[HB] Breaking Breaker Bay: Upgrades Incorporated

Slakker · July 4, 2015, 12:38pm

When playing ETF against Kate, almost all of my losses are to R&D multi access. Parasite the R&D ice, trash the crisiums, and if they put a Caprice on R&D, then you can go trash the upgrades in their scoring server and switch to a remote lock. But Parasucker is definitely your best card(s) against ETF.

Apo · July 4, 2015, 2:35pm

And yet it is so much not enough for @Matuszczak’s latest build. Parasite for Silvers, Lady for Wall of Static, Mimic for architekt, Zu for Bronzes, Atman4 for Eli Goddess and Gold + sucker vs Booth. This is gearcheck hell. 6mu worth of gearcheck.

jrp · July 5, 2015, 12:41am

I maker’s eye and win the game. Every time.

Apo · July 6, 2015, 7:59am

The deck runs 9 agendas. Just throwing out TMEs when you can should not produce satisfactory odds I think? Also a corp player should make sure there is at least one upgrade installed on R&D (no matter which, even 2nd Breaker Bay is ok) just to make things weird (Crisium fake?). If you want to make a good Kate matchup even better, slotting 2 real Crisiums make a solid impact.

Slakker · July 6, 2015, 10:49am

Next Gold seems like the best target for Batty that there is. Has anyone tesred it much in an upgrades deck? What do you cut to make room for it?

kenobob · July 6, 2015, 5:25pm

Been meaning to. Most of the time batty will be a mini caprice on the remote I think. Option to put it on RD behind a Gold late game. Not a fan of any 8-Rez ice that doesn’t say Tollbooth on it myself, but got Gold with Batty isn’t bad.

Slakker · July 6, 2015, 5:59pm

As I single shot ETR or trash a single program, I don’t think Batty is worth splashing. But if you could use it to consistently trash 3-5 programs, that could be game changing. Just my janky idea of the day… But I definitely agree with your Tollbooth statement.

Jander · July 6, 2015, 6:05pm

One time I rezzed Gold with it being the only NEXT rezzed just to buy me some time and stop R&D runs. 8 rez cost is usually worth it, especially since it makes most of your other ices 1 more to break.

kenobob · July 6, 2015, 8:02pm

Yeah, I’ve had the same experience. It’s a 1-of in my HB, and it can keep them out of R&D until the late game. At str 4 it’s bigger gear check than the mighty Archtiect.

jrp · July 7, 2015, 2:52pm

Interesting, I don’t fully understand the difference in our experience then. I was running 2x Crisium for part of this time to try to hose TME/Indexing. Do you have any links to Polish HB vs Kate on streams or otherwise at high level play? All I can think of is that I am playing the tempo incorrectly in some way.

jrp · July 7, 2015, 2:55pm

I tried Batty in HB (going up to 3 Gold). I played a few games vs Whizzard and did not find it worth the setup. Batty Gold would have been a tempo hit for the runner but due to Clone Chips and breaker redundancy, not game ending. Generally it was just a worse Caprice.

Of course I assume it’s game over vs Criminal, so depending on the meta it might be worth playing.

I was running a standard list, -2 Tollbooth (sigh) +1 Recruiting Trip +1 Batty +1 Next Gold. Forgot what was the last card I cut.

CJFM · July 7, 2015, 4:04pm

This is what I’d found too. The setup is hard to manage, and gets harder if they are parasiting silvers. Didn’t like him in RP either. I am not yet sure where batty fits. His ability has high potential to outright win the game, but he’s super vulnerable. For reference, I was playing 2 batty and 2 recruiting trip to loop him.

PeekaySK · July 8, 2015, 8:12am

I suspect he’ll be quite good in IG, where you already want to have some support for recurring trashed stuff (and he’s way less vulnerable to trashing).

Alternatively, some sort of Brewery kill insanity

Sheshonk · July 16, 2015, 2:02am

Had a good showing with Batty Gold at a local GNK. Since the summer rewards weren’t out yet, going undefeated doesn’t mean much against a sea of jank, but I figured I’d share my opinions nonetheless:

To cause maximum soul destruction, the pilot needs to combo Batty with NEXT gold. Obviously, doing this takes time and is slow. The deck reminds me a lot of kill decks, where the pilot gets so focused on the kill they forget they can win through agendas.
Batty makes pilots want to use the NEXT ice suite. This ice composition had a brief window after gold’s release where it performed well. At the time, most PPVP kate decks were running femme over datasucker so gold actually taxed. Also, criminal hadn’t gone the way of the dinosaurus yet. Things have changed since then, ice destruction is to prevalent in the meta for the NEXT suite to be playable.
Unlike Caprice, Batty is useless against blackmail.
Unlike Caprice, Batty is a one shot and if used as an ETR will only stop a single run. This can be problematic when the scoring remote is not taxing enough. This situation is exasperated by how flimsy the NEXT suite is.
Batty has no synergy with breaker bay grid.
Additional influence doesn’t fix HB’s biggest problem: not having future perfect.

Below is the deck I took. If I were to tweak I would add a turing somehow…

[URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/decks/iWpuAeXxuQ9ruhD2N]HB ETF Batty Booth DBS 01[/URL] (49 cards)

[URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/haas-bioroid-core]Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future[/URL]

Agenda (8)
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/accelerated-beta-test-core]Accelerated Beta Test[/URL]
1 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/eden-fragment-the-spaces-between]Eden Fragment[/URL]
1 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/hades-fragment-up-and-over]Hades Fragment[/URL]
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/priority-requisition-core]Priority Requisition[/URL]
1 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/project-vitruvius-cyber-exodus]Project Vitruvius[/URL]

Asset (11)
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/adonis-campaign-core]Adonis Campaign[/URL]
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/daily-business-show-all-that-remains]Daily Business Show[/URL] ••
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/eve-campaign-humanitys-shadow]Eve Campaign[/URL]
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/jackson-howard-opening-moves]Jackson Howard[/URL] •••

Upgrade (7)
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/ash-2x3zb9cy-what-lies-ahead]Ash 2X3ZB9CY[/URL]
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/breaker-bay-grid-breaker-bay]Breaker Bay Grid[/URL]
1 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/cyberdex-virus-suite-order-and-chaos]Cyberdex Virus Suite[/URL]
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/marcus-batty-the-underway]Marcus Batty[/URL] ••••• •

Operation (6)
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/archived-memories-core]Archived Memories[/URL]
1 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/biotic-labor-core]Biotic Labor[/URL]
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/hedge-fund-core]Hedge Fund[/URL]

Barrier (6)
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/eli-1-0-future-proof]Eli 1.0[/URL]
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/next-silver-upstalk]NEXT Silver[/URL]

Code Gate (5)
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/next-bronze-opening-moves]NEXT Bronze[/URL]
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/tollbooth-core]Tollbooth[/URL] ••••

Sentry (5)
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/architect-up-and-over]Architect[/URL]
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/next-gold-the-valley]NEXT Gold[/URL]

ICE (1)
1 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/mother-goddess-upstalk]Mother Goddess[/URL]

crossbrainedfool · July 16, 2015, 5:31am

Basicly, Caprice is so goddamn good that she can win the game on her own, so why go for the high variance option with Batty?

TheRedArmy · July 16, 2015, 5:45am

While Batty has higher variance and requires a bit of a combo to really be strong in HB, the fact is that this combo can potentially win you the game. Any combo that offers a potential win right away is at least worth exploring, too see how reliably one can land it.

I kinda agree with @Sheshonk, parasite just destroying ICE, particularly NEXT ICE left and right is too common to be valid in the meta unless you just have no Anarchs in the area or something.

clercqie · July 16, 2015, 7:09am

Check how many times this happens vs. how many times it doesn’t. I play HB because of the rock-solid consistency. Caprice is the safer pick here.

TheRedArmy · July 16, 2015, 7:41am

I believe that’s why I said it was worth testing, but not necessarily the best choice.

I haven’t used or faced this kind of deck yet, so I can’t testify to how reliably it can land, which is why I didn’t actually say which was better. @crossbrainedfool asked why anyone would use Batty, and I answered. Other than a passing remark that the Batty + Gold combo didn’t seem that great in a Parasite-heavy meta, that’s all my post really addressed.

EDIT:

But in general, I agree with this assessment.

Jander · July 16, 2015, 9:45am

I actually use Caprice so rarely, that I’d like to spend 8 inf on something else. But the only things I would like to have more are HB cards, like Ichi, IQ, Turings.

If you play 4 three pointers then it’s much more probable that you will lose at least one of them. If you play two you can usually control them without DBS.

flaw · July 31, 2015, 3:16pm

There are a few cards I’d like to slot in there:

Fast Track: Works well with the 3/2s (or NAPD if at Matchpoint), but not really with the 5/3s.
ELP: This should still be strong against Noise, although it is probably a dead draw against Kate. Is CVS just the better Noise hate?
Green Level Clearances: Would cutting a BBG (from 3 to 2, should have made that clear), an Eve, and an ICE for them make sense? Would it make the BBG + Any Asset combo too inconsistent?

What do you think?