third Datasucker. Not sure what else I’d change at the moment.
How do play this against Jinteki? Played a few games on OCTGN and got thoroughly trounced.
which jinteki? damage jinteki is pretty free (vamp to check traps, keyhole until enough points in archives), rp is a slog but i’ve always felt pretty favored in it.
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It was Growing Solutions and they had a lot of Hokusai Grids up. Everything was super expensive to trash and they were running with very minimal ICE. It was also one of the first games I played with the deck, so that definitely could be a factor. That and being green in general. =}
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Yeah, IG is a weird beast. I’m honestly not sure what the plan there would be.
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Can’t really say much because there isn’t a common ig build right now. I usually just check archives and eat the 2-3 net damage from shock every time they try to build up more than 1-2 cards, in which case they play like a weaker rp. Don’t let them have jackson for too long though.
I would be afraid to play Siphon because an opponent who knows what’s going on is going to be able to never let you get any money from it, but playing it kind of prevents you from playing two of the best available influence-free econ cards in Kati and Daily Casts. You can win those Caprice/Crisium HQ games ONLY because of strong economy and the ability to pressure other servers. I feel like, while it might be more powerful, the Siphon is much more straightforward to counter for the corp. Is Day Job/Liberated really enough?
One of the only Siphoning Anarch decks to ever catch my eye was Wooleys original AoA deck, and that was largely because of Rook. One of the best ways to stop Siphons is with unrezzed HQ ICE and a low bank account. Rook lets you really fuck with that math. I don’t much like Rook in this deck because they just trash their unrezzed ICE and don’t lose any money, but maybe it’s worth thinking about for Siphon lists.
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Vs IG, if they ice archives and you break with eater, it flips the stack but doesn’t access when you succeed. If they don’t ice,just run with lots of cards in hand (2-3 clicks to draw), and eat the shit, force them to draw up and discard again…flooding HQ with agendas (or better discarding agendas). IG is not hard at all…unless caprice or checkpoint are hanging out there (even then, you have knight)…
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Brought SamRS’s list to our last SC yesterday, and it practically went undefeated. I died to a kill IG deck when I had the lamprey lock due to huge misplay and that kept me out of top ultimately, but the deck shined against RP and especially NEH. 2x Knight and David made the wraparounds solvent and 2x Scrubber laughed at their assets. I decked two out of two RPs playing wrap and crisium, as well.
The 1x Vamp singlehandedly beats CI shutdown as well.
Shocks me this deck loses to Weyland scorch. What’s the basics of why? Haven’t played the matchup. (Nor did I play any HB)
I don’t know about other weyland, but blue sun’s econ is slippery as shit and very resilient. Yes, you in theory have an answer to everything they could do, but in practice it’s hard to get all your answers at the right time, and sooner or later I’ll build my bank back up. Plus vamp becomes way worse when you can’t float the tag.
I think the deck it was losing to was a Titan Midseasons specifically designed to combat the Reina deck. I imagine it is problematic because most builds of this deck rely heavily on resource economy. I honestly don’t think it’s feasible for this list to win without Kati Jones.
Cool, I can see that. I like titan midseasons a lot (even if it’s not the “best”); nice to know there’s a matchup out there that’s favorable for it 
My comments re: Blue Sun were from personal experience; our local group has been playing a lot of control Reina (ever since my wife started crushing with it) and Blue Sun has been my best deck for slipping the noose so far, but I can definitely see how the titan midseasons deck could get out from under.
I can’t really speak to why SamRS’s deck is weak to Midseasons, other than the fact that Kati can sometimes not be enough cash in time (or you get tagged and lose Kati), but my deck hates Traffic Accident pretty bad since the corp can play it from zero cred. TA + Beanstalk + Scorch is a real threat, and can (sometimes) get through I’ve Had Worse.
I hadn’t played the midseasons matchup before, which definitely hurt. I’m pretty sure I could have played the NBN game better, which might have been enough to win. It didn’t feel like it was an auto-loss matchup or anything like that.
However, NBN midseasons ice is annoying, like Wraparound, Popup and Data Raven. But mostly, normally a corp has to rez ice to stop you scoring. Reina can then capitalize on the difference in cost for her to turn it off vs. them rezzing it. Midseasons doesn’t have to rez the ice, it just has to be ahead on $ to threaten killing you if you hit an agenda. Given that that is all they are trying to do a lot of the time, and they don’t really care too much about winning via points, it’s tough to race their money enough to vamp them to 0.
Sadly, I don’t have the luxury of a regular testing partner at the moment (if you’re good, hit me up on Octgn! :)). I’ll be interested to see what your assessments/results are for the NBN and Weyland midseasons matchups.
Several corp archetypes have no options for ‘playing around’ Eater/Siphon, especially with Lamprey and increased rez costs, and clearing tags isn’t that big of a deal is it?
Several don’t, but several do. At the very least, every corp has ICE. If the corp can just rez enough ICE on HQ that you both go broke, that ICE or some other ICE in a turn will keep you from locking them and you’re left too broke to do anything. It’s even worse if they kept you out by rezzing PADs, Eves, or Adonises.
This has always been the case for Anarch Siphon decks. They function fine until your opponent stops letting you gain money from Siphons. Maybe Day Jobs are enough to mitigate this problem, but I’m skeptical. It’s not that much better than Armitage was.
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i think the difference is the synergy between eater -> crescentus, siphon and vamp. eater is one stop shopping for the entire denial plan that is reasonably efficient. You could outlast the AoA deck because overmind or crypsis were not sustainable. eater also means anarch’s dont have to use their face on ice that sets them back anymore to apply pressure. now you can drop eater and make the run and the corp either lets you in. if its safe ice the anarch just bounces off and if its destroyer or damage its just a tax. the time and money not spent recovering seems to make the deck flow more smoothly.
i also think the grail RP lists in particular have a worse matchup against than your worlds RP list. the average cost to rezz their ice is slightly higher and most of the lists i’ve seen have dropped ELP which is defense that is not subject to reina’s dickery.
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I completely see where you’re coming from, and I don’t blame you for being skeptical. There are weaknesses to most decks, and this one is no different. However, a runner, playing smartly, can deal with some of the problematic remotes that might otherwise bankrupt him/her. . Rezzing Ice to bankrupt both players is not a viable strategy against Siphon Reina, however. Your ice will get crescentus’d or they’ll just medium dig RND. And if you’re broke, you can’t pay for TFP.
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On RP Grail vs regular RP: it’s a mixed bag here. On the one hand, I don’t want to face-plant into Merlin (but making the corp pay 7 is GREAT - this actually happened to me in the Foundry matchup, and I lost four cards). On the other hand, I’d rather not play against some combination of Caprice, Ash, and ELP. (I think the Keyhole versions might have a slightly better matchup against regular RP than the Siphon version. Finding Eater against Grail basically invalidates all their ice, but that means you have to find Eater. Against Grail, the programs you want are Mimic/Corroder/Eater/Yog.0/Datasucker. Yog.0 is the flex spot, which will be Crescentus at some point. Eventually dropping a Yog.0 to get through Merlins is pretty awesome. The rest are dealt with through some combination of Parasite or Eater + Siphon.
Against regular RP, you want to find Mimic early, then Corroder and Eater. And then you don’t really care about the rest. It’s harder when you don’t have extra breakers, or are reliant on Knight (which I think kinda sucks right now).
In both matchups, however, Caprice on HQ is scary. If you can get them to rez both Caprice and an expensive ice, you might be able to beat the psi game, but psi is inherently a shit storm. The best thing you can do is bid low and tax them out. Keep trashing the economy and you’ll be fine.
If more than half of the strongest Corp decks have some way to play around siphon it probably means that thus kind of strategy will be ineffective in a field less inclined to play creative decks than yours.
Not trying to belittle your performance but I think most of the skeptics here have played way enough against (or with) this kind of deck (siphon anarch I mean) to understand how to exploit the weak point of this strategy.