Feeling Blue About Blue Decks

Netrunner General
562

I’d like to interrupt the discussion for something else. :slight_smile: Ehem. This “42 trick cards, 3x Sure Gamble” style of Criminal has never been mine. I always liked the run based, aggressive Andy decks way more. Now, as we know, Andy and her favorite tools are gone, but I still like to play a deck that at least comes close. Getting money, trashing assets, only install breakers if absolutely necessary. That’s what I came up with:

Armand “Geist” Walker: Tech Lord

Event (10)
1x “Freedom Through Equality”
3x Dirty Laundry
1x Information Sifting
1x Levy AR Lab Access ●●●
1x On the Lam
3x Sure Gamble

Hardware (8)
1x Forger
2x Sports Hopper
5x Spy Camera

Resource (21)
2x Dean Lister
3x Fall Guy
2x Maxwell James
1x Political Operative
1x Same Old Thing
3x Scrubber ●●●
3x Street Peddler ●●●
3x Tech Trader
3x Underworld Contact

Icebreaker (7)
1x Abagnale
2x Aumakua
1x Femme Fatale
1x Gordian Blade ●●●
1x Mongoose
1x Paperclip ●●●

15 influence spent (max 15, available 0)
46 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Revised Core Set

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

Yes, it’s 46 cards, and also yes, it’s Geist. But it plays refreshingly old-school (apart from the missing Account Siphon :frowning: ). Maxwell James and Aumakua + Dean Lister are often breakers enough for a game, depending on the match-up Scrubber is the best economy card in the deck and with some Geist tricks you can play around Bryan/Reversed and damage decks. It’s far from being a T1 deck and has some horrible match-ups (Titan, Tennin, Hydra), but it’s fun. And it encourages me to find good lines of play instead of just Indexing and Clot-locking. :stuck_out_tongue:

So, why do I post it here? Firstof, I realized I won’t play it in any Store Championships before at least the first, maybe even the second pack of Kitara is legal. At that point the meta might have changed already to make this deck even worse. So, it doesn’t hurt to share, I case someone else is interested in that kind of deck. Second, I came to a point where I think I can’t make this deck any better (at least for my playstyle) and I’m curious what others came up with for an aggressive Crim.

2 Likes
563

My version of run-based Criminal is less creative than yours. It looks like this right now:

Good Stuff Gabe

Gabriel Santiago: Consummate Professional (Revised Core Set)

Event (18)
3x Career Fair (Breaker Bay)
3x Dirty Laundry (Creation and Control)
2x Indexing (Revised Core Set) [color=#32CD32]●●●●● ●[/color]
2x Inside Job (Revised Core Set)
1x Mad Dash (Daedalus Complex)
1x On the Lam (Martial Law)
3x Special Order (Revised Core Set)
3x Sure Gamble (Revised Core Set)

Hardware (5)
2x Doppelgänger (Revised Core Set)
3x HQ Interface (Revised Core Set)

Resource (14)
2x Bank Job (Revised Core Set)
3x Daily Casts (Creation and Control)
3x Earthrise Hotel (The Source)
3x Liberated Account (Revised Core Set) [color=#FF4500]●●●●● ●[/color]
3x Security Testing (Honor and Profit)

Icebreaker (5)
1x Abagnale (Terminal Directive)
1x Aumakua (Crimson Dust)
1x Femme Fatale (Revised Core Set)
1x Mongoose (Kala Ghoda)
1x Paperclip (Blood Money) [color=#FF4500]●●●[/color]

Program (3)
3x Sneakdoor Beta (Revised Core Set)
15 influence spent (max 15, available 0)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Revised Core Set

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

The HQI could be replaced by 1-3 Legwork. If something like an Account Siphon comes out, the Bank Jobs and/or Inside Jobs would be first candidates to drop for it.

While I understand the dislike for Shaper style game plans (Clot lock + Indexing), a key piece of the old Andy decks was the Medium dig, which you cannot do now, so Indexing seems like the best alternative to that. You could replace the Indexing + Mad Dash with The Maker’s Eye or a couple The Turning Wheel if you wanted to go a different direction.

Against asset-heavy metas (like this one), switching out Security Testing for Aeneas Informant might be a better move. The Informants + Doppelganger become become your blue Scrubbers.

564

Been stewing on this question for a while:

Temujin out is game changer for crim and running in general. Do you think that crim econ will be able to pay for its expensive cards? Will Kitara crim have been designed under the assumption of preexisting big economy? (Remember there was also Bloo Moose.)

1 Like
565

Emergency Shutdown is how you balance this. Also Maxwell James.

It is the key problem of Rubicon Los, though.

Currently Rubicon decks have the issue of MCAAP and asset spam decks…

566

I’ve used the supplier a lot, at times even effectively.

The supplier is a slow card. It works as supplemental economy in a deck that it already slow, especially if you can draw a lot of cards at once and just need to get some out of your hand.

Daily Casts is always better with the supplier. However I feel that you really need to be facilitating more of your economy than just DC to get enough value out of the supplier to justify the card slots. You really want to use him every turn, so I think you need to have ~20 targets to really use him, which in my opinion you can only really reach by having a significant portion of your economy moving through him.

The supplier is slow and telegraphs your plays. I like him a lot and have used him extensively, but I don’t think he is worth an include right now.

567

My read on Supplier, having played him a bunch in Sunny, is that he gives you a once/turn Mopus click, as long as you’re installing a Hardware/Resource.

The basic test is this: If you groan when your opponent plays Scarcity of Resources, you can consider playing The Supplier. (Because you have enough Resources for it to be worth running.)

1 Like
568

It’s not a Mopus click, because you’re only spending the click you would have spent to install the card anyway. It’s more like a Bloo Moose, clickless $2 per turn.

Also, it lets you spend your clicks earlier, which isn’t much of an advantage, but it’s still more flexible than the cards that are just a mopus click once a turn like Tri-Maf Contact or Hard at Work.

4 Likes
569

I like Supplier as a tempo card in big rig decks. It allows for a little variability in economy without disrupting the rhythm of a turn. I think it works best for expensive stacking hardware decks that otherwise get totally messed up if you draw the expensive cards too early. But…those kinds of decks are generally #notgood. So it’s a great card for decks that lose a lot.

1 Like
570

Zamba, Puffer & Lewi?

Sooo…Sovereign Sight gave us three new crim cards (more than any other runner faction)! And none of them seem remotely slot-able at the moment. What’s the point of being a criminal? [questions life choices]

1 Like
571

SS in general seemed to have a bunch of ‘signpost’ cards, cards that show a direction they’re taking us. Expose, for instance.

That said, I’m aware of people playing Zamba + GPI Net Tap, and Puffer can go into Geist pretty easily…

2 Likes
572

Yeah…I’m not excited about multi-exposing a card to load counters and get paid. Seems like a total (unintuitive) gimmick mechanic.

573

So here is a list of “good” Criminal cards. Feel free to argue or suggest changes. I’m not saying these are the only playable cards in Criminal, just that these strike me as the best cards in blue right now.

Events
Career Fair
Inside Job
Legwork

Hardware
none

Programs
Aumakua
Faerie
Femme Fatale
Passport
Sneakdoor Beta
Tapwrm

Resources
Security Testing

1 Like
574

Hardware:
The Gauntlet

Programs:
Mongoose

Resources:
Maxwell James

4 Likes
575

Gang Sign, arguably Political Operative and Aeneas Informant?

3 Likes
576

I think Abagnale is worthy of a mention in blue decks.

And Spear Fishing is kinda the same card as Inside Job.

And I’ll second the previously mentioned Security Testing, Mongoose, and Max James.

3 Likes
577

Bank Job also deserves a mention. It may not be Temujin, but it is serviceable economy in a meta with relatively little glacier.

1 Like
578

I’ve concluded that the only chance crim has to be good in the near future is for Temujin to become restricted instead of banned. Crim hardly has the credits to play its faction cards. Sure, it would probably get usurped into ridiculously power anarch decks…but crim NEEDS it.

My dream is that Clone Chip will come off restricted too and Steve will become really strong.

579

Surprised to see no mention of Info Sifting. Considering how dominant CI is at the moment, it’s nice that Crim gets one of the best Silver bullets against them influence free.

2 Likes
580

Yes. I was trying to think of good cards in general not based on match ups, but you make a good point.

581

Wow, they really don’t have any good hardware. (Gauntlet is situational, at best.)

All of the good hardware needs something specific. Spy-Camera is great for Geist. Rubicon is great for Los. GPI + Zamba is (possibly) good… Gabe and Steve like Maui? Not really any generically useful Hardware. HQ Interface is the best, I think?

But yeah. Maxwell James is a really good Resource. Just don’t play him in Steve/Gabe, so you can get easy-ish access to HQ to use him when you want to.

1 Like