You think of the corp as proactive because they usually lay down ice before the runner runs, but the corp has choices about how to play. If you ice archives after the runner plays sneakdoor beta, or you make r&d more expensive after they play medium, aren’t you being reactive? Or even when you purge viruses.
chronos protocol, spark, IG are “control” decks that come to mind
I’m not a fan of ‘Control’ as a term as it carries so much semantic baggage about card advantage and reactivity, which a) doesn’t apply to netrunner in the same way, and b) many of the cards that are talked about here as controlling are often card-disadvantage (like a server of blacklist+ice that might not even do anything).
To summarize voltorocks there is a continuum at play in the corp strategies:
- Rush strategies try to score before the Runner can get [Thing]
- Glacier strategies are trying make the runner require so much [Thing] they can’t get it in a single turn and thus open scoring windows.
- This proposed ‘Control’ strategy are intending to (proactively?) remove access to [Thing] altogether (either permanently or for long enough to score)?
To me it sounds like the third strategy would be better called ‘Lock’ rather than broader and connotation-heavy* ‘Control’?
For example Nobo715’s recent SYNC deck aims to rush then later uses Ceremony/Reversed accounts to temporarily lock the runner out of credits (and the dependent property of tag removal).
So a better taxonomy would be “Rush with FA and Credit Lock tactics”, whilst something like GRNDL-batty would be “Rush with Breaker Lock and murder tactics”
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Looks like NBN’s “control” aspect - as seen in the early game over-balanced Invasion of Privacy, Data Hound and Snoop - will be seeing at least an attempt to be brought into the game, with the additions of Waiver, Kala Ghoda Real TV, Ibrahim Salem and his Hospitality. Targeted Marketing also works well with them, and the new ID in pack 6 looks like it’s designed to support the style.
Together that’s a large number of cards (and some are meh, being so early) , but there looks to be some potential there.
Etf decks that use enchanced login protocols, false lead and heinlen grid felt like control when I played against them. ELP limited my actions, FL and Heinlen make a server virtually inaccessible when FL is used during the run, as you have no creds to break.
In the way the terms are used in Magic, no, it wouldn’t be reactive.
If you ICE archives you are being proactive because you are doing something (defending archives) before the Runner acts (that is, before he actually makes the run). You lay the “threat” first, then the Runner decides. You act before the Runner commits. (Eg.Smokestack, Tangle Wire)
Reactive would be the opposite: The Runner commits and then you decide whether to defend archives or not. (Eg.Counterspell)
You have to lay everything before the Runner runs, not just ICE. You need to play your SanSans, Caprices and Hedge Funds before the Runner says where he’s going to run. The onus is on the Corporation.
Best luck I had with chronos protocol was rush + control- force them to face-check before they are ready or risk having you score out, use chronos protocol to take out the parts they need to deal with your gear-check ice. Control-oriented tactics seem to suit the rush archetype (prolonging the early game) better than FA or glacier.
The deck worked ok against crim, but absolutely folded to shaper-level recursion (pre-MWL, at least). Anarch was generally not great, either. I think that the addition of Ibrahim Salem and Salem’s Hospitality will give it a shot in the arm, but I suspect that it will remain easier to keep the runner out by having actually-good ICE than to maintain control over the runner’s rig long-term.
I’ll revisit chronos protocol when those cards are out, but my expectations are not terribly high.
The main thing to consider here is what kind of resource is limited. All card games are defined by a resource being limited, and the players having to respond to these limitations, work around them.
In magic, this is mana. As your resources are located inside your deck, it can be very easy to be unable to play some of the critical cards you need to win, so you need to play around this lack of resources, by using fetch lands or making clever use of what little mana you have.
If the game developers allow the players to overcome this resource deficit too easily, then the game can be unbalanced. In Yu-Gi-Oh for example, the limited resource WAS summons (you could only play one creature normally per turn). However, this was destroyed by the prevalence of ‘special summons’, which can be done unlimited times per turn, and resulted in a meta that is far too fast where one-turn-kills are common.
In netrunner? The resource is actions, or clicks. Both sides have very limited actions each turn, and have to budget their time very carefully. The fact that you can draw and gain money as many times as you want (as long as you have clicks) is testament to this. This is why mandatory upgrades is a 6/2 and hyperdriver uses 3 MU: it has to be that hard to fire to get extra actions.
Why am I saying this? If you want to control, THAT’S what you need to control: the runners actions. Runners do this already to the corp, parasiting ice and draining money to force the corp into tough decisions with their 3 clicks and auto-draw. But the corp can do it too. I’m thinking some sort of money drain deck, that stops the runner from getting any cash then hits them with tags, which on 0$ requires 3 of their crucial 4 actions to clear, and punishes the fact that they can’t respond to anything.
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What about a deck like the variations of Uncorrodable? Uncorrodable · NetrunnerDB
A gameplan focused on entirely locking out servers is the closest I’ve seen to an “inevitable” win for the corp. And “removal” abilities are generally a hallmark of control.
You’re probably correct, I’ve been playing quite a lot of Gagarin recently and, although I have no idea what ‘Stax’ is, I reckon I get what you’re talking about. Toolbox Gagarin is something I really want to go back to, especially with Museum to recur opressive assets or operations; the list I’ve sketched up also includes some breaker denial coupled with Blacklist, but I haven’t had a chance to playtest it. The other plan I’ve been working on mentally is full on breaker denial using Batty and Shutdowns (again recured through my new favourite card!).
Hopefully I’ll be able to get some testing in soon, but I kinda want to wait until after store champs this weekend.
I’ll stay away from “control” for valid reasons discussed above. But, it’s been my impression that Weyland has slowly gotten good cards for a react/toolbox gameplan. They have the best tutoring of any of the Corp factions with Atlas and EBC. There’s also a lot of asset tools for different kinds of problems in faction and at low influence: EBC for rezzing ice, Mills for BP remove or location trashing, Contract Killer for connection trashing, Corporate Town for resource trashing, Blacklist for recursion prevention, Team Sponsorship for recursion, IT Department for ice buffs, Public Support to enable some of these tools and ice, or bait runs, etc.
There’s a lot of tools there that Weyland can get with EBC or Atlas counters to disrupt the runners gameplan. I’d suggest using either Blue Sun as a vertical implementation or Gagarin as a horizontal implementation of the plan.