It was definitely considered. I think overall it’s best as a 1-of or not at all because this deck makes money and is able to get in when and where it wants. Maybe worth the 1-of for sure if you’re seeing a lot of Blue Sun- you can move the curtain walls out of the way for a turn for a power-indexing or something of that nature.
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I was running it for a while, and it’s definitely won me a game or two. More often, however, I just never ended up playing it. It was one of the cards I ended up cutting to add in Code Siphon.
I’ve been playing a version of this pretty much non-stop since it’s “official” inception and it’s been keeping up the paces without breaking a sweat. I’ve made a few modifications (Retrieval Run is bonkers, and I run 2x Infiltration), but CT String Theory/Doubles (Double Helix?) is and remains at least a T1.5 build, and is poised to get even stronger.
I like the idea of game day, but I’m not convinced that it will not usually net me more then simply using the clicks to draw would, honestly. Might experiment as a 1 of.
I’m on board the Comet train, but as a 1 of.
Code Siphon is a trap. You already have better tutors, and you need ice on the server to get any monetary value, and breakers to get past ice…see where I’m going with this?
Escher is trolly, but you don’t get much mileage out of it beyond stacking a bunch of barriers in front of a Battering Ram or burying a Sensi or something.
I’m stoked for Steelskin, especially since the tempo hit dancing around Scorch/Punitive can be a real bitch sometimes, and may be what this deck needs to really kick it into T1 territory.
I’m on the fence with Day Job. Fun with Comet, but beyond that I’m not so sure.
I’ll probably try a 1 of Amped, but I don’t expect it to stick. It’s winmore in this shell, to be sure, to fuel a hail mary makerdexing run or something.
O&C has potential, but SanSan is where the really money is.
I’ll probably keep running this until O&C drops and I can test the Meals on Wheels (Ken/Eater/Keyhole/Hades Shard) along side.
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lol’d at this name. decklist required.
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I agree that Steelskin would be amazing, but at 2 influence what do you lose? Retrival Run is, as you say, bonkers and the rest of the influence feels non-negotioable to me.
Lady is rocking for me at the moment. Breaking Curtain Wall for 7 is much easier than 11 and Eli for a credit is an amazing feeling. The only real pain is Hive with no agendas scored.
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Probably legwork. I tend hit HQ early on and “encourage” them to ICE more heavily there. Then I slam in with a Makerdex or two and focus on R&D and remotes. That’s just how I roll, though.
That being said, style aside, it makes the most sense to me from a structure perspective. Steelskin is derp insurance, basically. If burn isn’t a thing around you or you’re confident in your ability to not die in a fire (and this shell is more than capable of doing that), then pack the Legworks for the extra facewrecking goodness. If you’ve ever said to yourself “Maybe I’ll just drop 2 Plascretes in here”, then Steelskin is worth a look, since even in non-meat damage matches you can still use it as a crappy Diesel.
Also, call me crazy, but I have this weird hunch that “incidental meat damage” is going to become not uncommon in the near future.
Yeah I think it’s a style thing. I find Legwork to be key against NEH. If I can land one on them just before they go for the first Astro then it’s usually winnable from there.
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I think kiv was right taking out Dirty Laundry. I played a couple games with his build last night, and I can’t imagine a scenario where I would want to see Dirty Laundry in a game
Taking out Dirty Laundry decreases overall consistence of the deck, so does adding any card which is not an event. Dirty Laundry is a very good card which nets you 3 credits and a click, which is better than Sure Gamble - there is a reason why it is a runner staple. As for 1 Levy vs 2 Levy - if you need to play it at all, the game is probably not going well. The second copy of this card will not help you much and more often than not it will get discarded.
Regarding playing Retrieval Run - IMO this is a mistake. It takes 2 influence, which can be spent on Hostage increasing overall consistency and the amount of doubles in the deck. What is more, Retrieval Run does not achieve anything apart from allowing us to install a femme or torch from the archives for 6 credits less. Money usually is not a problem in this deck, but if you don’t get Oracle May on the table in the first few turns, you are going to lose.
i’ve won several games without a quick OM. first time trying retrieval run but i’ve used it to good effect my first 2 games with it
I agree on Dirty Laundry - especially against NEH or RP it’s a life saver, letting you take down key assets/sansan without slowing you down.
Don’t agree on Retrival Run “only” saving 6 credits and a Test Run is huge - espec if it rescues an Oracle May miss.
I’m growing less and less enamoured of Levy. I find you only need it one in five games or so but when you need it you really need it.
Sure thing, Retrieval Run is useful. But when faced with a choice: RR or Hostage, I will always take Hostage - worst case scenario it will net you 2-3 credits from power naps vs 6 credits from RR. Best case scenario - it will get you Oracle May on the table, and the deck is called Chaos Theory / Oracle May for a reason.
Aside from that, this is my favourite deck ATM and everyone I know likes playing it. Love the reaction of some people: “How come you always guess that it’s going to be an event?”
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I Wanted to try a variant of this deck and got this idea to use sage + overmind + dinosaur earlier. haven’t tried it yet. thoughts?
DinoSage
Chaos Theory: Wünderkind (Cyber Exodus)
Event (27)
3x Diesel (Core)
1x Hostage (Opening Moves) ··
2x Legwork (Honor and Profit) ····
1x Levy AR Lab Access (Creation and Control)
3x Lucky Find (Double Time) ····· ·
2x Modded (Core)
3x Power Nap (Double Time)
2x Scavenge (Creation and Control)
3x Sure Gamble (Core)
2x Test Run (Cyber Exodus)
3x The Maker’s Eye (Core)
2x Tinkering (Core)
Hardware (7)
2x Clone Chip (Creation and Control)
1x CyberSolutions Mem Chip (Fear and Loathing)
3x Dinosaurus (Cyber Exodus)
1x e3 Feedback Implants (Trace Amount) ··
Resource (2)
1x Motivation (Opening Moves)
1x Oracle May (Honor and Profit) ·
Icebreaker (4)
2x Overmind (Honor and Profit)
2x Sage (The Source)
Cards in deck: 40 (min 40)
15/15 influence used
Cards up to The Source
Deck built with Net Deck.
The problem that immediately jumped out at me is that it kind of seems like you’re relying on getting May+Motivation out with only 1 Hostage. That doesn’t seem to me to be a thing that will happen reliably. This deck normally really relies on getting the Oracle May out to start drawing the Events to gain cash, since you can almost always bank on the fact that what you’re going to draw is the event. The addition of all the extra Hardware in the deck really does necessitate the addition of the Motivation to reliably call what’s next in the deck with May, but with only singletons of both of them and the singleton tutor doesn’t make me thing it will happen with the kind of regularity that the deck requires. If you get the Hostage first and end up needing to tutor out one of the combo pieces because you’re simply not finding one through drawing/Diesel, it could potentially make things very awkward if the other one is near the bottom of the deck.
Next, I’m not sure if I like the hardware/program package. Or rather, I like the idea, but I’m just not sure that this is the deck archetype to support it. As stated above, it just seems like it bogs down the streamlined design with having to run the Motivation, and also having to tutor out both pieces of the combo, especially with the single tutor. It looks like you are running 2 of each of the breakers because of the slower draw power of this deck, in order to increase the likelihood of finding them, but this further increases the need for the Motivation/May combo to appear reliably, since that’s yet another 2 events not inside the deck.
Reading back over this reply, it seems like everything more or less boils down to the problem that the addition of all the hardware requirements makes you need to run a combination of cards that has a not-so-great chance of firing off. Even when it does fire, the deck draws much more slowly than the more event-heavy versions of the deck due to the lack of QT. As I said, I like the Sage/Dino idea (maybe not Overmind/E3 though? Again, gotta find that single E3 reliably for barriers), but I don’t think this is the place for it.
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I love CT-Oracle May and play it quite a bit. That deck was my first time actually messing with Oracle May and I was so pleased with it, I tried to build other decks, most relevantly an Andromeda Motivation-May deck (the idea being with 3x Motivations, Andromeda’s ability, and Hostage in-faction you’d assemble the combo with extreme reliability).
After much back and forth and deck building I realized… Motivation-Oracle May is rarely better than Professional Contacts. An Oracle May that never fails trades 1 click for +1 card and +2 credits at the expense of showing the card to the corp. Motivation + Oracle May is pretty much the only way to get a high degree of success without going with a mono-type deck. Professional Contacts trades 1 click for +1 card and +1 credits. It never fails, can be used multiple times/turn, and doesn’t reveal anything to the corp. The Andromeda deck ditched the motivations and both saved influence and improved reliability by switching to ProCon.
I’ve yet to see a time when MotiMaytion is worth it outside of a deck that plans to feed Aesop every turn and those spare Motivations are really just 0-influence Easy Marks. My advice with the current data pool is either go ProCon or go mono-type.
It gets worse because Motivation is not a Connection, so Hostage can’t get it.
This is a bit of a cross-over topic from IT Department is (probably not really) bad for the game. Any ideas for how to modify this deck to be able to reliably beat ITD decks?
I stated it in the other topic, but I’ll mention it here as well:
- Parasite (not if they use Lotus Field, but not cutlery since they can boost to keep you from breaking it) and/or D4V1D recursion
- Femme/IJ (unless they use Guard and it’s limited to one ice per bypass effect)
- Noise/DLR and Hades Shard (but the NEXT version at least uses Eden Fragment, so a complete mill strategy doesn’t work unless the runner packs Eden Shard)
Most of the best tools seem to be Anarch. I’m not sure if Shaper has any directly useful tool unless you count tutor/recurring the other faction’s tools.
Do what you were doing anyway. Lock down their remotes so they never have time to rez it and get counters on it. Money isn’t a problem - if you have full rig you should be able to get in even if they get three counters on it. More and you’ve lost but you probably would have lost anyway if you left a remote alone for that long. Archer is a problem but Archer is always a problem.
When it comes to ITD, it has to do with board state more than anything. If they rush out ITD then play like a criminal- run everything without a rig and force decisions. If they spend money and need it, that’s time they can’t commit to ITD; same with exposing weaknesses by facechecking and forcing them to play more ICE.
Midgame force them to use counters to keep you out and hope they can’t keep counters up and run you into an Archer. They can spend their whole turn to gain 3 counters: how many can you make them spend? Can they keep you out of everywhere long enough for you to not win? Archer is the big threat here, but at least the deck has recursion to deal with the program loss and Femme/scavenge to play on a rezzed archer.
Late game you just have to get lucky. ITD, IMO really shines in the late game where it reinforces existing defenses to a nigh unbreakable fortress. This deck can make money, but not fast enough to get through a server and kill it before it gets out of hand.
Parasite is the skeleton key of Netrunner, in that it answers most problems with Corp defenses. I would complaint about it being “broken” but runner needs some help these days when it comes to the mid and late game.
I’m more thinking of rush ITD decks (i.e. NEXT Design), that can get ITD on the first or second turn with 2 pieces of ice protecting it. With 3x ITD and 3x EBC they can fairly reliably do that.
I agree with @DJhedgehog that running like criminal in the early game can be beneficial, but it may only allow you to steal 3-6 points before they can defend their weaker centrals if they are running a low agenda count (7-8 agendas).
Is there anything for this deck to do before a rush ITD deck can get to 4+ counters on ITD? In my limited experience, having only one Femme isn’t enough to get in to trash ITD.