Early contenders post-H&P?

Netrunner General
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Hi all,

The purpose of this thread is really to investigate what people’s first experiences have been with H&P and to establish if there are any front-runners at this early stage.

The regional in London, UK is next weekend but they’ve asked for decklists a full week in advance. H&P is legal and consequently I have to make a decision on what to play by midnight on Sunday, so I don’t have a lot of time to test and come to a decision. What are people’s thoughts?

I don’t really want to test the water with the new Jinteki at this stage. If I’m honest I still don’t think they’ll be T1 competitive, but if they are they’ll certainly need more testing and tweaking than I have time for. So I’m probably going to go with a fairly safe NBN Corp and probably splash some new ICE (Guard for sure).

Fur Runner though, it’s anyone’s guess. I can’t imagine that criminals are not still ahead in the new environment, but I feel they have a real weakness to Jinteki as there are now so many ICE that are dangerous to facecheck and criminals generally don’t run much redundancy in their breakers or recursion, so the odd point of net damage can be quite costly. Additionally, there are no safe Archives runs now to charge Datasucker and use John Masanori / Desperado. Would you agree with this assessment?

As such, I was thinking that Shaper might be a bit more conservative due to their adaptability and their ability to protect against net damage. It probably all just hinges on how many people decide to punt Jinteki at this early stage.

What’s the consensus?

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If I were to choose, I’d go making News and Kate/CT with Prepaid VoicePAD and Lucky Find; they’re easily the top contenders for top tier runner/corp.

Though perhaps that’s a bit biased, since I’ve been refining them for some time now. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I do like CT :smile:
You got a draft version of those lists or are they a closely guarded secret? Are you playing Parasite recursion in that?

I was thinking TWIY* rather than MN, but they’re both solid choices.

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If you want CT, go with @Nordrunner’s Test Run/Scavenge combo deck. If you want Kate, choose one similar to mine with Atman and Parasite.

I really think MN is better off than TWIY by a fair margin.

Here are the decklists if you’re interested:

The Watchmen

NBN: Making News (Core Set)

Agenda (11)
3x AstroScript Pilot Program (Core Set)
2x Breaking News (Core Set)
3x NAPD Contract (Double Time)
3x Project Beale (Future Proof)

Asset (4)
2x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves)
2x Psychic Field (Honor and Profit) ••

Upgrade (5)
2x Bernice Mai (Humanity’s Shadow)
3x SanSan City Grid (Core Set)

Operation (11)
2x Closed Accounts (Core Set)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
2x Restructure (Second Thoughts)
1x Scorched Earth (Core Set) ••••
3x Sweeps Week (True Colors)

Barrier (5)
2x TMI (What Lies Ahead)
3x Wraparound (Fear and Loathing)

Code Gate (6)
2x Quandary (Double Time)
1x RSVP (True Colors)
3x Viper (Cyber Exodus) •••

Sentry (7)
3x Caduceus (What Lies Ahead) ••••• •
2x Dracō (What Lies Ahead)
2x Flare (Future Proof)

Nords’s CT

Chaos Theory: Wünderkind (Cyber Exodus)

Event (23)
1x Stimhack (Core Set) •
3x The Maker’s Eye (Core Set)
3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
3x Test Run (Cyber Exodus)
3x Scavenge (Creation and Control)
1x Levy AR Lab Access (Creation and Control)
3x Dirty Laundry (Creation and Control)
3x Lucky Find (Double Time) ••••• •
2x Legwork (Honor and Profit) ••••
1x Planned Assault (Honor and Profit) ••

Hardware (6)
2x Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead)
1x Dinosaurus (Cyber Exodus)
3x Prepaid VoicePAD (Second Thoughts)

Resource (5)
3x Professional Contacts (Creation and Control)
2x Same Old Thing (Creation and Control)

Icebreaker (5)
1x Battering Ram
2x Femme Fatale (Core Set) ••
1x Deus X (A Study in Static)
1x Torch (Mala Tempora)

Program (2)
2x Self-modifying Code (Creation and Control)

edit: this is actually 41 cards; not sure what he decided to drop for PA.

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take an andy sucker list from worlds and bring that, tweak a few cards to deal with the new corp decks, not much has changed for runner

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I very respectfully disagree with the notion that you can bring a Worlds deck and assume it’s still your best option. Power Shutdown (Weyland or Jinteki) wrecks Andy’s datasuckers, leaving her dead in the water. HB decks such as Red Coats or CI builds can shut out fixed breakers. If the field is largely Jinteki (likely, considering H&P was just released, even if Jinteki isn’t yet competitive) you’re going to have a hard time. They’re good against NBN, but so is Shaper to a slightly lesser extent.

Sure runners didn’t get much since Worlds, but corps sure did, and because of that I’m leery about the assumption that what dominated then still does so now.

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Have to agree with you here. The game has changed a fair amount since world’s.

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Thanks, good stuff :smile:
No Fast Track in the NBN?

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Nope, I’m not convinced Fast Track is as all-powerful as people think it is. FFG tests extensively, yet didn’t make it a double or even give it a credit cost. It’s much easier to test cards the longer the game has been around so I don’t think we’ll ever see another card as awful as Account Siphon.

Fast Track has a home in some decks (perhaps TWIY or a deck with a unique agenda) but I hope people don’t assume it’s an NBN auto-include. It has larger drawbacks than people realize. If you have spare room, go for it. This deck’s snug as is.

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Also @SneakySly that NBN deck should look vaguely familiar. It’s a result of extensively testing yours and Alexfrog’s Plugged-In decks, plus incorporating some core premises from Lluluien’s Never Advance and adding more recent cards.

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Siphon in every deck is top tier, as well.

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The list seems pretty solid. The most interesting thing to me is the Psychic Field. What makes you think it is a good match for the deck?

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Runners have no choice but to check cards in servers against NBN to prevent Astrotrain, so it forces runs. It must also be trashed or I’ll install a SanSan on top of it. I swapped Tollbooth for Flare to prevent runners from running gripless, and since Flare trashes hardware, I get more kill power out of Scorched Earth.

Scenario: I have a SanSan/ Psychic Field server. You run, I secretly bid 2. Now that server costs 9 (as a best case scenario) to address everything and all I spent was 2.

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It’s worked out ok for me so far ;).

further: Psychic field looks like a good upgrade over the Edge of World a lot of us were using in NA last year (to protect sansan).

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@Lysander, is Bernice just an enabler for Scorched Earth? How often do you find yourself using her? How often do you end up getting the flatline kill?

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Looking at the setup of the deck, I can imagine the flatline isn’t that often, but more of a bonus for those who often pitch the Plascretes when they don’t see Midseason/Psycho, or go tag-me and hit the Psychic Field.

Bernice enables Closed Accounts as well, which is often all NBN needs to open a great and possibly game-ending timing window.

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Of course, I totally missed the Closed Accounts. It’s obvious now.
Nice one guys, I think I’d be quite comfortable piloting that, although it feels slightly light on ICE. Is that people’s experience?

Still a bit torn for runner. I’m definitely going Shaper, but I don’t know what flavour yet.

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Yeah, that NBN deck should be treated as a non-flatline deck; with Scorched as a backup plan and secondary win condition. Bernice is great for forcing a wasted run and for tactical tagging with a follow-up Closed Accounts or resource trash. Its flatline (pre-Psychic Field) was a fair rate; I’d guess 20%, though PF should aid that a bit.

I’d recommend for Shaper you go with Nords’s CT or PPVP Katman. Either way you’ll find (what I consider, though I’m sure I’m biased) the most competitive Shaper decks in the Kate Blitz thread or the Redefining Shaper Control Decks thread. Many people in those threads have really taken the Shaper archetypes and run with it.

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I dig both the PPVP decks, and it’s interesting to see how different they are while maintaining the same core of cards. Not sure which I like better, although for me I think Kate’s safety net of Clone Chips, install discount and Link wins out over the need for extra memory and 5 extra cards.

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As a longtime Andy player, I totally disagree about Power Shutdown Jinteki. You really just have to know how to play against it and the matchup is a solid 75%+. If they’re not playing power shutdown, Andy is by far the best ID vs jinteki. You’re right that the red coats can be a pain in the ass, but splashing parasite might be an easy way to stomp them as well. You really can’t get down on the most consistent ID in the game. She’s still the best, as long as you metagame correctly.

Not to say that Atman isn’t a fine choice, just that if you can develop a winning gameplan vs the meta with Andy, she’s going to execute more consistently than any other runner.