[Competitive Podcast] The Winning Agenda Episode 10

[jesseo_o]

Wow, Episode 10 already!

Thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in every week. Your support keeps us going creating new content

We heard what you had to say about some of the levels last week, so we've made sure to try and keep the volume as smooth as possible this week

Episode 10

On Our Agenda:

Deck Tech: Personal Evolution
- Based on the concept of the popular Cambridge list, Wilfy Horig
gives us his take on Jinteki, including how to play with and against the
deck, the cards he believes are most optimal, and where the deck shines
in comparison to others.

Risk Management
- Netrunner is a game of hidden information, bluffs, and high-stress
decision making. The Panel gives you their advice on how best to manage
your risks when playing as both corp and runner.

Melbourne Netrunner League
- The Panel touch briefly on the unique structure of the League they
are currently running in Melbourne, explaining how it works so that you
can replicate it if you’d like to run something similar in your area.

Wilfy’s Personal Evolution

3 Clone Retirement
3 Braintrust
3 Fetal AI
1 Philotic Entanglement
1 The Future Perfect
3 Paper Wall
3 Quandary
3 Pop-Up Window ***
1 Ice Wall *
2 Neural Katana
3 Jackson Howard ***
2 Biotic Labor **** ****
3 Hedge Fund
3 Medical Research Fundraiser
3 Mushin No Shin
3 Neural EMP
3 Psychic Field
3 Snare!
3 Ronin

[MasterAir]

This PE deck is quite interesting, I'd like to hear how it runs.

What's your reasoning behind Biotic over Trick of Light? Biotic is obviously more flexible. But I doubt you're ever using it for anything other than FA. If you're worried about token banks, you can have 3 ice walls for another 2 influence.

I'm not certain if I'd diagnose it in time, but the complete absence of ambushes that can be advanced might run you into trouble against an astute player. You certainly aren't keeping them out of R&D.

Keyhole and Feedback Filter kill you dead. Shaper with Deus X and means to recur them are going to cause issues. Is it not worth any deck slots to tech against these obvious threats?

[jesseo_o]

This is Jesse here - I've been playing against Wilfy piloting this deck a fair bit recently.

I'm running Kate with a Deus X and three Clone Chips. My record is pretty abysmal, around 2-6. Even now that I know what is going on, the fact that the deck has the flexibility to force out at least 2 points on turn three after installing on turn 2 (because it's difficult to stomach running into Snare! or Psychic Field that early) means that it can put scoring pressure on you early. Sometimes you pick correctly and run mostly agendas, sometimes you can get a win off indexing or something, but as runner I never feel like I'm in control of a game against this deck even when it runs late.

[chaosjuggler]

Hi MasterAir! It's Wilfy here. Good questions. The reason I chose Biotic over Trick (I've played with Trick a little but I will admit I haven't tested it extensively as an alternative) was for a couple reasons - one, at the moment the deck has very few batteries for the Trick (I can add Ice Walls but I wouldn't consider 3 enough, I would want 5 ice at the minimum to consider it consistent, probably 3 Wall 2 Shadow - this uses up a lot of the influence saved from Biotic) - I don't consider remotes to be reasonable batteries (especially without advancable ambushes) because of the difficulty in keeping them in play. Additionally, Biotic is a card that's really good when it's timely (when you can secure a Ronin/EMP kill with it or when you can score an agenda which is becoming unsafe in your hand) and really bad when it's not timely - having Trick as the main FA tool would mean that I would have to try to keep advancement counters on my ice in the situations where I suspect Trick might be good to draw - because advancement counters have basically no use on their own I find this to be intolerable.

It's true that the lack of ambushes can pose a problem, but I think you may be overestimating it - Snare and Psychic Field still provide protection for your remotes without ice, and without playing Mushin advanceable amubshes aren't that efficient anyway - while getting someone with a double-advanced Overwriter is strong it's not game breaking and the influence cost plus the inherent variance in advancable ambushes where they're useless unless played onto the board and resources spent into them makes me shy away from it - similarly, Junebug just doesn't have enough punch to be worthwhile. I haven't played against any Keyholes (and they could be a problem but are very uncommon), and Feedback Filters and Deus Xs are actually not that strong - I'd say most of the time your aim is to score to 7 and the flatline kill is a secondary concern, so the acknowledgement of that goal is my 'tech' against those hate cards.

Thanks for listening and I hope my answers were insightful!

[spags]

I have listened to three episodes in the past two days now, and, I have to admit, I love the intro. The re-emphasis of the credentials of the 'casters every time somewhat floors me, and makes me laugh. Not in a bad way. I love the idea of showing that you're good players, so, one should listen up. Continue to good work, and wear your finishes proud!

[spags]

Also, like other 'casts posting here, could you perhaps contain all of your new episodes posts to a single thread? Not a huge deal, but, if you're going to continue with the frequency that you are, it may be ideal. Forums are already littered with new thread posts. Cheers.

[MasterAir]

Good answers Wilfy, thanks.

Even if you're playing 5 1 inf Ice, that's still 3 influence, more than the difference between Hub and Making News. Enough for a full set of Elis, or a SanSan City Grid for example. It might not work, but it's the first change I'd consider if I were running something like this. If you're not advancing your Ice Wall, I would strongly consider wraparound in its place. It does the same job but upsets Noise a lot more.

I think Jinteki PE never advance is a good deck. (I don't think it's as good as the Cambridge PE list. Maybe I'm wrong.) I just think that Mushin and Ronin don't fit in it except for the fact that you are playing in a meta where other people are running the advancable ambushes so people are inherently wary of advanced cards in Jinteki. Deus X and Feedback Filter are good because they give the runner confidence to check all the remotes and dig deep in R&D. It switches off your shell game and reduces you to a rush deck (that might work sometimes but shouldn't often). Feedback Filter and a big money shield makes this sort of deck completely impotent.

Keyhole is really good, you should play with it some. In about 2 months you will see a lot of it in Eater powered Keyhole/Siphon/Wanton Destruction decks! Have fun!

[bblum]

Much better with the volume balance this time. Thanks!

[Larro]

I can't help but laugh at that every time, but this is far and away my favorite Netrunner podcast out there, so I say don't ever change!

[jesseo_o]

Hey Spags!

I had been doing that for the first six or so episodes, but I found that the thread got so unwieldy so quickly (especially given not all users know about clicking the little arrows to get to the last post!) that it seemed like less and less people were actually seeing the new posts, and the conversation completely dried up.

If it's a problem, I can do it that way, but I thought the older episode threads would just get buried and die a quiet death if I made a new post for the new episodes, so that would be ok?

[spags]

I'm no mod. Not a prob.

[karmaportrait]

I'm not a mod either, but would prefer one single thread.

A potential solution to old pods being buried - you can link directly to previous posts. So, as each new pod gets its own post that post contains links to prior episodes within the same thread. Make sense?

Episode 11:
Blah blah blah

Link to episode 10: here

[jesseo_o]

The problem is less that old posts get buried, and more that new posts get lost at the bottom of the one long thread. Is there a reason you'd prefer a single thread Karmaportrait?

[karmaportrait]

The problem is less that old posts get buried, and more that new posts get lost at the bottom of the one long thread.

I guess I'd just say that's the nature of forums. This is what the search function is for and people can easily (1) search for 'winning agenda' to find your thread (2) search within your thread for links to all episodes prior and current.

My issue with one new thread for each pod is that when I visit the forums I look to see what new threads there are and the count on new posts for a thread. If I see another new thread for a single episode of a pod I consider it clutter because it's not really a new topic, it's a continuation of a topic. This, however, is a purely semantic distinction and saying 'New pod is a new topic' is entirely reasonable. If the mods / community have no issue with a new thread every week (or so) then I'll live with that, but my preference would be for a single thread.