Astrobiotics: Fun with TWIY*

Deck Archetypes
61

This is my NBN TWiY deck that I have been testing lately for my upcoming SC, I got tons of deck that still need testing before a major tournament. Here’s my decklist

NBN: The World is Yours* (Future Proof)

Agenda (12)
3x AstroScript Pilot Program (Core Set)
3x Breaking News (Core Set)
3x Profiteering (Second Thoughts)
3x Project Beale (Future Proof)

Asset (6)
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves)
3x Private Contracts (Cyber Exodus)

Upgrade (2)
2x SanSan City Grid (Core Set)

Operation (10)
2x Closed Accounts (Core Set)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
2x Power Shutdown (Mala Tempora) ••••
3x Sweeps Week (True Colors)

Barrier (5)
2x Eli 1.0 (Future Proof) ••
3x Wraparound (Fear and Loathing)

Code Gate (6)
2x Enigma (Core Set)
2x Pop-up Window (Cyber Exodus)
2x Tollbooth (Core Set)

Sentry (3)
1x Archer (Core Set) ••
2x Ichi 1.0 (Core Set) ••••

As you can see I have included 2 Power Shutdown into the deck, I not sure if its the right move or not but it certainly helps me to get rid of those pesky programs such as Corroder :smile:

I still not sure on the Private Contacts, but basically is my source for money I guess.

62

I finished 5th at my second SC this season running my TWIY* and my adaptation of Lysander’s Kate Blitz.

Boardroom Blitz (v1.4)

NBN: The World is Yours* (Future Proof)

Agenda (11)
3x AstroScript Pilot Program (Core Set)
2x Breaking News (Core Set)
1x Character Assassination (Opening Moves)
2x Profiteering (Second Thoughts)
3x Project Beale (Future Proof)

Asset (2)
2x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves)

Upgrade (3)
3x SanSan City Grid (Core Set)

Operation (14)
3x Anonymous Tip (Core Set)
3x Biotic Labor (Core Set) ••••• ••••• ••
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
2x Shipment from SanSan (Second Thoughts)
3x Sweeps Week (True Colors)

Barrier (3)
3x Wraparound (Fear and Loathing)

Code Gate (4)
2x Enigma (Core Set)
2x Tollbooth (Core Set)

Sentry (3)
3x Grim (Opening Moves)

ICE (2)
2x Chimera (Cyber Exodus)

12 influence spent (max 12)
18 agenda points (between 18 and 19)
42 cards (min 40)
Cards up to Fear and Loathing

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

I went 3-1 with it. My only loss came in a game where I had 3 agendas in HQ (one Astro) and only one ice. I iced HQ and the Runner pulled the other two Astros off the top of R&D one after the other. Sometimes luck just doesn’t go your way, so I was OK with that loss.

Some general thoughts:

  • Shipment from SanSan is amazing. It provides a remarkable amount of flexibility. I’m completely sold on it, and I think it was absolutely worth going up to 42 cards.
  • That said, maybe now I can cut Jackson. I didn’t see anyone at the tournament playing Noise, even the people who usually love playing Noise. Although having 5 draw effects plus econ recursion if I really need it may be worth the two deck slots. I’m going to try to estimate the odds on 5-6 draw effects in 42 or 44 cards vs 3 draw effects in 40 cards.
  • I still love 3x Biotic Labor. I’m always happier to see Biotic Labor than SanSan City Grid. I’m generally happy when a Runner trashes SSCG and then sits back and rebuilts, thinking they’ve bought themselves some time. That said, once a Runner has trashed a couple of SanSans/Jacksons, they don’t always have the econ to trash the next one, especially with a piece of ice in front of it.
  • In one game, I rezzed my second SanSan to score my first Astro and the Runner left it alone, so I played SfSS and scored a Profiteering, going back up to 10c and giving me enough to rez the Tollbooth on R&D, which delayed R&D lock long enough to find and score the winning agenda.
  • On that note, Tollbooth was clutch. I’m glad I had two. You don’t always need it, but without it, my list would have no late game at all, and I prefer not to just lose if the game goes long. It obviously not as good as Archer, but I can’t have Archer since I want the full 3x Biotic Labor.
  • Character Assassination. I saw it twice and was never happy to see it. If I go back up to 44 cards, it will be because I go back to 3x Profiteering and 3x Breaking News. But it did work out for me in one game:
  • I had two Astro tokens in my score area and a rezzed SanSan, so I scored Character Assassination from one credit and trashed a fully loaded Armitage, which set the Runner back far enough that I had plenty of time to rebuild my own econ and score the game-winning Profiteering (IIRC). It sucked spending my Astro tokens, but CA wasn’t getting out of my hand any other way, and the Armitage snipe was definitely a big benefit.

I haven’t published this list on NRDB yet, because I’m planning to tweak it further for next Saturday’s SC. So I figure I’ll wait to publish another version until I’m satisfied with my adjustments.

1 Like
63

Still thinking over odds for tomorrow.

  Cards 12 Ice md6 12 Ice d6 AsBio md10 AsBio d10 3-6 Draws md6 3-6 Draws d6 AsBio d13
1    40  0.8440766 0.5945946  0.6648248 0.4236079     0.6179422    0.3943320 0.6585624
2    41  0.8259163 0.5774208  0.6441616 0.4062816     0.7262975    0.4829663 0.6841705
3    42  0.8078913 0.5608195  0.6241419 0.3899092     0.8066741    0.5568283 0.6993654
4    43  0.7900540 0.5447824  0.6047747 0.3744322     0.8664416    0.6186662 0.7066052
5    44  0.7724475 0.5292988  0.5860619 0.3597949     0.8300863    0.6089162 0.6757425

Cards is the number of cards in the deck.

“12 Ice d6” is the percentage chance of drawing 2+ ice in your opening 6 cards (hand + first turn) given 12 ice in the deck. “md6” indicates a mulligan whenever your opening 5 doesn’t have 2+ ice.

“AsBio d10” is the odds of drawing 1+ AstroScript and 1+ Biotic Labor in the first 10 cards (hand + 5 draws) given that there are 3 of each in the deck. Similarly, “md10” is the same odds if you mulligan every hand that doesn’t have one or more of each.

“3-6 Draws d6” is the odds of drawing 1+ draw effect (Jackson or Anonymous Tip) given that there are 3 in a 40-card deck, 4/41, 5/42, 6/43, and 6/44. The “md6” column is the same odds given that you mulligan every hand that doesn’t contain one or more. Note: the 44th card would be the 3rd Shipment from SanSan.

I currently run 42 with 5 draw effects (3 Tip / 2 Jackson), 12 ice, and 3x Biotic Labor. But even at 40 cards with 3x Biotic Labor, you’re only seeing 1+ Astro and 1+ Biotic in your first 10 cards 42% of the time unless you mulligan for that combo OR hit a draw effect (more on that shortly).

This is why I think the draw effects are so important and why I think 3x Anonymous Tip alone isn’t enough. If you only have 3x Tip in a 40-card deck and you don’t mulligan for it, your opening 6 are only going to have one or more about 40% of the time. But if you add 2x Jackson and go up to 42, that goes up 16%! Meanwhile, your odds of seeing 1+ Astro and 1+ Biotic in the first 10 cards only go down 3.4% - 4%, depending on the mulligan. The extra cards you get to draw in these cases amount to the final column: the probability of seeing 1+ Astro and 1+ Biotic in your first 10 cards, OR in your first 13 cards if you drew a Jackson or Tip in your first 6 (based on the 3-6 Draws d6 column). For convenience, I just assume Jackson is equivalent to Tip (i.e. you draw 3 more cards than you would have, so sometime in the first 5 turns you click Jackson twice in lieu of one click to draw). That isn’t strictly accurate, but accounting for it would be way more complicated than I’m willing to get tonight. You also could have drawn Jackson or Tip in cards 7-10, but that gets into multiple mulligan wrangling and I’m trying to keep it simple for now.

“AsBio d13” shows that the peak odds of seeing 1+ Astro and 1+ Bio actually come at 43 cards, when you take your 40-card deck and add 3 Jacksons. This is contingent on being able to install and click Jackson twice in the first 4 turns, so the real optimum may well be at 42 cards with two Jacksons – assuming you can’t run 42 cards and 3 Jacksons, but I’m not going down to 11 ice!

The other interesting thing is how much the AsBio d13 odds go down if you add the 44th card, which isn’t a draw effect. 42 and 43 cards are very close, but if you dilute the deck with the 44th card, you lose 3% on your chances of seeing 1+ Astro and 1+ Biotic in your first 10 (first 13 if you hit a draw effect).

From all of this, I think 42 cards is actually the right number, IF you already have 3x Anonymous Tip in your forty AND cards 41 and 42 are Jackson Howard. Going up to 43 for the third Jackson is debatable and would take a more complex analysis that incorporates clicks.

3 Likes
64

So I actually ended up running 44:

Boardroom Blitz (v1.5)

NBN: The World is Yours* (Future Proof)

Agenda (11)
3x AstroScript Pilot Program (Core Set)
2x Breaking News (Core Set)
1x Character Assassination (Opening Moves)
2x Profiteering (Second Thoughts)
3x Project Beale (Future Proof)

Asset (2)
2x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves)

Upgrade (3)
3x SanSan City Grid (Core Set)

Operation (15)
3x Anonymous Tip (Core Set)
2x Biotic Labor (Core Set)••••• •••
2x Blue Level Clearance (Fear and Loathing) ••••
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
2x Shipment from SanSan (Second Thoughts)
3x Sweeps Week (True Colors)

Barrier (3)
3x Wraparound (Fear and Loathing)

Code Gate (5)
3x Enigma (Core Set)
2x Tollbooth (Core Set)

Sentry (3)
3x Grim (Opening Moves)

ICE (2)
2x Chimera (Cyber Exodus)

12 influence spent (max 12)
18 agenda points (between 18 and 19)
44 cards (min 40)
Cards up to Fear and Loathing

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

First, as full disclosure, I went 2-2 with this list at the 25-person Gamer’s Den Store Champs, finishing 5-3 and ending up out of the top 8. The first loss was a real loss to a good Gabe Knight player who had the perfect opener vs my two Wraparounds – 2x Siphon, 2x Knight, Sneakdoor. I had 2x Beale in HQ and he pulled one. I held onto the other for a while and accumulated a hand with 2x Biotic, 2x SfSS, but he pulled the second Beale from my hand of 6 one turn before I would have been able to 5-advance it. The second loss was a timed loss at 0-2 after a 55-minute game vs a very slow Jinteki player. He pulled a Beale off the top and I didn’t see another agenda before time. So I don’t really feel like the results are a reflection of the deck, and I’m going to do more testing with the list as it stands.

So, why did I go up to 44? I figured that if 5 draw effects is good, 7 might be better. And when I ran the odds, I saw I could increase the chances of being able to pull 1+ Astro and either 1+ Biotic or 1+ SanSan even though going up to 7 draw effects forced me to cut one Biotic.

Blue Level Clearance addresses a scenario that comes up frequently with my build: after scoring with Biotic/SanSan or rezzing a Tollbooth to break R&D lock, I’m often left down a few cards and without many credits. If I’ve scored an Astro by this point I’m still in good shape, since with either 2c or SfSS I can keep things going, but sometimes I don’t have the Astro or I want to save the token and still score a Beale. With Blue Level, I can build my hand and get off the ground credit-wise. It’s also not bad early, letting me dig while giving me a decent cash infusion.

Cutting one Biotic for two BLC got me to 43 cards, but when I looked at the odds of getting 2+ ice in the first 6 cards with 43 cards – the 12 Ice d6 column in my previous post – I really didn’t like being all the way down at 54.4%. Adding the third Enigma as the 13th ice got me back to 58.3% while maintaining the same odds of seeing the Astro + Biotic/SanSan combo as a 41-card deck, because of the 7 draw effects.

I’m going to test a lot more with this version and see how I like it. Of course, Quandary and Guard are still pretty much auto-adds once Double Time and Honor & Profit are available.

1 Like
65

I’ve seen a lot of lists running 2 profiteering, and I’m curious about other people’s thoughts on this. I’ve been running an extra character assassination instead- the extra card slot is very useful (especially since I run a 40 card build), and giving out the bad pub has come back to bite me in some games. Even taxing the runner 1 or 2 credits a run can be important when you are digging for a final agenda to score.

With NAPD contract, the case against profiteering seems even stronger. The bad pub will counteract the tax to steal NAPD, and the two 4/2 agendas doesn’t hurt as much when they are NAPD’s instead of the (usually) effectively blank character assassination.

66

NAPD doesn’t work in my build, but it could slot into Lysander’s. For me, with Grim in there, losing the NAPD tax if I decide to rez a Grim is a problem. If I was going up to two 4/2s, I’d consider slotting in two Market Research and two Data Ravens. Or maybe just the second CA.

Profiteering has gotten less useful as I’ve added more economy, but I think for 40-card lists with only 3x Sweeps and 3x Hedge it’s very useful to have the occasional infusion of cash that Profiteering gives you. OTOH, the bad pub definitely adds up and is rough in the late game if you had to score a Profiteering and rez a Grim but didn’t win quickly after doing so.

67

Great analysis. My apologies, I think I burnt myself out fixating on TWIY for so long.

I like Jackson in TWIY as a drawing engine but not for his recycling capabilities. My reasoning is that my success rate is significantly higher in games that last 8-12 turns. As the game approaches and exceeds 13 turns, the runner has gotten more set up and I have trouble protecting my servers. Recycling nonessential cards (everything but Biotic Labor and Astroscript) dilutes the deck and prolongs my drawing what I need.

So yeah, great call going to 42 cards by adding a couple Jacksons; I’d just think carefully about his secondary ability.

1 Like
68

I only fire his secondary if I’ve got something I desperately need in Archives. Tonight I played a Noise player who milled my second AstroScript, so when he ran the Jackson I took back Astro, SSCG, and Jackson #2. Otherwise I completely agree.

I’m still running the 44-card list with 7 draw effects. I’m happy with it so far, but I want to test more before I make any claims about its quality relative to the 40 or 42 card versions, which are both excellent.

1 Like
69

Had some bad luck with my 44-card list at FFG’s monthly on Monday, going 1-3. In two games I mulliganed into a hand with too many agendas, none of which was Astro. Pretty unlikely, but it happens sometimes. The third loss was a close and interesting game against a Kit player.

I think the deck is still strong, but people are definitely more prepared for it than they were a few weeks ago. To me, that means it’s time to start talking about how to change it with Honor & Profit. Specifically, do we want Fast Track?

Currently, I think the answer is yes. The easiest way to lose with this deck is to get an Astro stolen or simply have them all in the bottom half of the deck. Addressing that weakness is potentially huge. My initial take on the desired mix for Fast Track is that it means we want to go back to 3x Biotic Labor and that it places more importance on having a rezzed SanSan, because the play we want to be able to make is:

  • Score Astro #1 OR get a SanSan
  • Get a Fast Track and a Biotic in hand
  • Fast Track an Astro into hand, install with SanSan (or use Astro token), Biotic Labor, advance, advance → score.

The Kit player who beat me ignored a rezzed SanSan and focused on digging R&D with 3x R&DI. I drew as much as I could, and the game was at 5-5; if I’d had a Fast Track my odds of winning would have improved drastically.

Right now, Biotic and SanSan are somewhat redundant and we generally use one or the other to score something, apart from rare Character Assassination cases. Fast Track makes having multiples of each a lot more useful, which in turn means we want to maximize our draw effect density.

Fast Track also puts the Runner on a one-turn clock when you’re at 6 points – a Fast Tracked Breaking News wins the game with SanSan, Biotic, OR an Astro token in the score area.

Adding Fast Track gives us more winning lines of play at the expense of deck space. The question is how much that deck space matters. As I showed above, I believe the optimum deck size for enabling SanSan / Biotic + Astro is 42 cards if we’re adding draw effects to get to 42 cards. However, because we’re accelerating the deck even further, I think we need to cut back on pricey ice (Roto / Archer for Lysander’s list and Tollbooth for mine). Every time we get to 7-8c, we need to be scoring an agenda out of hand if at all possible. Rezzing a Tollbooth is just not in the cards, I don’t think. Roto is too vulnerable, and Archer costs us a precious agenda. On the plus side, adding H&P cards gives us access to Guard.

Here’s a preliminary (untested) list:

Boardroom Blitz (v2.0) - H&P Draft

NBN: The World is Yours* (Future Proof)

Agenda (10)
3x AstroScript Pilot Program (Core Set)
2x Breaking News (Core Set)
2x NAPD Contract (Double Time)
3x Project Beale (Future Proof)

Asset (3)
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves)

Upgrade (3)
3x SanSan City Grid (Core Set)

Operation (15)
3x Anonymous Tip (Core Set)
3x Biotic Labor (Core Set) ••••• ••••• ••
3x Fast Track (Honor and Profit)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
3x Sweeps Week (True Colors)

Barrier (3)
3x Wraparound (Fear and Loathing)

Code Gate (3)
3x Quandary (Double Time)

Sentry (5)
2x Grim (Opening Moves)
3x Guard (Honor and Profit)

12 influence spent (max 12)
18 agenda points (between 18 and 19)
42 cards (min 40)
Cards up to Honor and Profit

NAPD Contract is pure tax; I want the Runner to steal it so they aren’t paying 5c to trash my SanSans (at least, not until I have another SanSan). I don’t plan to score it myself.

The one card that’s missing and that I would like to see in here is Shipment from SanSan, but I don’t see how there can possibly be space.

Thoughts?

70

Does Corporate Shuffle make sense in here somewhere? It seems like it might for those turns where you’re like: “eh, ok, I need to draw for agendas”. Haven’t tried it yet, myself.

71

Usually I’m doing Anonymous Tip or clicking Jackson in that situation. In a Noise-light meta, I could maybe see testing Shuffle in place of Jackson. Might be interesting.

72

I agree with your assessment, and I too have been having trouble with Astrobiotics lately. I think this deck blindsided a lot of people and it forced Garrotesaurus-type players to go home and rethink their life decisions. Now runners are prepared and much quicker.

I also completely agree with your decklist, with two exceptions: I think you can (and should) cut one Jackson and one Fast Track. I’m fairly certain you will get exactly what you want out of having two of each. I couldn’t tell you if you should leave those two slots blank or fill in with SfSS. I’d guess the latter option, to bolster your economy and widen scoring windows.

73

That’s an intriguing option. I will definitely test with that.

74

how about gaining a slot by removing BN for third NAPD?

75

Here’s my contribution from the other side of the barricade - I don’t play Astrobiotics, but I try my damn hardest to make people playing it lose all the time :stuck_out_tongue:

This is exactly the conclusion I arrived at back when I was building my runner deck for the Vienna store champs, and wanted to build specifically to beat this (class of) corp deck. Trashing SanSans, even rezzed, is too much of a tempo hit unless it’s done via Imp or Whiz, so if a SanSan gets rezzed, RnD lock and/or econ lock is the way to go. Both Fast Track and Corp Shuffle help work around that, so they should be probably included in your build in at least some shape or form.

The second big thing that I feel like it needs addressing is Source-based counterplay. The usual counterplay you’d use with this deck (namely scoring a Breaking News off a SanSan to make the annoying spoiled brat go away) becomes way less reliable now that Fall Guy is around. Doing this repeatedly to chew through Fall Guys becomes a problem too, as that gives a decent amount of time to the runner, which he’ll presumably put to good use. Repeatedly using +1 fast-advance trick is not a sustainable long-term plan, especially if you’d also need to address RnD lock via Fast-Track at the same time (putting you at +2 tricks, which basically means astronomical sums of money). My personal opinion is that the best counterplay available here is actually having some decent ICE (read: “don’t drop the Tollbooths, guys!”).

Chakana is a weird hybrid between the previous two points, as far as solutions are concerned - it needs repeated RnD access like locking RnD does, but once it’s up, it’s a Source you can’t just Breaking News through. I’ve had great success with it, and basically the only problematic thing were layered Tollbooths - one will just get femmed, you need two. So we’re back to the “meatier ICE” requirement.

Now that I read back through what I wrote here, I guess my message could be summed up as:

“In order to keep up the speed, you’ll have to slow down a bit” :smiley:

(not sure if helpful)

76

I think initially I want to keep 2x Breaking News to enable instant wins from 6 points with Fast Track and SanSan / Biotic / Astro token. If that doesn’t end up being useful, then I’ll look at going to 3x 4/2.

Peekay, interesting points. I’m still not sold on The Source as a major metagame force. I think with NAPD everywhere, Runners are going to be wary of having to spend 7c to steal an agenda. I also think that in all likelihood, Fall Guy just means you need to deal with The Source twice. Maybe three times, but there’s another solution you didn’t mention: let the Runner steal an agenda. In my case, the ways I’d try to make The Source go away are:

  • Score Breaking News, obviously
  • Lay out a naked NAPD, advancing it 0-2x depending on my available FA enablers; they either steal it and pay 7c or I score it
  • If I have an Astro token and a rezzed SanSan, score a 3/2 from hand

I feel like that should be enough. If The Source becomes a major player and I find it’s a problem, another option to look at is swapping NAPD out for Character Assassination. Either the Runner steals it and has to burn a Fall Guy, or I score it and trash The Source directly.

I don’t have an answer for Chakana, but I’m comfortable waiting to see if it becomes a metagame force before figuring out how I want to address it.

2 Likes
77

Have you not played against a proper Source deck yet? They either trash agendas instead of stealing them (Keyhole, Imp), or sell Source to Aesop at the beginning of the turn they want to steal agendas, only to reinstall him later.

There is some counterplay, yes… but “letting the runner steal an agenda” probably isn’t it :slight_smile:

1 Like
78

I’ve seen precisely one copy of The Source in a deck when playing a game, and I was the one playing it… so I can confirm that the answer to your first question is definitely “no.” :stuck_out_tongue:

79

The Source is very, very powerful now.

Problem is, every faction has a reason they can’t afford to use it. Anarch is the best candidate, but they need all the influence they can spare. It’s impractical for Criminals to import The Source and Imp due to MU and Influence constraints. Shapers have the MU, but now you have to import Fall Guy as well.

Not to mention you’re assembling a three card combo to combat fast decks. Not a good matchup.

2 Likes
80

Yeah, it’s a damn shame Anarchs need to currently import both draw and tutoring (and that Lucky Find isn’t Anarch instead of Neutral :D).

I’ve been thinking about Source-based criminals, and I get the gut feeling Ken Tenma might be good at that. Don’t have a list or anything yet, although the new crim breakers will play a huge part in it, for sure.