Admittedly, I have a semi-humorous hate-hate* relationship with NEH. So, naturally it is my kryptonite. It seems with the introduction of Temples the decks have become even bigger monsters though, like a terrible B-Movie create subjected to a nuclear bomb that comes back stronger.
What, dear readers, are the answers to this monstrosity? Bearing in mind that other, less daemons exist and one cannot ignore those matchups entirely.
“Pitchfork” Hayley or other Shapers with Clot and Sacrificial Construct seem a good start.
Arguably Apocalypse decks (either Anarch or Kate) can wipe the board clean of assets if Hostile Infrastructure can be handled, but are they good enough to halt Fast Advance?
Criminals like Leela seem a natural predator, but when faced with HB Food or Glacial Palana the non-yellow match ups seem weak sauce.
How do you deal with the current Temple NEH builds?
'* Card draw is generally good in a card game NEH should get less influence than normal, not more… but the FFG Wheel of Influence Fortune dictated otherwise.
Clot lock (<3 u, SacCon), don’t try to keep up with every asset (but do kill the SanSans and Temples if you can, and sniff out the Cyberdexs), don’t let them get a remote they can score out on, pound centrals.
And accept that sometimes they’re going to draw better than you and you’re going to lose anyway.
Using Hayley, I ve found the matchup is pretty ok as long as these two conditions are met: first I have to kill their cvs and secondly I have to kill team sponsorship to prevent cvs recursion. If I manage to do these two things, I can clot lock the remote and RnD with a good amount of success
Clot + CC +Sac Con,control their key assets and upgrades,SSCG/CVS/DBS/TS.You can’t keep up with NEH,all you can do is to just slow it down and take your best chance during that time.
It’s always a good idea to try out the deck that you’re struggling against. For example, Whizzard felt way more manageable after I started to play and lose with him.
It’s probably worth getting used to NEH. It’s clearly only going to get better - even just by there being so much variety amongst the assets. And it’s only going to get more played when Democracy and Dogma lands.
It’s a deck I played at a couple of tournaments, but far from being something I’m defined by.
That’s a list of cards, what’s your deck look like? What’s your strategy?
Yes, this is something I came to terms with in card games many moons ago!
One of the challenges I find is keeping clot on the table, while trashing CVS. A valid strategy seems to be putting them out and letting the runner self-purge, then recurring CVS.
Remember how NEH couldn’t win against a shaper with clot and clone chips/Sacrificial Construct? That’s still true. PPVP Kate may no longer be a powerhouse against every other deck but fast shapers with clot should still win 3 out of 4 times against NEH. Play Pitchfork Hayley with Sacificial Construct and I don’t think there’s anything NEH can do to realistically win.
I don’t think the wizzard matchup against NEH is that good. Whizzard isn’t bad against NEH but he depends on seeing his wyldside and medium early. If NEH has the right cards, the game can be over before whizzard gets rolling. I give whizzard the advantage but only slightly especially if he doesn’t run clot.
Leela is good against NEH, and Kati Jones and Subliminal Messaging give her some econ against glaciers although it’s not ideal. Once Political Operative is out Leela should be pretty good against glacier though!
In a month of extensive testing with this exact matchup, this hasn’t been true for us. The various flavors of Leela really struggle against Mumba NEH.
The lack of siphon potency (asset spam), NEH’s ability to recover economically and the ease with which NEH can trash Leela’s prized resources (ASI amiright?) really makes it a tough matchup for her. We thought DLR Leela would be a great counter … but it just wasn’t. Bank Job isn’t enough to keep SanSans off the board and the train can safely get away from Gang Sign thanks to DBS. Archangels in HQ make Gang Sign riskier (bouncin’ all the interfaces). We’ve all but given up on Leela having a favorable matchup here…
I think NEH FA/asset spam is a very difficult deck to play against, and Dumblefork is probably the best answer – even if the matchup can still be very difficult against a good player.
Dumblefork’s strength hits the deck in its one weak spot – the NBN asset spam decks typically slot very little ice while your primary strategy is to destroy R&D ice and achieve a medium lock. Turntable is a lifesaver if the corp gets any scored astros by you. Whizzard’s ability is obviously helpful, but you generally still have to be pretty strategic about what you trash because a) you obviously only get the recurring credits once per turn and b) the cards you absolutely need to trash or you’ll definitely lose – daily business show, team sponsorship, San San city grid – still cost money to trash after you use the temp credits.
I saw 2 NEH FA decks at a SC last weekend and won both games, but they were both ridiculously close. In one case, I would have lost the next turn guaranteed if my medium dig didn’t hit a the winning agenda, and that game was actually the less difficult of the two to navigate. I spent both games very poor almost the entire time because if I ever took my foot off the gas, more agendas were getting scored.
Dumblefork is very very good against asset-heavy NEH. Just remember to poke HQ with your spare clicks. The amount of asset spamming they have to do to get ahead of your ID usually leaves them flooded.
That’s definitely true. The only downside to that is in one of the games in the tournament I mentioned, I probably hit the same archangel 5 times poking HQ over the course of the game, although it only did any real damage once (the first time I hit it, it nearly cost me the game because the score was 0-6, he had 2 astros scored and it interrupted my newly-established medium lock for one turn. Without knowing if he was one of the NEH versions using GFI, I had to make sure he wasn’t holding one he could drop on a SSCG and win).
When you play criminal against those decks, legwork, security testing and desperado are your best friends, although I consider them generally a not-great matchup because criminals have no answers to the astro train besides trying to steal agendas faster than the corp can draw them.
