"Block" Deck

[Nagnazul]

As someone who spends a lot of time teaching new players about Netrunner, I’ve played quite a lot of Core Set Netrunner, most of it using the basic decks. What I’ve come to appreciate is the beauty of running less-than-optimal cards, forcing some very creative plays not unlike draft would. Games of Basic Netrunner sometimes turn into a fight of Hunter VS Access To Globalsec, and the dreaded 4-link Runner can often appear. A welcome break from the endless flurry of Clone Chipped Parasites and Blue Sun decks.

Opening up my Order & Chaos box, I had an idea while reading the included decklists: How about actually playing those decklists for a change? After seeing the impressive nonbos of The Board + Government Takeover, I revised my suggestion:

How about deckbuilding using nothing but O&C?

For the runner side, the conclusion seemed pretty obvious: your only breaker is Eater. You’re making an Eater deck with a full set of silverware. ID choice followed; MaxX has a strong ability, but seems less good with no access to recursion. Kim will have trouble accessing cards due to Eater, so his ability is unlikely to be useful. Valencia thus was the choice, since the bad pub will be relevant every time we Eat an Ice with a silverware event, and also enables us to play two strong cards: Investigative Journalism and Itinerant Protesters.

Day Job is a good card™ and thus goes in. Amped Up is sketchy but has synergy with Wanton Destruction and can actually do things, so we take 3 of both. I’ve Had Worse is Diesel for 1, perfectly reasonable; its alternate condition is unlikely to trigger in the O&C Meta, but we’re happy with it regardless. Showing Off seems utterly pointless, having no synergy with Eater and letting us (at best) access an extra card from R&D on a turn where we have already checked the top card. Maker’s Eye it ain’t.

Chop Bot has nothing to Chop; Archives Interface has nothing to exile (and is a shit card in general, sorry). Vigil, well, it does things, and has synergy with the Protesters. I don’t know that we really want 3, but we have to fill out our 50 somehow. Hivemind has exactly one virus to support: Gravedigger. Not exactly worth the price of admission. Gravedigger however is a fine card, and the whole Gravedigger-Progenitor-Virus Breeding Ground package is a fine inclusion, giving us a way to grind out the Corp once access becomes impossible.

Sacrificial Clone is not worth talking about. Stim Dealer I can’t imagine being good; We already have Amped Up providing bursts of clicks, and we don’t have ways to efficiently use the extra clicks provided, nor do we have ways to deal with the incoming brain damage. Human First is a card-that-does-things, and thus goes in thrice. Uninstall has no targets in the entire set and Qianju PT leaves me unconvinced. Data Folding however is sweet as we run a very light rig of Eater and Gravedigger, so it should always be on.

This is 48 cards, and we need 2 more. Our options are:

-Showing Off (gets you 1 extra card from R&D if it’s completely unprotected)
-Archives Interface (does nothing)
-Memstrips (Guarantees Data Folding will stay online even with 3 active gravediggers and no progenitors and no vigil)
-Chop Bot (Chops…Progenitors? Extra Vigils? Human Firsts? Seems bad, and we don’t care about the tag removal)
-Hivemind (3 creds and 2 MU for an extra Gravedigger counter)
-Sacrificial Clone (Saves you from the dreaded traffic-accident-flatline play)
-Stim Dealer (Spend 4 creds, 1 card and 1 click for something that will kill you before making back your investment)

Memstrips seems like the least bad of all these, so two copies of Memstrips go in for the final list:

Cards: 50 / 50
Influence points: 0 / 15
Identity: Valencia Estevez
Event (24)
3x Amped Up
3x I’ve Had Worse
3x Itinerant Protesters
3x Wanton Destruction
3x Day Job
3x Forked
3x Knifed
3x Spooned
Hardware (5)
2x MemStrips
3x Vigil
Program (9)
3x Eater
3x Gravedigger
3x Progenitor
Resource (12)
3x Human First
3x Investigative Journalism
3x Virus Breeding Ground
3x Data Folding

The gameplan: eater-amped up-wanton destruction into HQ, pressuring passively with Investigative Journalisms and Itinerant Protesters. Eat Ice off of weak servers for gravedigger value, then keep doing it forever using your Virus Breeding Grounds.

The MaxX/Kim versions of this would need to cut both Investigative Journalism and Protesters, forcing you to run one more junky card to stay above the limit.

The Corp version is more interesting, and is coming in the next post.

[Nagnazul]

For the Corp, agenda choice comes first as you realize you absolutely must run Government Takeover; you’re otherwise short 2 agenda points. Once Takeover goes in, you’re 14 points shy; all three agendas have merit. You can avoid running Firmware Updates if you want to, but why would you? Most of our Ice has advancement token synergy and we will be running it. From there it’s a matter of choosing if you respect Glenn Station or not. I don’t. Glenn’s stated purpose is to hide an agenda until you’re ready to score it; a fine purpose in a deck tuned to score agendas quickly. But in this pile, protecting centrals will be an ordeal, never mind scoring a 4/2 in time to hide our Government Takeover. I pick 3 High-Risk Investments and fill out with 1 Glenn Station.

ID choice follows. We’re playing 8 agendas and our only tag punishment is Traffic Accident, so Argus Security seems poor. Titan pumps Firmware Updates and High-Risk, and I wouldn’t fault you for picking it. But Titan has two main strengths we can’t leverage: Project Atlas and 17 influence. Gagarin gives us some omnipresent taxing, which I think will help where this deck will struggle: the early game. It’s possible I’ll eat my words later.

Constellation Protocol is a fine card with all our Space Ice, so we play the full 3; it’s even Gagarin-approved. Mark Yale is here for the Firmware Updates combo, and any economy is desperately welcome. Space Camp gives us free advancements, which we love. The Board is utter nonsense.

Ice selection is more about choosing what NOT to play, given our limited selection; we have 24 possible ICE to run, and one of them is a unique 15-cost monster. Since we’re only running 1-of Orion (that’s dodgy enough) we have 22 ICE left. Asteroid Belt, Nebula and Wormhole are fine, turning on all your advancement token cards. Builder I have a strong dislike for, but we need Ice that doesn’t cost 9.

Checkpoint is the Ice I like the least, and I choose to cut. As hilarious as it would be with Sub Boost (build-your-own Hadrian’s Wall!) we really don’t want the bad pub, I feel. Also, given it’s highly porous nature, it’s a poor fit against Wantonly Destructive runners.

Fire Wall is the cheapest ETR Ice we have, which says a lot about the quality of our cards. Searchlight is…well, not good, but we have all this advancement token nonsense, and the Runner plays Data Folding, so tags have value.

Accounting is strong, and turns of Protesters. I like Patch as a card, but in a world where your Ice will either be ignored or Eaten, Patch is nothing more than a 1-time 2-credit tax, if that. Not worth a card. Traffic Accident is not a card in a world without Account Siphon, and you’ll never kill anyone with it given how reliant they’ll be on Data Folding.

Satellite Grid is sweet and we want 3. The Twins enable cute plays, like double-Nebula to snipe an Eater, so maybe I’m wrong for cutting them, but I can’t imagine they’d be relevant often enough to warrant inclusion.

Going over to the neutrals, Sub Boost is sweet. Sub Boosted Builder is suddenly a real card, as is Searchlight. It makes them easier to Eat with Cutlery, but you have more Ice than they have Cutlery.

This is 45 cards; we desperately want economy, and if you squint hard enough Dedicated Technician Team looks like economy. We’ll try 3. Cyberdex Virus Suite rounds out our 49, but I wouldn’t fault you for questioning that.

Our cuts:

-The Board (Delays the inevitable)
-Checkpoint (Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t like BP and super-porous non-punishing Ice. No, it’s not punishing to face-check. They can just jack out.)
-2 Orions
-Patch (Mostly worthless in an Eater-meta)
-Traffic Accident (when is the Runner going Tagme with 3 cards in hand, none of which are IHW?)
-The Twins (My guess is you’ll want to install most of your Ice, not trash it for cute plays)

Final Decklist:

Cards: 49 / 45
Agenda points: 20 / 20
Influence points: 0 / 15
Identity: Gagarin Deep Space
Agenda (8)
3x Firmware Updates
1x Glenn Station
1x Government Takeover
3x High-Risk Investment
Asset (9)
3x Constellation Protocol
3x Mark Yale
3x Space Camp
Ice (19)
3x Asteroid Belt
3x Wormhole
3x Nebula
1x Orion
3x Builder
3x Fire Wall
3x Searchlight
Operation (6)
3x Accounting
3x Sub Boost
Upgrade (7)
3x Satellite Grid
3x Dedicated Technician Team
1x Cyberdex Virus Suite

And these are the decks. Now, if I can convince my roommate to try these, we should be in for a treat.

[groober]

Does this belong in the ‘uncompetitive deck’ mega-thread?