The thing I don’t like about sec testing, is it will often mean you have to leave up a remote, which is usually economy. Also desperado is entirely passive, while you have to click for the testing money.
Second test was against a NEH FA, was unlucky again but that game was really funny.
Sec testing is really really fun with that deck 
I’m still not sure it gains lot more credits than desperado but I’m not sure it’s a big hit to the economy though.
I’m thinking about cutting another Earthrise, they are cloging my hand (I don’t really like that card to begin with).
I like your idea about Dirty laundry, maybe I could replace a sure gamble by it and use the space provided by the earthrise too.
Vigil triggered 16 times there.
6 Basic Draw(s)
7 Basic Credit(s).
Ran HQ 18 times, most of them with Lamprey on -> I’d say 20c with sec test there
Ran R&D 8 times. -> maybe 2c
Ran a Remote Server 10 times. -> maybe 4c
Ran Archives 6 times. -> 10cr from sectest there
Total is around 36c for 42 runs.
I played Sec testing / Vigil on turn 2-3-4, had Xanadu on first clic.
Seems pretty solid. Do you know how many sec testing runs where essentially a click for 2 creds or a more useful run like crescentus or lamprey run?
EDIT: Nvrmind can pretty much figure that out from your write up lol. Seems like out of 42, 10 or so were not only click for creds based on the run quantities and cred values.
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I’m a little annoyed that others started down this path before I got to talk the deck up; but, both myself and the originator of the following deck can’t figure out how to take the deck further even though its strong and holds up pretty well; neither of us have been able to pilot it consistently against top tier corp players. The following resembles headlock, so I’m going to post it here, but @bblum can testify that it plays a bit differently. At the very least if you’ve been enjoying this deck, you’ll notice some similar trends. We tried to make at least one run and focus on ice destruction for our resource denial. I’ll say that if your meta is not prepared for headlock, they’re similarly unprepared for this deck. It unfortunately shares some similar weaknesses, but has a few more tricks up its sleeve too. Now that I’m done talking this deck up or down, let’s share it.
First off, Andrew Swanson is the originator of this deck, so all credit to him. This is not his deck exactly, he has preferences that I don’t and I’ve made tweaks, but its very close. You’ll notice right away that security testing and spinal modem are in this deck. I’ll let you absorb it before talking about it at the bottom.
Swanson Reina
Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter (Mala Tempora)
Event (20)
- 3x Dirty Laundry (Creation and Control)
- 2x Déjà Vu (Core Set)
- 3x I’ve Had Worse (Order and Chaos)
- 2x Knifed (Order and Chaos)
- 2x Lucky Find (Double Time) ••••
- 3x Quest Completed (Fear and Loathing)
- 2x Spooned (Order and Chaos)
- 3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
Hardware (2)
- 2x Spinal Modem (What Lies Ahead)
Resource (5)
- 2x John Masanori (Opening Moves)
- 3x Security Testing (Honor and Profit) ••••• ••••
Icebreaker (5)
Program (13)
- 2x Crescentus (A Study in Static) ••
- 2x D4v1d (The Spaces Between)
- 2x Datasucker (Core Set)
- 1x Keyhole (True Colors)
- 3x Lamprey (Upstalk)
- 3x Parasite (Core Set)
15 influence spent (max 15)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Order and Chaos
Deck built on NetrunnerDB.
There’s a much larger focus here on ice denial via destruction. I’m pretty sure Andrew plays the 3rd deja vu and replaces the crescentus with clone chip. Those 2 influence can be used in a myriad of ways. Secondly, the deck gets remote scores mainly through quest completed. It’s pretty easy to run all three centrals when you keep melting the ice and get 4 recurring credits every turn. Its also very easy to bank credits by using spinal modem+sucker+security testing.
The original deck didn’t run mimic, but I found during testing that it was pretty easy to win via singleton accesses through sentries; also architect often ruined forked even if you could break the card with eater.
Our challenge right now is that there’s a lot of variance if you don’t see eater or security testing. Also crisium is rougher on this deck than we’d like since it ruins quest completed. The deck is a little more derpy. I’m not quite sure how to phrase that. The need to run every turn isn’t great and you can easily fall into a trap where you use up/rather than banking resources every turn. Since there’s no kati or really strong advantage this deck isn’t a headlock deck. It can still get corps to 0, but I’ve rarely held them there. Still get agenda scores, though during those periods which is what matters. Memory is tighter, a bit too.
Between D4v1d, mimic, & parasite, you usually can get into most remotes if you’ve got too. Just may take a couple runs. On these turns masanori is a liability, but he’s too good the rest of the game to let him go. You have to be careful with the sec tests and some games you don’t install him if you’re expecting scorch or having to clear too many tags.
My latest thoughts have been that going down to 2 lamprey might be the right move, finding space for forked because of gutenburg and susano-no-mikoto probably wouldn’t be bad, and if you could find a good econ supplement that could replace lucky find then you could go 3x clone chip for the parasites.
A point many haven’t considered with why this deck probably works. If you leave the inner layer of ice on centrals, installing new ice and rezzing them costs a credit more, which is like having a xanadu without ever paying to install it, which is why leaving sentries on the board typically works out. Most are cheap and have few subroutines. Its also a surprise when the mimic comes down and suddenly you can access centrals. Also, since a lot of decks don’t run tons of ice, making a corp wait to play more ice often leaves scoring windows open for you longer; whereas in a standard headlock deck if you don’t have them clompletely locked, they might just rerez the ice you shutdown. (Obviously good play means you use your work compression to create a situation where they shouldn’t be able to do that. bit I’ve seen players do that.)
Replacable Cards:
Keyhole - memory can get pretty tight. Card rarely wins games for this variant; but when it does!
1x lamprey - Having 1 about to punish is good, but its probably not as necessary since we don’t have vamp anyways.
1x quest completed - You shouldn’t go below 2 qcs, 2 knifed or 2 spooned in this build; but the extra card is fluid between these slots. Could be a forked or a deja vu.
2x crescentus; its good, but is it better than a clone chip? Eh?
Anyhow, I’ve seen andrew win a ton with this deck. I’ve won a ton with this deck. Its a solid foundation. Would like to hear where other people can take it and what they think is the weakest/strongest part of the deck. I encourage you to play it and not just armchair, though.
I’ve tried to reconcile this with mainstay headlock for a while and never quite got all of the good stuff from each to mesh; I think its because the tempo is just off between the two deck styles.
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So after testing sec testing tonight I can definitely say it does not get you as much money as desperado. There are some pros and cons though.
Pros:
-Lots of tempo due to lower install cost
-Synergizes with eater for crescentus plays
-Can run vigil which is less clunky than earthrise hotel.
Cons:
-Significantly worse than desperado when the corp is cred locked.
-Earns less money than desperado over the course of the game.
-Is not a threat on hq or rnd (probably the worst con).
-Asset econ becomes slightly harder to trash.
On a side note, Dirty laundry is definitely the correct decision. I never once wanted daily casts over it and it punished windows when the corp was poor and I could easily land it for a cred lead. Also made my starts infinitely less clunky. Dirty laundry into liberated or sec testing than dirty laundry next turn was always great.
Games:
3 games versus NEH Trick of Light fast advance. Won 2 lost 1. Lost the game where sec testing and visage were on the bottom.
1 game versus weyland big ice. Won. Got two early sec testing/vigil and crescentus lamprey lock before they could score out.
I feel like my first change would be to put in another identity. Reina’s at her best with as much econ disruption as possible, where her id usually means they can’t rez a piece of ice at an important time, this might be better off in whizzard or kim if you get frequent accesses, or val/quetzal if you don’t.
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Looking at this (renia swansan), its more a wizard or kim deck,
going -3 lamprey
-2 lucky find
+2 clone chip
+2 daliy casts.
+1 knight or corroder, as using eater to kill wraparound is painful.
also would think this is better in its own thread. so not to dilute headlock thread
If I made 36c, that’s 18/42 runs.
Another game vs @Calimsha using a BS glacier (I guess that was @bblum’s). He completely destroyed the deck & I couldn’t draw Sectest until the end of the game.
Yeah, don’t think it’s whizzard or kim. Eater says you don’t access things very often and that means neither of those identity abilities will fire very often. Whizzard would only make sense in the case where scrubber is a good card and would be useless in every other match because again, its a fairly low access deck. Reina really does feel like the right place for it. This is a resource denial deck. The only two ids I’d consider for it otherwise are quetzal, because again your invalidating a lot of ice and possibly val to make those runs even cheaper.
swap lucky find for E3 and rework the economy and its a quetzal deck. Increases the value of knifed too, might be able to go up 3. Essentially you’re blanking all the ice. Swap keyhole to medium, and just rush the shit out of RnD, while keeping HQ cheap to run so lamprey can do its thing. Probably scales pretty poor into the late game though I’d think, depending on how hard it is to keep you off suckers…
Deck can access every turn for suckers/credits. That’s usually not a problem. D4v1d takes care of anything too big and you usually knive/spoon those things. Medium might be the better call.
Can you get in frequently without Eater? Then medium is the correct choice…always.
Not normally; you get the occasional single access after you knock the walls down before they come back up. It’s usually profitable to hit HQ when this happens. Win plenty of games that way. I pressure R&D just as a way to keep the corp poor. Top decking agendas now and again, usually 1-2 per game. Out of reina the accesses aren’t often enough to actually capitalize off of medium, imo. It is unusual for any server (aside from potentially a remote) to have more than 2 ice on it during the game. Often they’re lucky to have 1x deep servers. And ice light decks simply die.
The biggest problem for the deck is cyberdex+crisium play. Wiping counters on the turn you’re going to blow something up with a parasite mid run is usually awful. And crisium can shut down your money engine if one goes up on R&D and another on HQ. The second problem is the smart blue sun player who hits you with damage twice, the first time to wipe your hand of I’ve had worse, and the second to just end you. Usually a government takeover deck where you have a hard time single accessing for victory.
I’ve probably played 30+ games with the deck and it has a winning percentage, though its often a slog.
Here’s a quetz version if anyone wants a go at it:
Question regarding standard headlock list. What is a good line against Bako + Crisium on HQ? Anything I do seems quite wasteful. Parasite won’t cut it. Knight forces a pick-up but as long as there is another piece of ICE on HQ, Crisium won’t be accessed anyway. Seems like the only solution is to burn lots of Crescentuses to ultimately get in, but that really is not that great. Thoughts?
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It’s another fairly compelling case for Knifed. Wraparound/Bako/Ice Wall. They’re the cards you want to see early and often against this deck.
Use a clone chip to insta parasite bako, if you paly sucker that is.
If not, well… that s another story.
Force the corp to lose money somewhere else then crescentus / knight the bako and go trash the crisium.
Don’t get yoursefl tunnelvision into locking the HQ. There’s many other ways to force the corp to spend money and be poor with this deck.
4 Likes
I’ve thought about our game some where I scored out the Hades with 2 cards left in R&D. I think if you would have saved some clone chips for Knights, you could have easily trashed my Crisium Grid.
At one point I had like Eli/Bako on HQ. Had you a clone chip left, Knight the Bako first click, run second click, my Crisium is dead.
Knifed is good, but I think your list is fine. Lesson, save Knights for big plays vs RP like trashing Sundew and Crisium. Once you take down that Crisium and Vamp, RP can’t recover. Or, if Caprice is parked on HQ, just use your Knights and Parasites to keep Agendas and Sundews out of their remote.
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I have been practicing with this deck alongside a home-brew to see which one I want to take to regionals. If you have the time would you please answer or comment on some questions?
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I have been winning but finding the deck to be a little slow. I do have 3 IHW and 3 earthrise so I feel draw is sufficient. My list does not deviate far from your current one so I’m curious if this is just normal and is mitigated by familiarity (i.e. faster turns through more confident decision making). I seem to attempting to find the balance between digging to get what I need and taking time to money-up so I can vamp when i have to
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I still haven’t found enough balls to go with just one keyhole. In the games where the singleton is in the bottom third of your stack has it proven to be a detriment and if not why
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I started with the 2 eater 3 knight 1 david breaker layout and have been punished by the eaters being too low in the stack. My issue with the knights has been situations such as Ice-ice-money, then running HQ only to find a cheap piece of ICE that ill be happily discarded to get rid of my knight. During that or even a normal situation HQ goes 2 ICE deep quick and knight is swiftly neutered. Perhaps I am not using knight correctly? Watching kiv I don’t recall seeing too differently. I have currently switched to 3 eater - 2 david - 1 corroder
Perhaps it’s for NEH? admittedly I haven’t had too many chances to practice against that.
- one visage over 1 IHW is a lock for you or just a test?
commentary:
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I acknowledge vigil’s potential draw but desperado is certainly not a “win more” card. It’s a vital 2nd component in the fight against assets/upgrades and it allows you to recover after selling out on a head-lock
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I feel the knifed slot is the “meta-slot” in this deck. that card could easily be deja-vu or some other card that makes meta-sense.
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no way in regards to inject. The deck doesn’t seem to be attempting to be blazing fast so there’s no reason to act that way. Perhaps if you could replace vamp (which is a slow card) with 2 other cards that really speed the deck up it could be a consideration.
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there was earlier discussion about inserting a yog and I feel that is incorrect unless NEXT is all over you’re area. Its highest value is achieved vs. quandry as enigma or datapike aren’t terrible targets for crescentus and parasite handles them quickly.
If that slot is to be a normal breaker i’m torn between corroder and mimic. Mimic’s value lies with architect and caduceus. Corroder with wraparound and Himitsu. Also I feel corroder is more likely to grant you an access on a remote over mimic.
Finally: Would you please update your list on netrunnerdb? would be much easier than scrolling up this monstrosity 
P.F.F - thanks to you and any other who share their experiences in regards to my questions
3 Likes
I can answer for @SamRS on some of the points you brought :
- Yog : You shouldn’t see yog as a breaker per-se but as a big parasite who blank Enigma / Quandary / Datapike / Crick on any server except Archive / Turing on HQ. Since all those ICEs are widely played, I think yog is in a pretty good place. Not having to worry about a third opponent ice (since Code Gate are actually widely played atm) and free to use your parasite on other ICEs is good for you. I removed Visage to fit Yog and I’m really happy about it.
- Knight on unrezzed ICE : On a central server, I’ll rather facecheck and deal with it instead of playing Knight on that ICE. If you manage to play a Xanadu early on, every rez will be painful for the corp (3 creds for Quandary is a huge deal for instance) and most of the time, it’s enough pressure, you don’t have to waste a Knight on that. It should be mainly used to run on a remote early on so you could keep trashing the assets econ and keep the corp honest on rushing behind a single piece of ICEs.
- Keyhole is a finisher and usually, Headlock will probably draw two third of his deck before the end of the game. Most of the time, you don’t even need it to win.
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