Dedicated Noise Mill

Decklists
1

The Church of Noise thread is an excellent resource for playing Noise in general and for various takes on Noise. But it doesn’t really approach the Noise mill archetype and I thought it would be better to start a new thread than get buried in the 300+ comments on that thread.

Below is the decklist I’ve reached after playing a ton of games. The basic gameplan is very simple and non-interactive. Get Wyldside and Aesop’s out, draw viruses, play viruses, run the corp out of cards before they can score 7 points or hope you’ve buried 7 points in archives when they get to game point.

The actual play is a bit more complex. None of the gameplay decisions are what I would call difficult, but they are important and it’s not a deck where you can just shut off your brain and play the one line. The tools exist to do other things, but they are more about taking opportunities that present themselves than they are about creating opportunities with cash and tricks like other decks do.

Noise: Hacker Extraordinaire (Core Set)

Event (9)
3x Déjà Vu (Core Set)
1x Levy AR Lab Access (Creation and Control) •••
1x Express Delivery (Honor and Profit) •
1x Scrubbed (The Spaces Between)
3x Inject (Up and Over)

Hardware (4)
3x Cyberfeeder (Core Set)
1x Autoscripter (Up and Over) •••

Resource (7)
3x Wyldside (Core Set)
2x Aesop’s Pawnshop (Core Set) ••••
1x New Angeles City Hall (Future Proof)
1x Eden Shard (Upstalk) •

Icebreaker (4)
2x Crypsis (Core Set)
2x Darwin (Future Proof)

Program (21)
3x Datasucker (Core Set)
2x Medium (Core Set)
3x Parasite (Core Set)
3x Imp (What Lies Ahead)
2x Nerve Agent (Cyber Exodus)
2x Scheherazade (Second Thoughts)
3x Lamprey (Upstalk)
3x Cache (The Spaces Between) •••

15 influence spent (maximum 15)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Up and Over’

The cards I tend to debate either internally or with others are Darwin, Eden Shard, NACH vs Plascrete, Inject, LARLA, Scrubbed, Hades Shard. Here’s my reasoning for their inclusion or exclusion.

Darwin - The deck can mill out most corp decks if it can keep them off game point long enough. Darwin does double duty, it can force the corp to delay a turn by purging, and if left alone can break in to steal an agenda keeping them off pace longer.

Eden Shard - I’ve included this because it’s the only way to win via mill against a successful Hades Shard. I’m starting to lean against it because frankly if they’ve scored a Hades shard you should probably access archives immediately and give up on the mill to win plan completely. I’m leaning towards replacing this with another Express Delivery.

NACH vs Plascrete - Noise Mill more than any other archetype has better control over whether or not they get scorched/punitived. Imp allows for destruction of agendas rather than stealing them if Punitive or Midseasons is a concern. Other tag methods can for the most part be handled by NACH with 4C handy. Noise can also better control when NACH is destroyed and can profit if by selling it if he’s fairly certain he’s going to burn it on a specific turn.

Inject - The deck falls on its face if it fails to get Aesop’s/Wyldside running. Inject digs for those specific cards. I’ve been finding room recently for Express Delivery which does the same thing but without burning vital viruses from the deck. If I swap Eden out for another Express I might lower the count on these.

LARLA - I added this when I added Inject. The experience I’ve had is that 24 or so viruses is sufficient to completely mill someone in an average case (couple Jackson’s used but Deja Vu’s primarily recurring viruses). If I inject away too many viruses then I need something like LARLA to mass recur my mill cards. This will get immediately replaced with Trope, but I’m considering removing it to add more Express Delivery and put back in the third Aesop’s because my experience has been that games that get to the point of victory by milling out are often well in hand already anyway and milling out is a matter of pride more than necessity.

Scrubbed - Cerebral Static ruins this decks primary goal. If Cerebral Static was more prevalent or I had more room easily I’d run 2 of these but room is at a premium in this deck.

Hades Shard - The threat of this is enough for most players to be forced into immediate Jackson firing and that’s generally fine with me. This card usually means I could take a hail mary shot in a game I otherwise probably wouldn’t win. I’m not missing that personally and the influence can be much better spent imo.

Are there cards I haven’t considered that could be helpful to the deck? Is there a reason I should consider running a particular virus that I’m not currently, or shifting the quantities of something I’m running? Can the deck be made more versatile without damaging the core focus of the deck which is burning cards out of the corp’s deck?

2 Likes
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Teching against Hades Fragment seems like a mistake. It’s a one-of that is very hard to score, and most decks don’t even run it

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Yeah, as I was writing that bit about Eden Shard I was basically deciding in my head to drop the shard and put in another Express Delivery.

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Would it be possible to add The Source? I feel like against dedicated mill decks most decks will just try and score out really quickly, since you’re not forcing them (too much) to defend centrals and R&D.

1 Like
5

This is the reason why a dedicated mill (only) deck can’t be too competitive. Good players will just score points fast enough. I mean, a Noise Mill deck can win a lot, don’t get me wrong, but it won’t be consistent enough for a large tourney

1 Like
6

This isn’t an unfair assessment. It might be possible that dedicated noise mill will need clot before it can compete consistently against the field.

The correct play for corp players is indeed to just get a few pieces of ICE down and start trying to score out. If the corp can get to game point then it forces Noise off the mill plan and to play interactively which the deck doesn’t want to do. The key to winning those games is to try and get one or two of those agendas before they get scored to keep the corp off game point. This is hardest to do with FA because the agendas don’t present themselves in a remote, so The Source, Chakana, Clot may be things that Noise needs in order to truly compete. Against other decks the trouble has usually been with the consistency of having Aesop’s/Wyldside/Crypsis at the appropriate time to get the problem agenda.

Perhaps the deck needs to try adding a couple cards to provide surprise stealing power, Stimhack, another copy of Crypsis. It’s also possible it should just back off the mill plan slightly, dropping autoscripter, which is amazing when it’s out for the mill plan, frees up some influence which could be used for something like an Inside Job.

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your deck should tune up when trope is released. it’ll be superior to LARLA as you’ll populate your stack with only what you want, instead of everything.

I don’t think your deck is a “decking”- deck (say that five times real fast). At best you’re hoping to nail ICE when you’re doing your noise thing so perhaps take out the mediums and insert keyhole. Keyhole gives you a better chance at removing more ICE. You’d need some MU though.

if you haven’t already consider playing around with one or two mass installs. you’re typically not running much so you get a couple mills a turn, next turn mass install 3 viruses then charge into archives with crypsis.

NACH! fun!

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Is there something else you would consider a “decking” deck?

I considered mass install, but I found that it doesn’t really flow all that well.

Keyhole is an interesting idea. It makes the deck more interactive which requires a shift in focus of how money gets spent. I’ve played a Leela keyhole deck recently that I was quite impressed by, perhaps there are some lessons from that to be transplanted here.

9

Your mill deck looks very similar to the “not only mill” Noise deck that I’m playing.

It’s how you play the deck I guess.

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The handful of games I’ve won by decking the corp were with Iain, Keyhole, DLR, Fall Guy, Siphon. I didn’t want to relieve the economic pressure by scoring and not winning. 4-5 cards per turn doesn’t take many turns once you’re going.

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I just dont recall seeing or hearing much about decking a corporation by installing viruses with noise. Certainly not consistently.

I think if decking a corp is going to be a real approach it needs to be with DLR or creating consistent cheap medium runs paired with demo spam.

That was just to answer your question.

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I don’t think anyone’s claiming that right now; but it can definitely happen. the funny thing is, when you play a deck like this, you notice a lot of corps draw a lot to try to score out before you can trash what they’re looking for; only to get milled that much sooner…

to the OP:

  • I say drop scrubbed. As a silver bullet to a card no_one plays, it’s a purely wasted deckslot. if, on the crazy off-chance you get hit with a cerebral static, just use your AIs to fish for a steal to clear it out. If they have that card in their deck, the rest of it is probably just as bad.

-I’m on the fence about eden shard; I think it’s more than a silver bullet for hades (if that’s all it did, I would say drop it) I find i’m pretty often able to install if for free, especially early on when it’s better than a single access, and in this case is basically serves as a double mill, which is more than any other card in your deck can say.

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For a mill deck your missing 3 grave diggers they are heavy lifters of milling they have got me all my mill wins. Although most of my wins come from single run on archives

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@cammy Nice necro dude

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On this list, what are the most important cards needed for the “Mill”-type and what are just other cards that are good to have in a deck? or is there a better way to think about how these cards fit together?