Chronos Protocol - You don't need that card do you?

Decklists
41

Right, kind of what I was thinking as I saw the last few posts. Desperado, Val, Scrubber, Whizzard, Security Testing, etc… a lot of cards make an undefended, low-trash-cost remote unappealing. It’s also easy to trash out of RnD before it even makes it to the table. I still like the idea of using MHC to bait a successful run but not sold on it as an economy option in this deck.

42

So, I played Chronos Protocol yesterday in a small GNK tournament. The deck went 1-2 in the end:

Shutting down the Protocol

Chronos Protocol: Selective Mind-mapping (The Universe of Tomorrow)

Agenda (11)
2x Clone Retirement (Second Thoughts)
2x Fetal AI (Trace Amount)
3x House of Knives (Honor and Profit)
1x Philotic Entanglement (Honor and Profit)
3x The Future Perfect (Honor and Profit)

Asset (7)
2x Blacklist (Breaker Bay) ••
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) •••
2x Shock! (True Colors)

Upgrade (2)
2x Marcus Batty (The Underway)

Operation (14)
3x Celebrity Gift (Opening Moves)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
2x Neural EMP (Core Set)
2x Power Shutdown (Mala Tempora) ••••
2x Restructure (Second Thoughts)
2x Subliminal Messaging (Fear and Loathing)

Barrier (5)
3x Himitsu-Bako (Opening Moves)
2x Wraparound (Fear and Loathing) ••

Code Gate (5)
1x Crick (Breaker Bay)
2x Lotus Field i[/i]
2x Yagura (Fear and Loathing)

Sentry (5)
2x Archer (Core Set) ••••
2x Cortex Lock (The Valley)
1x Grim (Opening Moves)
15 influence spent (max 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Universe of Tomorrow

Decklist published on NetrunnerDB.

The first loss was against Stealth CT, which seems to be a really bad matchup. You can’t really use Power Shutdown except against SMC because she has so much cheap stuff to install and hitting with a destroyer is only possible in combination with Batty.
Archer + Batty was how I won the game against Stealth Haley. Getting rid of all their CCs with net damage and destroyers and then trashing all three breakers is really fun.
The last game against PVPP-Kate I only lost because of a misplay. I had setup a Blacklist behind an Archer and all of his options to deal with the Archer where already in the Heap. I just forgot to use my last House of Knives counter to get rid of the Escher in his hand … He eschered the Archer away, trashed the Blacklist and levied. :frowning: I still almost won that game with a Batty play but lost the PSI game.

I liked the agenda comp I ran. Enough fodder for Archer and House of Knives is just awesome in Chronos Protocol.
But I need to either get rid of the Blacklist or play more ICE … It’s really hard to setup a Blacklist server, a scoring server and still protecting R&D and HQ at least a little bit. But I just don’t know what to cut for more ICE.
Yagura only taxed a bit, but I think it is definitly better than Pup in Chronos Protocol. Never drew Crick, but I don’t want to play two of these because there are not many targets to get back with Crick.

Economy was nice. Subliminal made a lot of money in two of these games. Subliminal is also really good with Celebrity Gift because you are often able to not show one of the cards if you get your Subliminal back.
I could cut Neural EMP maybe, but then deck really lacks net damage sources.

1 Like
43

Holy shit, this deck is 4 cards off the deck that I built and have been playing for the past week. I’m doing Markus instead of Wraparound atm, and I’m on 1 Subliminal and 2 Grim, and instead of Crick I have Enigma (since there’s usually not much in the trash that installing will get back, and I wanted more ETR ice, but that might be a mistake). Other than that, it’s identical.

I’m finding that Blacklist is either a game ender or fairly inconsequential. Knowing good times to hit with House of Knives makes a BIG difference, and then using that information to know if you have a scoring window is also very important. I feel like I’m right on the edge of where I want to be econimically, and some games I just run too poor. Fitting in all the niceties like Neural and Power Shutdown and Blacklist as well as the 11 agenda suite just leaves very little room for enough econ. I have a friend who is swearing by a build that has basically as few agendas as possible, but I haven’t seen his list yet nor played against it, so I can’t attest to it’s quality personally, but it might be a place for exploration. Obviously Archer would be out, so the gameplan would be at least a little different looking.

Anyhow, the deck feels pretty good in general, and runners really, really don’t like running early against it. Getting a HoK scored in this deck feels amazing, and 2 feels like winning the game. I’m surprised how many games I end through flatline with the deck, since it really doesn’t have that much net damage in it. It’s fun sniping the best card from the runner’s hand, and it can actually be really, really good sometimes to snipe out IHW from anarchs early, especially if they are running with a lot of cards in their hand, forcing them to discard more than they intended, and making future runs feel less safe. In the games I’ve won against the deck when I’ve been playing Anarch, it’s been when the corp lets me keep IHW in my hand the whole game. Drawing too many cards vs Chronos can be a problem, since Neural can snipe things like Levy or econ or breakers or clone chips, so making them draw is almost like Fisk Investment Seminar; they draw into things they don’t want to have on a turn where they also made a run.

I’ve also found that stashing agendas in archives is better in this deck than most, because no one wants to run and hit Shocks for no gain when it’s guaranteed that the best card will leave their hand and it’s not guaranteed that they will get agendas. Being able to go up to 3 Shocks and 3 Neurals is a goal of mine with the deck.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts right now, in no particular order.

2 Likes
44

Just played a game against someone with the username “DanDargeniosWifeBeater” (i shit you not) that was really interesting. They played AndySucker and had some pretty serious dominance, got up to a 5 or 6 point lead, but id sniped a corroder with an earlier point of net damage. Batty and ichi took out the 2nd and bako kept RND, HQ and my remote pretty much locked up at that point. It was really tense, but a lot of fun. I think the list im running needs more power shutdown to take out clone chips as i think with more recursion i would of lost that game.

CP v1

Chronos Protocol: Selective Mind-mapping (The Universe of Tomorrow)

Agenda (10)

Asset (7)

Upgrade (3)

Operation (13)

Barrier (4)

Code Gate (6)

Sentry (3)

Other (3)

15 influence spent (max 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Universe of Tomorrow

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

2 Likes
45

That’s just Dan’s smurf account :wink:

9 Likes
46

Id love for that to be true

47

Tried this list in a few games against Noise and L4J Whizzard. I changed a few cards:
+1 Jackson +1 House of Knives +1 Fetal +1 Cortex Lock +1 Restructure
-1 TFP -1 Pup -3 Successful Demonstration

If the runner got set up quick enough (e.g., get money/mimic/yog/corroder happened early against Whizzard one game), it was hard to execute the control gameplan since Batty is our only way to interact once programs are installed. This is where the versions with Power Shutdown / Blacklist would do better, but they give up their standard gameplan for that.

The deck seemed strong vs Noise. I won 2/3 games, one by mill = lockout, one by batty cortex, and lost a game due to some random accesses. I had a strong board state in that game too.

Seconding the comments here about House of Knives. Early it feels better than scoring Nisei (late, Nisei is better, at least against Whizzard). And it opens up some flatline potential if there is an extra facedown Shock in archives, fetal in hand, etc. I was happy with 3x. I don’t know if I made the right cuts since now we are probably locked in to 2,2,2,1 for scoring out.

2 Likes
48

Took the below, derived from @kiv’s build but with quite a few differences, to a GNK today and it went undefeated, albeit in only 4 rounds and with a tie thrown in. Still, it was strong. In particular, I love that it’s not a flatline-first deck but kills runners almost accidentally.

Grail Protocol

Chronos Protocol: Selective Mind-mapping (The Universe of Tomorrow)

Agenda (10)

Asset (5)

Upgrade (5)

Operation (13)

Barrier (4)

Code Gate (7)

Sentry (5)

15 influence spent (max 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Universe of Tomorrow

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

Last minute, I swapped a Pup for CVS & promptly faced 3 Noise. The matchup feels good with Shock!, Crick, Lotus Field, CVS, & obvious Targeted Marketing choices (Cache, Parasite). I fear the deck crumbles to Prepaid Kate, though. I played one Kate but it was the Congress version and the lack of LARLA helped. Almost half the ICE are 4 strength…Atman is a problem. Two runners ran out of cards in deck & another died turn 3 thanks to Merlin.

I liked the amount of ICE, and keeping the Neural EMPs which I’ve seen others cut, but the list is still light on economy. I swapped a Restructure for Subliminal after seeing the synergy with Celebrity Gift in action during the New Zealand nationals; it was great on the day, much better than Restructure would’ve been. Successful Demo was playable every game thanks to Caprice; each time it was install-advance House of Knives, (hopefully) win a Caprice psi game, SD and then score out the next turn.

Aside, I went to time in 2 rounds, the fault definitely on my corp side. It was mostly my opponents in the tank; Chronos makes you do strange things, like install cards before you want to. But hey, if people can play Industrial Genomics at tournaments then surely CP is fast enough.

2 Likes
49

The first thing i think when chronos arrive Was batty recursion. Really archived memories is delicious with this id.

A mamarla a parla

Chronos Protocol: Selective Mind-mapping (The Universe of Tomorrow)

Agenda (12)
3x Chronos Project (First Contact)
3x Fetal AI (Trace Amount)
2x House of Knives (Honor and Profit)
1x Philotic Entanglement (Honor and Profit)
3x The Future Perfect (Honor and Profit)

Asset (8)
2x Blacklist (Breaker Bay) [color=#FF8C00]••[/color]
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) [color=#FF8C00]•••[/color]
3x Shock! (True Colors)

Upgrade (5)
3x Marcus Batty (The Underway)
2x Will-o’-the-Wisp (The Spaces Between)

Operation (14)
3x Archived Memories (Core Set) [color=#8A2BE2]••••• •[/color]
1x Cerebral Static (The Spaces Between)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
3x Medical Research Fundraiser (Honor and Profit)
3x Neural EMP (Core Set)
1x Reclamation Order (Double Time) [color=#8A2BE2]••[/color]

Barrier (5)
3x Himitsu-Bako (Opening Moves)
2x Wall of Static (Core Set)

Code Gate (4)
1x Crick (Breaker Bay)
3x Lotus Field i[/i]

Sentry (6)
1x Archer (Core Set) [color=#006400]••[/color]
1x Assassin (Data and Destiny)
3x Grim (Opening Moves)
1x Swordsman (Second Thoughts)
15 influence spent (max 15)
22 agenda points (between 22 and 23)
54 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Data and Destiny

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

50

This seems very econ light. I guess you could scoop mrf and hedge with arch mem but then you cant pull the emp’s. Also, don’t blacklist and chronos project counter synergize?

51

Well in fact this deck don’t need to much eco, and you can spend a lot of clicks in taking creds, waiting to runner bites the batty. Is very rare that spend archive memories in econ cards, the target is Batty and emp’s usually. The efect of blacklist is instant, and sometimes can do very nice sinergies, keeping the field tclear o score the chronos (usally rezzing in the middle of the run in a batty server.

I think the deck neds more traps than more econ (but shell corp can be an option, not only for econ, also to force runner to make runns to batty servers:Passive runners can be a problem with this deck.

52

If Blacklist is rezzed when Chronos Project is scored the runner’s cards stay in their Heap - I guess you could do something nuts with Team Sponsorship to score Chronos Project, overwrite the Blacklist and then trigger Chronos Project’s ability.

2 Likes
53

I’m seriously thinking about Targetted Marketting now :smiley:

54

So I’ve been having success with this list.

Chronos Protocol: Selective Mind-mapping

Agenda (10)
3x Fetal AI
3x House of Knives
1x Philotic Entanglement
3x The Future Perfect

Asset (13)
1x Aggressive Secretary ••
1x Blacklist •
2x Genetics Pavilion
3x Jackson Howard •••
3x Mental Health Clinic
3x Shock!

Upgrade (2)
2x Caprice Nisei

Operation (7)
2x Celebrity Gift
3x Hedge Fund
2x Neural EMP

Barrier (3)
3x Galahad •••

Code Gate (7)
1x Crick
1x Lotus Field
3x Merlin •••
2x Yagura

Sentry (6)
2x Cortex Lock
3x Lancelot •••
1x Swordsman

Other (1)
1x Excalibur

The big surprise was how often the deck seemed to wreck DLR decks, even without the swordsman.

55

Economy seems a bit light for my taste. Why not Fundraiser? In my experience, both CP and Grail care more about gear-checking than taxing. It seems like this list would involve a lot of clicking for credits, especially in the early game, which IMO is where Grail is strongest and can be used to leverage rushing.

1 Like
56

With an SMC on the table, giving the runner money hurts the gear check. Also, what would you replace?

There’s also the aspect that often somewhat expensive things give the runner a dilemma - install it now and lose tempo/threat, or leave it in hand where Chronos can take it?

Also, what would you replace?

57

How effective is genetics pavilion here? I always thought of it more as a jinteki PE card more than anyone else.

58

I hadn’t noticed MHC; that’s 3 more economy slots I missed. Personally I agree with @cmcadvanced re: Genetics Pavilion. I’m not sure what purpose it serves in this build. I personally would probably cut those for a third CG and a Fundraiser. I used to have a CP Grail list but I’ve long since deleted it so I can’t consult it.

1 Like
59

High variance. Super awesome against MaxX and Kate, okay against other Anarch, and pointless versus Criminal. It’s main value is that it slows down their ability to redraw/recur something important. Take their first mimic (if they let you) rez the Pavillion - now they can only dig a bit at a time.

Hmm - relooking, I may need to fit in that 3rd Gift. Honestly, excalibur’s on the chopping block. (I could have sworn I have all three in the physical deck I’m playing).

Genetics does two things - 1) the same thing as in PE (weakens IHW, slows redrawing) but rather than a kill focus it hurts the natural response to a hand full of garbage (which is what CP naturally generates).

edit - just checked, I’ve been running 2 Gifts. Probably a mistake, cutting either a Pavilion or Excalibur would make sense.

2 Likes
60

I think I would really like Himitsu-Bako here, and I don’t really see how useful crick is either, since you’re not forcing them to run on archives. It’s not bad with Caprice, but it looks like this has such rush potential. You could probably even run snares instead of shocks and keep the pavilions that way, and neural EMP could even score a kill that way. I don’t know really, I’ve sworn off Jinteki damage for a while, and I don’t really know how to make PE work for me, even with that delightful worlds build