Feeling Blue About Blue Decks

Netrunner General
81

Basically you install it free and it messes with there timing on using/floating Jackson. You pay when you have money to snipe agendas. Those are nice scenarios for 1 influence.

All that said, I only have 2 cores, so it’s better as a third Desperado.

82

Here is a list that I’ve been tweaking for a few months. Trying to be a mid-range deck with aggro and control elements. The deck is designed float tags so the play is somewhat aggressive which is also why I have 3 plascretes and 1 IHW. If someone wants to try it out and see if it can be optimized then that would be greatly appreciated.

Andromeda: Dispossessed Ristie (Humanity’s Shadow)

Event (18)

Hardware (11)

Resource (8)

Icebreaker (8)

15 influence spent (max 15)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Data and Destiny

83

How often do you get to use Bank Job against Glacier Decks?

1 Like
84

It can be a dead draw against one remote glacier decks. So far I haven’t encountered many (any?) of those. Most decks spam out a lot of assets.

85

Last time I ran them I encountered so many flipping retooled Foodcoats decks that I’m vacillating on their effectiveness.

1 Like
86

Utopia + Hades Shard in Leela is really nice. Extra clickless accesses can help you get a bounce when it would matter most. Utopia Shard is a card I like on its own anyway.

87

Lol how do you have the money for this deck? HQIs are expensive which is why I don’t even run them normally, nexus and rabbit holes cost money, you don’t have security testing or desperado as income so you need to pay for all of your stuff with money from…dirty laundrys, which are underwhelming without security testing and desperado (and are better once you have stuff like HQI set up anyway), sure gambles, and then bank jobs that hopefully go off? I feel like the deck would really struggle v competent glacier pilots, including RP and foodcoats, and both those decks are definitely still around. Just my two cents based on nothing but a look at the decklist xD

2 Likes
88

Security testing loses a lot of value in a tag floating deck . I’m using Security nexus so that is why I have the rabbit holes and have ommited desperado. It would be nice to be able to play two consoles though.

89

mm that’s fair enough, I guess as long as you can chain those siphons you should be good for money as long as it’s not v something like foodcoats with money assets at the ready…I’d be interested to see it in action against glacier

2 Likes
90

Incidentally I know some of you aren’t in the UK Netrunners group on Facebook, so here’s a link to the Leela deck I’ve used to come 2nd at a SC.

Beautiful in Blue - 2nd Place 22-player Store Champs Leela

Leela Patel: Trained Pragmatist (All That Remains)

Event (18)
3x Account Siphon
3x Dirty Laundry
1x Drive By
1x Hostage
2x Inside Job
2x Legwork
3x Special Order
3x Sure Gamble

Hardware (7)
3x Desperado ☆☆☆
2x Plascrete Carapace
2x R&D Interface ••••

Resource (11)
3x Daily Casts
1x Data Dealer
1x Film Critic •
2x Kati Jones
2x Security Testing
2x Symmetrical Visage

Icebreaker (9)
2x Corroder••••
3x Faerie
1x Femme Fatale
1x Mimic •
1x Peacock
1x ZU.13 Key Master ••

Program (1)
1x Sneakdoor Beta

12 influence spent (max 15-3☆=12)
46 cards (min 45)

1 Like
91

@TheBigBoy’s “perfumeshop” deck feels strong. I’ve only played it a few times (and I’m not very experienced with crim), but it really lets you develop a huge credit advantage and headlock the corp. As per usual with criminal, mistakes can be very costly.

Plus, pheromones!

92

The deck is definitely fun and powerful, but I don’t think it can ever truly be competitive. It’s too easy to counter with silver bullets and has no room for Plascrete.

That said, if you’re meta is not on all tier 1 all the time, you could probably put up results.

I’m going to re-visit it when Political Operative comes out, since it deals with A LOT of your problems.

1 Like
93

I’ve been revisiting Criminal decks - particularly @cerberus Endless Waltz. After playing so much Anarch (and even Geist), I really miss the draw options. I really miss the draw options. About the only time I felt my deck was flowing was when I had Earthrise Hotel ticking.

I don’t think Drug Dealer functions well with typical ‘good stuff’ Criminal - with Faust, sure, I can see that. But there are better Faust decks elsewhere.

Outside of Lawyer Up (a card always barely on the verge of playable) Criminal doesn’t have draw. But it does have ways of resolving draw order problems (Mr Li, express delivery, etc.). But are there any cards that might benefit from resolving draw order problems like this?

94

yeah it’s because of that painful lack of draw that I still play Andromeda, 2 earthrise, symmetrical visage AND john masanori, so as to get draw and money engines going one way or another. Lack of draw really kills crim (and all the other shortcomings…let’s see how pol op goes)

1 Like
95

I have always felt that that exact draw package you just described is perfectly viable for glacier heavy and even NEH FA metas when playing a Stealth Andy deck.

If anything I am excited for Pol Op. It can at least help us snipe upgrades on HQ in order to help us liven up HQ pressure.

1 Like
96

Won a small GNK yesterday with the Ken list I mentioned several posts above. It was a super-tiny GNK of 8 people, but we did 4 rounds because why not. It went 3-1, losing a close match against RP, mostly to a play error of mine early in the game that resonated throughout the entire rest of it. I find that of the couple games I’ve lost with this deck over the last 2 weeks, most are lost to small play errors; I rarely feel shut out of the game.

However, the RP game could have been saved if I had more long-term econ. I burned through my entire deck, and in the end was taking 4 and passing every turn, which was pretty bad (clearly). A change that might be good is to go -2 Medium -1 Stimhack, +2 RDI +1 Levy. This retains the multi-access runs on RDI (which makes the otherwise-single-access Dirty Laundries and High Risks more worth it), but at potentially lower numbers, and also gives me the ability to recycle the deck, almost PPPVP Kate-like. I really only burn through most of the deck in the longer RP or HB matches, but usually win before I would need to Levy, but adding in a Levy would at least give me the option.

Another option might just be to add in a Kati Jones in place of a Siphon or a High Risk. That would take care of a longer-econ game by banking on Kati, but might also make the deck more reliant on shaking tags. Right now, it’s set up with few resources so that if I need to go tag me, I can.

Either way, the Stimhack should probably go. I have it in there as a remote threat (or a way to get another Medium run through a taxing R&D), but I rarely actually play it. Same with Femme, actually. I wanted a Femme as an answer to things like Tollbooth, but I hate actually installing the damn thing. 9 Credits is just bonkers.

I’ve only lost a couple games over the last two weeks: one was the RP match I just mentioned, and the other was a SYNC Butcher game where I decided that I should access what I was already 90% sure was a double-advanced Shattered Remains. This blew off the 2 Plascretes, and then I thought it might be a safer play to draw up to 4 cards to make him have 2 scorches (he wasn’t on Traffic Accident for some reason) to kill me rather than run a Maker’s Eye to possibly win the game. The possibility he had 2 scorches was high, but I thought it seemed like it might have been safer. I was wrong on both counts; the win was on top of R&D, and he had the meat in hand.

Other than the above, the deck feels pretty darn nice. It’s not quite PPVP Kate, but at times it feels close.

97

How often can you land High Stakes Job? It seems likely (really likely) you’re going to draw one, maybe two, before you have a full rig. I’ve tried that card, and even as a 1-of it gets discarded far too frequently.

1 Like
98

All the time, actually! To land it, you usually only need to be able to break Code Gates or Barriers, since Sentries almost never end the run. Obviously if you’re going against someone who might have program trashing as an outer ICE, a sentry breaker is probably needed. If you look at their credit pool and think through what they can actually rez at a given moment, there’s a lot of fairly safe plays you can make with it even early-ish in the game. Against HB, where you can click through a lot of their ICE, running it click 1 is usually the best idea. Vs Jinteki, if they Celeb Gift early and then drop an ICE, you’ll have a good idea of what you need.

Early Medium plays can help a lot as well, because you know what ICE they have coming. If Medium is doing a lot of work, sometimes they’re forced to play the ICE they draw on R&D if it keeps me out (or even just taxes me more). Find/play the right breaker, then fire one off. The 6 cost is a lot less toothy with some Terminals in play.

Obviously this is a card that gets easier to play in the later game, but if you look for openings and get information, it becomes much easier.

3 Likes
99

Okay, but you also need a ton of money too. I look at that list and I see 3 Sure Gamble, 3 Dirty Laundry. So unless you’ve productively landed an Account Siphon (where I agree High Stakes Job starts to shine), where is all the money coming from?

Let’s say you’ve optimistically played a sure Gamble and two Dirty Laundries for +12 credits with Ken’s ability before we start needing to play our first High Stakes Job. We need to have installed a barrier breaker (+10) and a Passport (+9). Can I play High Stakes Job now?

I need to be pretty sure I can break whatever ice is down for 9 credits after adding our starting 5 cancelling the High Stakes Job play.

This is without considering that I probably need to have installed Faerie or Mongoose too, since sentries will now wreck me. Mongoose isn’t cheap to use or install. I haven’t accounted for Special Order and I’ve looked at best case (cheapest) breakers.

It seems like unless you see 2 of those 6 money cards early, or a land a Siphon, you’re treading water.

2 Likes
100

It’s actually impossible to say. This card relies so much on the game state and the matchup that it’s not possible to simply say “Yes, at 10 money with 2 breakers, this card is now playable (or it’s not).”

Similarly, I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass and say that it’s always easy to play. There’s some games where I discard one early, sure. There’s games where I have to do the gross play and do a Same Old Dirty Laundry on an unprotected server to get some cash going. It’s one of the reasons why I’m considering dropping a High Stakes for a single Kati.

3 Likes