Gagarin Appreciation Thread

Netrunner General
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Have you tried it? It’s actually pretty good. Taxes Corroder adequately, another barrier to burn Lady tokens on, and also a d4v1d token hog too. You just have to be smart about the placement so that they burn through it from time to time.

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The other way of viewing that is that it’s a 5 cost piece of ice that Lady and D4v1d can get through very efficiently. It may as well be Wraparound unless you want to tax Corroder. I agree you don’t want to to Corrode it, but at 5 cost?

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Weyland in general does pretty well with Lady due to Spiderweb, and it’s probably in the best position to tax D4v1d recursion.

I agree in that I prefer Changeling, though. Fire Wall, I think, I would only play alongside advancement token shenanigans.

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I think Quicksand is superior to Firewall if you’re running Spiderweb; Spiderweb’s biggest weakness is Parasite and Quicksand is another valuable Parasite target. Putting strain on Lady and Parasite recursion is fantastic for a deck that runs Ash and TS to recur it- you want to tug a little on every corner of Kate’s playstyle to really pressure the runner and bait out a window or economic advantage.

Corroder is not often played and it wouldn’t be wise to slot as if it still is. Sure Noise or Hayley or Gabe might slot it but Noise only runs it for Wrap anyway (and maybe Bako) and an Anarch is just going to David or Knifed that expensive Fire Wall.

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I will try swapping my firewalls to quicksand. Might be a worthy include and since the goal is taxing ice anyway? Sounds pretty decent.

Fire Wall in my experience is not as “bad” as its reputation lets on, especially with Weyland’s improving economy. I also want to refute it as a prime target for advancement shenanigans.

If you think about it, constellation ice are probably the “advancement shenanigan” ice. Fire Wall would just be the final resting place after the counters get moved around. If you can play around with tokens and not waste clicks advancing ice than the cosmic suite is playable, efficient and taxing.

But that isn’t really the crux of the discussion. As we begin to see more of the game move away from corroder and breaker suits begin to go full lady/atman or Faust the standard paradigms of “taxing” ice shifts.

Heaven help us if a more efficient sentry breaker drops that is somewhere in power level between mimic and switchblade.

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Whenever I see Quicksand played, I always try and look at it to see if in the end a simple Wall of Static would have been better. Against Kate usually Static is superior, since (as you said) Quicksand attracts Parasite like a magnet. However, I suppose there is some additional value in it in that (again, as you said) it might be a more attractive Parasite target than Spiderweb, since you want to kill it early before it gets too much bigger.

However, I think if I were going to be including Parasite-able ice in order to try and make Spiderweb live longer, a simple Ice Wall might do the trick as well as Quicksand, and is 2 cheaper to rez. Quicksand’s strength growth potential usually doesn’t matter much, and isn’t going to tax Lady anything extra over Ice Wall until the 4th time encountering it.

Anyhow, I guess my point is that I don’t see much point using Quicksand over either Wall of Static or Ice Wall in Weyland. All 3 are usually better than Fire Wall, though, so I guess there’s that.

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I think the advantage of quicksand is that unlike with wall of static, a runner will not run through it over RND just by dropping a barrier breaker as they don’t wan’t to see the tax grow. It shuts down single access runs even against desperado-sucker runners if they use corroder. Probably a meta call, but I’ve been loving it.

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That is a good point; against something like a criminal with Corroder and no parasites, Quicksand probably does some work over Ice Wall, which is free to break with a Desperado out. At least Quicksand will start taxing them the third+ time through. It’s probably still worth mentally recording how many times it gets run through in order to see if Wall of Static is still better in most situations, but it’s also possible simply the mental hurdle of seeing Quicksand grow larger might be enough to make them not run it at a lower strength, even if they would run a Wall of Static in a similar situation.

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Definitely agree with this('spose that’s why it costs influence, tho). It’s so good that if I have one or more ready to go I will definitely consider never-advancing an atlas just to get the sponsorship triggers (and the 2 points ofc). I like to build a couple light-but-taxing secondary remotes to house annoying assets like these. sponsorship behind a tour guide for example is annoying as fuck, and not usually worth a parasite (though I have had noises blow 2+ parasites keeping these non-scoring non-central servers clear, which is just fine with me)

I like hollywood with ice walls and firewalls around - if you score it, it nets you a strengths 10 (or 6) barrier, which is taxing even to lady. if you manage to over score it, just one extra turn can net you an atlas with a token, or a str 16 firewall… Basically it’s an abusive way to take advantage of a scoring window - like all the public agendas, it’s like, you’re weyland. they were going to know it was agenda anyways.

One last thing about TFIN, it pulls a lot of weight in gagarin with corporate town and team sponsorship in the deck. it is just like, stupidly easy to score early on with a simple never-advace play (which at the moment exactly zero runners expect out of weyland, and they are even further discouraged to check thanks to gagarin). Take from that what you will, but it’s a very powerful effect to have a single card both tutor and fuel a corporate town (or archer, for that matter) on turns 2-4.

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There’s also a hilarious mental strength accounting thing I’ve seen happen where a grown-up Quicksand gets Parasited, the runner builds up suckers… and forgets that Quicksand gets stronger when they reach it before the datasucker counters can be spent.

More generally, I’ve seen some people locally making irritatingly good use of Tour Guide in a Team Sponsorship/Turtlebacks list where the cost to trash everything is just too damn high. Sec Testing would handle it, and they’re pretty parasitable, but they’ve been more of a hassle to deal with than I’d ever been expecting.

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Yeah, we have a dude here in PDX doing the same thing. I’m not sure the inf spent on Tour Guide in NEH is better than just making 2 of them a single Biotic and some other ice, but it is better than I thought it would be.

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Also, I figured I might as well post this decklist (not mine) that got 3rd in the NZ nationals. There’s the link for the creator’s commentary on it, and here’s the decklist below for those who don’t feel like clicking a link today.

Space Turtles - 3rd NZ Nationals

Gagarin Deep Space: Expanding the Horizon (Order and Chaos)

Agenda (11)

Asset (18)

Upgrade (3)

Operation (5)

Barrier (3)

Code Gate (2)

Sentry (7)

15 influence spent (max 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)

She says in her description that she’d change the list to -1 Diversified -1 Interns +1 Datapike +1 Quandary, and that Executive Boot Camp could replace Elizabeth and/or The Root.

My first thought is “how could this list ever run Snatch and Grab, how do they ever have enough money.” Maybe I’m wrong and this thing prints money from Turtles and Diversifieds, but from what I saw of it being played on stream, it doesn’t really seem like it, vs rich runners, in any case. If the goal is connection killing, I kinda feel like Gagarin wants to be playing Contract Killers anyhow.

My second thought is “Man, I really want another Team Sponsership; that card is nuts.” Since the list really needs those turtlebacks, the only way it’s getting in is if you axe either an Architect or a Jackson, both of which are pretty good cards. Maybe with the Tech Startups, 1 is actually a fine number.

I guess I should throw the list together and bring it to some games tonight to see how it goes. From the deck distribution at their nationals, the NZ meta is weird. I’m curious how it holds up here.

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My first round with this I probably played it incorrectly. Getting cards to set up and a turtlebacks out to spam assets with should have been my priority over clicking for cash. Then again a Gabe with turn one Desperado hurts the id pretty well.

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Saw that on there. Personally I see a ton of issues with that list but am always glad to see people succeed with Gagarin. Still clueless as to how it beat the Whizzard match-up; this ICE suite looks to me to be incredibly vulnerable to both Parasite. Desperado Criminals should eat this list alive. There isn’t enough ICE to actually defend assets and the hope is that they’ll give up on them; neither of those match-ups need to. Noise is likely fine with Imps, too. I would have to consider the Kate win a fluke as well. I’m not trying to disparage the pilot of this list, only the list itself. Personally I think Tech Startup is a trap and think 3 single-pointers is a bit much. IMO NAPD is too strong in this ID to not run 3, even with Film Critic on the loose.

Anyway that’s just my 1 cent.

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Man, Turtlebacks, Team Sponsorship, and Pubic Support out of Gagarin is just filthy!

Had a game tonight were I saw two Turtlebacks by the second turn and Fisk just kept giving me cards! I kinda want to find room for Anonymous Tip!

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I only wish public support fired team sponsorship. That would be amazing. As it is though, the list plays a lot of high value assets, which is what Gagarin wants. Not sure about tech startup either, though. I guess it promotes the checking of assets, which makes them spend money, but the 1c trash cost hurts a lot as a remote and hurts even worse on rnd runs.

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Played the NZ list last night at league and was undefeated with it. Beat a Fisk, Tenma, Hayley, and Chaos Theory au revoir (against the person who designed that deck). Both crims ran desperado, but the time it takes them to check the asset spam easily outweighs the time it takes you to secure centrals. I was consistently getting 2-3 turtles online and forcing the trash. As for NAPD/rennovation, one game I leveraged NAPD and thought I wanted 3, but in the following game I scored two rennovations and changed my mind. The only changes I can see making to the agenda suite is losing a gila for the second TFIN.

I can see why the author says the deck can be hard to pilot, as getting the right card with TFIN or with Tech Startup is tricky. In all games where I didn’t draw it, I searched Archer with TFIN, and I defaulted to turtles and then Sponsorship with Tech. Very potent. Honestly, this Gagarin feels very strong.

Changes I made: -1 interns, -1 Diversified. Added 2 Datapike. I cut Caduceus for Ice Wall, cut one Tour Guide for the second enigma. This hurts against yog, but it was taxing against everyone. I swapped the S&G with Contract Killer and it pulled its weight all night. Finally, I swapped The Root for Corporate Town.

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Yea the NZ deck is deceptively strong. The econ is there and I like Turtlebacks a lot. I am dubious about the Tech Startup in the base deck (Tech Startup is INSANE with Contract Killer) but it seems like a very efficient way to really speed up the deck and get dem Turtles racing. Seems faster than my deck and I definitely have gotten the RP choke vibe from my deck while this one seems quick. I still think it’s a bit ICE light but they compensate with a lot of NeverAdvance agendas and its very possible to sneak out 4+ points.

I like the Mills, one of my main problems in my games with Gagarin has been Valencia. 2x Ash is just not enough to keep her at bay and I basically have to get a Corp Town going really fast to stymy her engine or I will most likely lose. I often break her first Wyldside but she can just as easily click up to 6 and Blackmail the Corp Town. Valencia > Whizzard when it comes to my experience playing against them. I’ve cut a Fire Wall and added in my own Mills.

@Saan I’d cut an Architect for another Sponsorship and maybe a wraparound or something for the spare influence.

@CJFM Nice changes.

@moistloaf Sorry for not replying earlier, you took the words out of my mouth and I would’ve basically said the same thing. Understandings were made and I am really keeping your thoughts in mind when tuning.

I’ve continued playing my own brew of Gagarin over the past weeks and still really enjoying it. I really, really want to squeeze in a Virus Suite and a Boot Camp/Lizzie because my most stressful matches are against Val and Noise. Val feels more out of control than even Noise but both require some good draw structure to beat. Mills would solve a lot of problems in both matchups and I can’t wait to try v3. Also, I’ve swapped in Global Food, -1 Ichi, +1 Assassin, and found a really sweet spot of 2-pointers with 2x NAPD, 2x Atlas, 2x Oaktown.

Outside of that, winrates are still hitting over 50% against good decks and Criminals/Stealth Shapers have no chance. Kate is much, much easier than Anarch. She’s often choked out.

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Maybe I was wrong, but I don’t necessarily consider Fisk and Ken to be representative of the strongest Criminal lists. In such an asset heavy list, Fisk is actually going to help you if he runs centrals. Ken can go either way. Both had Desperado+Sec Test up early and you still crushed them? If so, I rescind my statement. What I meant was Sec Testing Criminals.

I still don’t understand how centrals are “secured” with this ICE suite. I definitely agree with the addition of 2 more code gates, but they’re both chum to Passport, which personally I still see in most Criminal lists. Every sentry but Archer folds to Mimic. Spiderweb is probably the best ICE versus Criminals but there are only 2 in the list.

I dunno, I’m just dumbfounded ^________^

I would consider Turtlebacks to be better in NEH than in Gagarin, and I think this style of Gagarin is trying to play a similar way but less effectively (than NEH Turtlebacks). That style is (largely) undefended asset spam. I think NEH leverages the Runner trashing everything better by threatening the FA strategy, whereas I think if a Runner for whatever reason is able to trash a fair amount of things against Gagarin, centrals are soft and there isn’t anything pressuring them as heavily as NBN can.

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The key differences here are that the Weyland faction now can actually contribute some new very powerful cards to the asset spam strategy NBN would even want. Public Support, Tour Guide, Contract Killer/Corp Town, to a lesser extent Archer can make this once purely inferior strategy in Weyland more disruptive and defensive than NBN’s, strictly speaking. The power of the agendas and the lack of DBS are certainly big humps to overcome but Gagarin asset spam went from dogshit to ‘possibly just as good or situationally worse/better’ as Turtlebacks NEH spam.

I know it’s only 3 cards, but that translates to 7-8 slots that really set the decks apart.

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