CT String Theory/Doubles/Oracle May (It works)

Decklists
#21

Please do share results after the tournament, DJ! I’m really curious as to what you will do with Eureka/Power Nap with the Femme there instead of the Garrotte. I think Power Nap is worth keeping, even without Eureka. I say this because even after just a single Lucky Find and a Hostage, the first Power Nap is already giving Opus efficiency. This already justifies it’s inclusion in the deck, forgetting the fact that it still has the potential to give Lucky Find efficiency (for zero influence cost? Yes please!) a little later into the deck’s cycle.

Also, DJ, I’d be really interested to hear if you decide to drop an Oracle for a second Femme + Legwork! That second bypass can be so effective, compounded by the fact that you have multi-access coming out your ears in this build, you can really lay on the early/mid-game pressure until your full rig is up. In addition, adding to Arkhon’s math, having the second Femme out would only lose out to Garrotte in efficiency if there were 4 sizeable sentries all on the same server. Comes out cheaper for everything else. I’m firmly of the opinion that this, combined with all the added flexibility/trickiness that Femme provides, makes it a better choice!

#22

I played the original deck with minor modifications (-1 Escher, -1 Tinkering, +1 Indexing, +1 Infiltration) at a tournament yesterday. I went undefeated as runner over four rounds; the deck is really cool and surprisingly effective. Thanks very much for sharing.

I’ll weigh in on Femme vs. Garotte. Femme does have a couple of disadvantages: she costs 2 more to play and, more importantly, you have to see a good Femme target before playing her. You can be much more proactive with playing Garotte, which is great because this deck wants to be firing off R&D multi-access cards as early as possible.

Scavenge also has a hidden drawback compared to Eureka: you have to play Scavenge on the same turn as Test Run, which gives you fewer clicks to work with on the busy Test Run turn. For example, a common line of play might be Test Run -> Indexing -> run R&D; if you’re not constrained to play Scavenge afterward, you have another free click to use Oracle May, run R&D for another agenda, or hit another server. Of course Eureka will then take up half of your next turn, but in my experience that turn tends to be much less critical.

#23

My point is that there’s scope for both - you don’t always have to TR-Scav, sometimes you TR, get value and then Eureka. The thing with Eureka in the build as-is is that you’re paying almost full value for Battering Ram and Garrote. You’ve spent 2 cards, 3 clicks and $6 getting a $5 and $7 breaker into play - I’d almost prefer to be playing Femme to justify that kind of outlay.

Point taken about not knowing the correct time to play Femme, but playing Scavenge with her means you can play her more cheaply more often and re-target her as necessary. The fact she’s more expensive to play from hand than Garrote is neither here nor there - you save that money the first time you use her for a bypass that Garrote would have to pay through.

#24

There’s less value for sure, but the deck can pretty easily handle playing breakers for full price. Test Run is primarily a tutor and recursion tool and Eureka just helps recoup the extra cost. Playing Femme as the killer and Scavenge in addition to Eureka isn’t a terrible idea; you’d have to cut other cards and you’ll draw more useless Eurekas/Scavenges, but it’s certainly worth trying. Having the influence for Legwork would be nice.

#25

Timing question, does the Power Nap you just played count as trashed already? So it adds value to itself the moment it’s played?

1 Like
#26

http://netrunner.meteor.com/decks/MpquryhmRjTyQtJ3w/
This deck went undefeated during swiss round in Polish Nationals.
Breaking Elis 1.0 for 1 credit is too strong…

#27

Yeah I’m surprised you dont see Morningstar in Shaper more often.

But why no Femme (could use the influence that was spent on Easy Mark)?

#28

It’s not my deck, so I can’t comment directly but personally I would go for Femme. So you can bypass Ice Wall advanced 15 Times against Tennin Institute.

#29

I wondered this too, so looked it up, the rulebook (p11) says:

The runner pays credits equal to the play cost of an event to play it. When played, an event’s abilities as listed in its text box are resolved. Then, the event is immediately trashed.

So from that, Power Nap doesn’t boost itself, which is what I would have guessed.

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#30

This week’s tournament was a bit of a let down from last
week, but I stand behind my original statement that this deck is the bee’s
knees. I went 50/50, 1 loss was to PE (caused by play mistakes got flat lined
when I had 6 points to his 2… hate that) and 1 loss to NEH. The NEH game was
close (6-7), and I couldn’t find a legwork or points in R&D. We played
again after the tournament and I crushed him. R&D lock is the best answer
to NEH. If they draw out of it hit them with legwork.

The best part of this deck is how extremely fast you are
able to put together a very efficient rig. NEH depends on getting ahead early
and hiding behind cheap binary ICE. Once the Rig is up, most runs on NEH cost 5
or less. If they’re playing Tollbooth things can get more expensive, but most
of them are running less than 3 and don’t often want to spend the credits to
rez them. Plus, with the dynamite econ in this deck you can take care of any
asset economy without taking a huge pacing hit. This is extremely effective
against RP too. Against RP I would overdraw just in case you multi access a snare
or Fetal, but otherwise full steam ahead.

I’d say the deck is strongest against people who want to
play Agendas into a server to score them. Unless they are really, really fast
about rushing them out you can apply pressure quickly and basically have them
cornered.

To be 100% honest, I couldn’t really tell much difference
switching to femme. I think I like Garrote better just for Caduceus, as it’s
the most prevalent Sentry in my meta. Femme doesn’t really want to target it
and it costs 4 to get through. Femme-ing a Komainu is amazing, same with
tollbooth. You could probably go either way with this and be fine, where both
have meta dependent advantages.

Maybe it was just that I hadn’t practiced much against PE,
but those games are the roughest. Economy isn’t an issue as they are typically
light on the ICE, but brain damage is a big problem. I won against 1 PE player
just by overdrawing like crazy. But really, your teeth in this deck come from
recurring r&d and HQ multi-access events. You have to have balls of steel
to use these against jinteki, or do what I did and spend a bunch of time
drawing before big runs. I don’t know if PE is making a resurgence or if it was
the more casual nature of the tournament (14 players), but I know I still feel
like PE is a coin flip. The best and worst runner decks have about the same
chance against PE and play-mistakes are disastrous. Probably going to slot in
1-2 infiltration after this weekend.

1 Like
#31

Infiltration is a good slot. I’d use stimhack just for the surprise of 0 to 9 credits, but if PE is a weakspot for you, EM isn’t that awful. I like the deck, been cooking up some double decks myself, PPVP kate included. Seems like this whole thing is worth revisiting. Lets not forget FFG’s published one:

Chaos Theory

Events (20):
3x Eureka! (Second Thoughts, 27)
3x Hostage (Opening Moves, 4) **
2x Levy AR Lab Access
3x Lucky Find (Double Time, 109) **
3x Power Nap
3x Sure Gamble
3x Test Run
Resources (11):
1x Aesop’s Pawn Shop
1x John Masanori (Opening Moves, 9)
1x Kati Jones
3x Motivation (Opening Moves, 8)
1x Professional Contacts
3x Starlight Crusade Funding
1x The Helpful AI

Hardware (3):
3x The Toolbox

Programs (6):
1x Alpha (Fear and Loathing, 87)
1x Corroder **
1x Femme Fatale *
1x Magnum Opus
1x Omega (Fear and Loathing, 88)
1x Torch (Mala Tempora, 47)

I’ve run it with some slight modifications, 1 levy, eschewing sure gamble for scavenge (for femme and big breakers), adding oracle may, dropping helpful AI, added SoT, and some other changes. It’s actually a lot of fun, only lacking in multi-access, which would really hurt against NEH now. If SFC is something you have trouble playing around, that is 3 slots for Maker’s right there.

Anyway, awesome deck, I will definitely be playing it, if nothing else, against my girlfriend.

#32

Adding an infiltration or two, and switching to 3 Indexing 2 The Maker’s Eye would be prudent for PE worries. Or, if you really want to go crazy, you could pop a Leverage in there! Though, it may just get you 2 BP rather than a free turn of trashing ambushes. Not sure if that would help in a low ICE deck, but against RP it could be useful.

I wonder if there is any way to make this work with Silhouette? I have seen a Ken version of the Oracle May event deck.

#33

Silhouette is going to be my next attempt, mostly because of the PE problem. Going to have issues with fitting in what I want with Levy AR Access, so still working out the kinks.

#34

Well, I thought Test run was 2 influence. Maybe not silhouette :frowning:

#35

So I sleeved up a similar deck to that mocked up here and am on cloud 9 with how well it works. I never had money issues even against my girlfriend playing almost exactly medioxcore’s RP deck (granted not nearly as well piloted), except one time when the shock (thats why it’s almost) nicked a scavenge out of my hand, leading to me hard casting a torch 5 turns later, giving her a scoring window.

Here is my deck as I had it, changes largely due to personal flavor, uncertainty and mostly…card availability (cards in other decks).

Chaos Theory Wünderkind
15 influence spent (max 15) •••••••••••••••
40 cards (min 40)
Cards up to Honor and Profit
Event (34)

1x Quality Time
3x Diesel
3x Dirty Laundry
3x Eureka!
1x Hostage ••
3x Sure Gamble
1x Legwork ••
2x Levy AR Lab Access
3x Lucky Find ••••• •
3x Power Nap
3x Scavenge
3x Test Run
3x The Maker’s Eye
2x Tinkering

Resource (3)

2x Oracle May ••
1x Woman in the Red Dress

Icebreaker (3)

1x Battering Ram
1x Garrote •••
1x Torch

WitRD is in there because I thought that having hostage for 1 card was dumb, even if it fuels Power Nap, and WitRD is a pretty cool effect, that works great with legwork. The flow of the game is so different when you know what the corp has/has on R&D, and you’re showing them 1 card per turn :slight_smile: I can say I’d probably keep this change, except maybe pro contacts, but then I’d have to cut the diesels or QT, not sure which.

I found myself all over the map in the 6 games I played. Sometimes I thought Planned Assault for my 2 inf double + vamp would be great, due to my stacks of bills. Then the next game I figured 2 hostage and maybe another resource would be good. Ultimately the best compromise seems to be as played above though, as it’s the best connection for the job.

Which brings me to Same Old thing. I always wanted it. If to play legwork again, or to play power nap for god tier cash before levying, or to alleviate the stress of holding at least 1 levy, and many more. However, having 6 non-may targets is frustrating, hitting even 2 in a game can be a dickslap.

I felt like it was ‘nice’ to have eureaka! for 3rd click test runs in dire situations, but paying 3 clicks and 6 credits for a breaker kinda is balls. That said, the deck can handle the tempo hit just fine. This deck loves to close scoring windows, and even moreso, hold them closed. Often I felt like I could hold a set of 5 ‘trick’ cards, and click for credits until the corp made a move (RP and red coats style advancing from remotes). Once the money was locked up then I could take pokes and maybe draw and play cards.

I never felt like I had to click for credits, I always felt more efficiency came from just drawing until I found econ, and if I had to pitch Eureaka! in the drawing process, then the click spent invested into drawing it, gets paid back 50% in playing power nap later. Seems like an okay trade.

I think going forward I would go 2 TME 2 Indexing, and cut 1 scavenge maybe, but the deck runs on tons of cash, and has the scruff to run 2 times. Indexing is a killshot a lot of the time, so I think it fits very well, esp if you can follow it up with a TME to get 2 agendas. Tinkering is close, because this deck does get to reading rainbow fast, but being able to snipe an agenda when the corp thinks you can’t is amazing, and gets you that first ‘easy two’ that puts the corp on the back foot post-haste.

TL:DR Deck is good, trying to squeeze some more out of it. Sleeve it if you’re even on the fence.

Bonus smile: While playing I took a moment to realize that the combined default breaker strength of my rig was 9, and how awesome that is.

2 Likes
#36

[quote=“x3r0h0ur, post:35, topic:1784, full:true”]WitRD
is in there because I thought that having hostage for 1 card was dumb, even if
it fuels Power Nap, and WitRD is a pretty cool effect, that works great with
legwork. The flow of the game is so
different when you know what the corp has/has on R&D, and you’re showing
them 1 card per turn :slight_smile: I can say I’d
probably keep this change, except maybe pro contacts, but then I’d have to cut
the diesels or QT, not sure which.

I found myself all over the map in the 6 games I
played. Sometimes I thought Planned
Assault for my 2 inf double + vamp would be great, due to my stacks of
bills. Then the next game I figured 2
hostage and maybe another resource would be good. Ultimately the best compromise seems to be as
played above though, as it’s the best connection for the job.

Which brings me to Same Old thing. I always wanted it. If to play legwork again, or to play power
nap for god tier cash before levying, or to alleviate the stress of holding at
least 1 levy, and many more. However,
having 6 non-may targets is frustrating, hitting even 2 in a game can be a
dickslap.

I felt like it was ‘nice’ to have eureaka! for 3rd click
test runs in dire situations, but paying 3 clicks and 6 credits for a breaker
kinda is balls. That said, the deck can
handle the tempo hit just fine. This
deck loves to close scoring windows, and even moreso, hold them closed. Often I felt like I could hold a set of 5
‘trick’ cards, and click for credits until the corp made a move (RP and red
coats style advancing from remotes). Once
the money was locked up then I could take pokes and maybe draw and play
cards.

I never felt like I had to click for credits, I always felt
more efficiency came from just drawing until I found econ, and if I had to
pitch Eureaka! in the drawing process, then the click spent invested into
drawing it, gets paid back 50% in playing power nap later. Seems like an okay trade.

I think going forward I would go 2 TME 2 Indexing, and cut 1
scavenge maybe, but the deck runs on tons of cash, and has the scruff to run 2
times. Indexing is a killshot a lot of
the time, so I think it fits very well, esp if you can follow it up with a TME
to get 2 agendas. Tinkering is close,
because this deck does get to reading rainbow fast, but being able to snipe an
agenda when the corp thinks you can’t is amazing, and gets you that first ‘easy
two’ that puts the corp on the back foot post-haste. [/quote]

Any deck that is trying to score out of a server is going to
have a really big problem against this deck, that includes the wildly popular
HB and RP glacier decks.This deck makes money so fast and consistently it is
able to trash assets and still threaten to run on a scoring remote. I think you
said it best that it “closes scoring windows” very quickly, and it keeps them
closed. I’ve played 12 rounds of tournament games with this deck at this point
and every opponent who plays into a server has been blown away with 1 click may
(+2) 2+3 click lucky find or power nap (+6) and suddenly able to run anywhere
last click.

Since posting, I have made some changes to the deck. Femme
is probably the right choice, mostly because it allows you to close early game
windows where you’re lacking breakers. There will be some ICE that make you sad
(ICHI 1-2, Caduceus to a lesser degree).

It may seem tempting to play Same old thing, and I don’t necessarily
think it’s a bad decision. You’re assessment of “dickslap” when you draw
non-events with Oracle May is entirely accurate. In order for this to be
competitive the engine has to be going full throttle from beginning to end.
When May “misfires” is when scoring windows open up.

I actually like WItRD with this build. You have enough
threats to hit an agenda where ever it goes, and knowledge is power. May have
to steal that idea from you. I am against running three scavenge for sure,
especially with no Femme. I am running femme and 0 scavenge and it works just
fine. I was thinking of adding a scavenge but in reality this deck is so fast
it wins before you would need to shift femme.

Last night was another local tournament, only 8 players. I
ended up going undefeated with the deck posted here: http://netrunner.meteor.com/decks/Lk9xGv6xgBgnb9dmg/ Legwork is the true champion. I can’t believe
I ever played without it.

Last match was against a GRNDL willow of the wisp recursion with
power shutdown. It was able to slow me down, but not enough to stop me from
winning. He willow/PS my battering ram 5 times and it just wasn’t enough. I can
see how that deck could be a problem for non-shaper decks though. Yeeouch.

#37

Next datapack is First Contact.

49: “Chronos Project” (Neutral Agenda[Research], 0 inf). Cost 3, 1 point.
When you score Chronos Project, the Runner removes all cards in her heap from the game.

Now, I’m not expecting that agenda to be played much (if at all?), but I would think it is something you have to at least consider. Obviously, it would be most effective when you have a large number of cards in archives, which also means you have a large amount of cash and can probably get into whatever server its sitting in, but you would still have to account for it in FA and no advance style decks.

Just a thought.

#38

Curious what ice exactly you’re hurting for femme for. Tollbooth is as bad as I can imagine it, and I can spare running through a tollbooth with torch as long as its not a fuckton. Infiltrate will help keep you from running the remote, and would be a good slot in general. I think I prefer garrote, particularly if I don’t run scavenge. I just need something better to put into those 3 slots.

For me and my playstyle, quickly getting all breakers online and threatening all access is more important than most things though. Maybe I can try femme and see, but I know breaking ichi and cad seems like a living nightmare, even if I’m bypassing tollbooths and komainus. That said I did pay 8 to break a komainu one time, learned my lesson there…

edit: also, if you’re going to free up influence with femme, I’d still slot stimhack due to it’s ability to further close scoring windows, and make repeat runs against RP’s heavily upgraded servers.

#39

I like the idea, and will give it a whirl. I’m a little concerned that Eureka is a poor card, and this deck will be massively boosted by the release of 1 more Shaper double that’s really useful. Power Nap will be really good one day, of that I have no doubt. I like the theory of playing it in Silhouette, planned assault is good, hostage is useful (you could probably get away with playng 1 oracle may), lawyer up is playable. But having to spend 12 inf on lucky find and power nap makes you a bit sad.

On the whole, the double events not called Lucky Find are a bit underwhelming, aren’t they.

#40

I don’t think you’ll score it very effectively short of fast advancing it, and at the correct time, and getting it in time to score it. Too many conditionals to worry about it. It is 1 per deck right?

By the time this will come into play effectively, this deck should have all 3 breakers in play, which mitigates a portion of the threat that presents. But, sometimes your deck just has a foil.