Hello!
My name is Peter and I want to tell you some words about the deck, which I managed to build several days before small tournament in Russia (17 players, cards up to Upstalk). I also want to tell you some more words about the current position of HB in general.
When I was thinking about some deck concepts that I didn’t managed to test in tournaments before, I suddenly realized that Domestic Sleepers allows to exploit some outdated strategies in HB. I’m talking about Slow Advance, of course. So, if you include 73/5 agendas + 3Sleepers, you’ll need to score only 2 3/5’s and 1 Sleepers, while runner’d have to score 3 3/5. In addition, Sleepers works perfectly with Archer, which usually no one expect to meet in HB deck.
After all this thoughts, decklist became nearly obvious. Let’s play some slow advance!
Finished at 4th place, with the HB results 4-1 due to very unlucky agenda flood in 1 game (got 6 3/5’s in a first half of a deck, howarded 3 of them and still got 2 back in several turns, woot).
Tips:
Protect your economy. Once I even had three remotes: one for scoring the agendas, one with Howard and unrezzed ice and one with Eve, protected by rezzed Ichi 1.0
Rototurret is the most useless ice right now. If you can, use it to eat Faerie. This will make runner to search for killer, and when after that you’ll rez Ichi 1.0 or Archer – let it be surprise for his economy or even his rig. Believe me, it is one of the best possibilities to open a scoring window.
If the runner expects you to rez Archer – let him think that Archer is everywhere. Don’t simply rez ice because you can. This will make him unsure and unable to count the cost of the run on a server with unknown ice. Sometimes you can give him some free accesses, just remember that runner need to score more agendas than you do.
Don’t forget about Project Wotan ability if the runner is going to click through your bioroids.
Games are not going to be fast. If you don’t like such playstyle – maybe you shouldn’t take this deck.
Funny and ??? moments:
Archer suddenly trashed rig with the total cost of 23 credits (Leprechaun with Battering Ram and Torch, and Garrote), because runner didn’t expect to meet Archer behind Ichi 1.0 in a remote with a single card.
2nd rezzed Archer saved 1st Archer from being killed by a Parasite.
Project Wotan stopped runner after he played Dirty Laundry and paid 4 to pass through the first ice in order to gain access to RnD.
Final thoughts:
Decklist turned out to be nearly perfect. I found out that Interns is nearly useless in this build (plans were to recur parasite NEXT ice, trashed Caprice and Ash and depleted Adonis).
NEXT ice is wonderful. You want, for sure, a lot of NEXT ice to be rezzed. So install them on remotes, archives and sometimes centrals and rez them as soon as possible. If you’ll try to defend HQ and RnD with NEXT ices, you’ll make yourself too vulnerable to Parasites. So try to mix ices everywhere.
Archers were wonderful, but sometimes I even had to score 3rd 3/5, because 1st Sleepers was stolen, 2nd was used as Archer food and 3rd was somewhere in the deck. It is not a problem, anyway, but in several games, I might have won a LOT earlier. But it is very difficult to evaluate it – Archer drains a lot of money/time from runner, being rezzed in the right time.
The deck is rich. You can easily find yourself in position where you can comfortably score, being able to raise up defenses in centrals AND scoring remote at the same turn. If you can – try to play around Account Siphon. For example, there is no reason to rez Eve in the same turn it was installed. And usually there is no reason to rez ice in HQ to prevent 1 random access. Agenda setup in this deck protects itself not less than heavy defenses
Current HB position is VERY strong. It is the only faction that don’t need to import additional ice anymore. So you can use the influence to import some more threats. With the appearance of NEXT Silver HB received a lot of cheap taxing ice with ETR (don’t forget, that NEXT bronze became taxing ice in late game, too). Furthermore, this build of slow advance is the first deck that I’ve seen, that is so strong in late game.
Interesting. I’ve played this type of deck a lot and found it struggles for money. Maybe I’ve just ran into some very aggressive runners that don’t hesitate to trash Adonis and Eve - especially Criminals with Desperado and Security Testing. Theoretically, this should put me in a window of opportunity, but I’m playing them because I’m low on cash in the first place. And having to rez ice to protect your assets that give you the money in the first place is annoying.
Also, Parasite is annoying against this deck, especially if it can be recurred, as it hits NEXT Silver hard (and kills Roto too).
Why not replace Executive Retreat with Eden Shard? The effect is I think better in general, especially when you stack ice, and get a credit for installing!
Executive Retreat will be replaced by Eden Shard for sure! (when i’ll get it)
How many Parasites do you expect to see? 3-4 during the game, maybe 5. Some of them can be trashed by Archer, rezzed in the appropriate time. Also, you should think of Parasite in different terms. It is not about “oh my god, they will trash my Silvers and Rotos”, it’s about “If they’ll kill my Silver with Parasite, my Eli, Ichi and Victor are going to last forever and tax runner during the whole game”.
Actually, in this deck you need to convince runner to trash your Rototurret with Parasite. Consider it to be a value trade slightly in your favour.
Adonis and Eve will be trashed, if you’ll install them naked. But runner will give you some wonderful options in the beginning of the game to rez and protect your assets. For example, install naked Eve and don’t rez it for a several turns. When the runner is low on cash - defend it and rez, so it will be impossible for him to comfortably trash it in next 1-2 turns. If it’s still difficult - you may sell unrezzed Ash to runner behind Eli before that or something else.
Yes, Enhanced Login Protocol is going to be good, if i’ll find some deckspace for it. 19 ice is a must, and right now i’m thinking about changing 2*Interns for 2nd Restructure and 1-of Will-o’-the-Wisp.
As for Login Protocol, I suddenly realized that it seems good and useful in this deck only at first sight. I will explain what I mean.
It is very difficult for a runner to evaluate expected value of the run. Of course if has 2 Datasuckers, Desperado and 2 RnD Interfaces, he will go click through 1 Eli in order to get 3 accesses, 1 counter and 1 credit for 3 clicks. But usually the board state is different.
Agenda density is very low in this deck, actually the probability to steal points from RnD is 7/49 or 14% for 1 access. But runner doesn’t know that because he doesn’t know your agenda setup. And that’s why in most cases he’ll overestimate value of 1 access and will try to go for it just because he can.
When we play Login Protocol - we’ll prevent runner from making this mistake of overestimating value of his runs and random accesses. That’s because he will stop clicking through your Eli or pay to your NEXT silver. He will wait, search for multi-access in order to pay an additional click only once. During the run in which he’ll steal an agenda and trash Protocol too.
Enchanced Login Protocol wil eat runner’s time if he is going to use Security Testing on your Archives and so on. In this deck, maybe it is better to build defenses everywhere and force runner to make incorrect guesses and hopeless expensive runs.
I play Dead Coats (Glacier with Punitive Counterstrike), so most of my thoughts will be based on my experience of playing a slightly different deck. However, most of the principles are the same.
Eden Project for sure. It’s insane in ETF glacier. If you can score it as your first agenda it’s going to make you 10 -15 credits at least over the course of the rest of the game.
Why are you playing Interns when you have Archived Memories in faction? AM does everything that Interns does and more. Personally though I would take them out and put in some more economy (see below).
I’m not sure I agree about the deck being rich. Your ICE isn’t expensive, but if the runner is sensible and aggresively targets your assets - backed up with parasite and the threat of siphon or using Whizzard or Imp - I think you will fall behind pretty quickly. I play more economy in mine - I personally dislike Restructure in everything except GRNDL, so tend to go with Succesful Demonstration. Subliminal Messaging is also good, and personally I find Melange Mining Corp to be better than Adonis these days (because it can turn a profit in a single turn).
What is your late game plan? You don’t have any way to bluff remotes except installing Sleepers and advancing twice and you don’t have any assets that are so damaging that the runner has to run on them. So late game, if you’ve lost all your Sleepers or have only managed to score 1x 5/3, the runner can just sit and build money without any pressure. Then they score out with Legwork or snipe the agenda when you try to play it. Or you deck yourself.
Decking myself is a viable option Sometimes I fininshed the game with like 10 cards in deck, so Noise could be a serious threat.
As for late game plan - how much money does Runner need if he wants to go for remote with 3-4 ice, Ash, Caprice and agenda? I think that 30 might be not enough. If you have Wotan scored - you can make your Boiroids unklickable and very expensive to break during that important run. And there are NEXTs also, and after that runner will have 1/3 probability to get in AND need to have enough money to pay for trace of Ash.
Sooner or later runner will try to break through your defenses in centrals, go broke and you’ll have your scoring window. So you need to read board state very good.
ETF itself generates tons of money. And this is one big advantage of HB Glacier.
Hello, that feels great to read this post as I am a glacier afficionado myself.
I really like the idea of playing domestic sleepers ! I had overlooked the card in combo with archer but i used to love archer in this kind of deck (though i played one only)
I will back up bayushi david about sucessfull demonstration. It is a card i really love. In HB like this it works wonders. 95% of the games you will be able to use them and often they will save you the day. They are actually more flexible than restructure. You want to have money cards that help you come back when you have had to spend more credits than you wanted to defend yourself. They played a RD interface and you had to rez that Viktor 2 and now your are low on economy… but you stoped them. Now you draw Succesfull and make 5 credits. You are back. Drawing restructure in this kind of moment just makes you sad. In the early game, when you are most fragile and need to set up, you will have many opportunities to make good use of SD.
One card i think you can also consider in troubleshooter. If you are richer, they cannot escape your archer anymore (but now d4vid is a thing to consider)
Lastly i think you can give a shot at powershutdown. It works wonder against faeries and datasuckers wich your archers don’t like.
I will give your deck a shot for sure with my own tweaks and let you know !
The thing about Sleepers that I failed to realize (others recognized this, IIRC) is that Sleepers isn’t really an Agenda card. It doesn’t really matter that it doesn’t work towards agenda cap, because you should think of it as an asset that is potentially worth 1 AP, making it a good card IMO. The only downside to playing Sleepers is the loss of whatever it is replacing.
That’s basicly my point. There’s no reason for the runner to do this (unless it’s for a game-ending Legwork or 5/6 card run on R&D). They can sit and build. The only things that they have to run are Caprice and Install/Advance/Advance. Carprice, I grant you. Late game in a four-deep remote, she will probably win it for you unless they luck out on the PSI game. I don’t think ASH is enough on its own. Late game the runner probably has enough money just to trash it and go in again.
I’ve been testing a deck like this for a month or so. Seen some others playing it on OCTGN. Caprice is probably key, but is definitely weak to being trashed in R&D/HQ.
Successful Demo is going to be a liability. This deck can be kicked a lot while it is down, and takes a lot longer to recover than Astrobiotics (does NEH even NEED credits to win? not really). In that situation, you want a card that catapults you back into credits, rather than one in which you have to successfully rez ice and keep them out before you get paid. I have been testing and liking Celebrity Gift (nothing more demoralizing than Gifting a hand full of ice), but I’m not sure it’s the answer. At the very least, it gets you 7 credits for only 3 invested, so you are more often able to use it in a jam. The downside is you don’t want to show them more than 1 agenda in HQ.
Melange is very weak to multi-access R&D attacks, and adds to the problems asset economy provides you with.
I actually think Lag Time might be worth testing here, with the NEXT ice it becomes similar to Midway Station Grid, and any double bioroid server becomes a lot more expensive to break. It’s probably worth more than 1 click per turn if they are paying more than 2 clicks extra per run, but there probably isn’t space for it here.
The problem with this archetype is that it has the worst early game of any Corp deck. Drawing multiple agendas into HQ before a Jackson is very bad, letting the runner access R&D a lot is very bad (they may not hit as many agendas, but look at the trash costs on your cards… 9 cards trash for only 3 creds) you can end up drawing NEXT ice or rotos early and be defenseless when they parasite in, and your economy requires being able to rez ice in front of it, and doesn’t even pay you back for the rez cost until turns later.
The deck simply relies on not being even slightly agenda flooded against aggressive runners, as well as drawing the right ice early in the game. I’m not saying it’s bad, it can be quite good and once it gets going, is very, very strong. The problem is, aggressive runners will pound you before your shields go up, and you can’t let them take 2 agendas early.
Did you really give Succesfull demo a try ? I have been playing it in tournaments, including really high level ones and they have almost never failed me.
I just can’t see how any all 3-pt agenda decks can be consistent enough to be successful in a large tournament. Every corp deck will get agenda flooded or get top decked. Usually you can weasle around it, but if you lose one or (God forbid!) two 3-pt agendas early, well… you’re fucked.
EDIT: Maaaaaybe this works with NEXT design, but you’d need about 22 or 23 ICE then, which makes for even less money.
You say that every corp deck will get agenda flood. But what should we do about it? This is a game with a factor of randomness, and sometimes you’ll lose because runner with his first indexing will take 4, 5 or 6 pts. But when we are talking of probability and so on - in order to win against this deck, runner will have to steal 9 pts. And most of the time you’ll need to score only 6. And Sleepers.
You can play with comfort if runner got his 3 or even 6 pts by luck early game. Just don’t let him to steal 3 more, you have enough tools for that and his chances are going to be quite low. Don’t forget that runner doesn’t know your agenda setup, will try to steal unadvanced cards from remote in order to not let you to score ABT, will go broke and will be quite upset.
Agressive runners are going to pay for their agression! I had a game vs Reina with siphons and got keyholed twice on the first turn (RnD was naked cause to some bad draws). He scored 3 points on his 4th click from my archives and that was the beginning and an end of his agression. He didn’t even managed to land a single siphon after that.
Honestly, that’s why I like Dead Coats so much – it makes losing Agendas early into a (potentially) game winning situation.
That said, it’s not impossible to shut a lot of runners out with enough Ice, and winning games from 6 points down isn’t impossible… but it is a lot harder. To be fair, though, with only 3-pointers, it’s not a big shift if they steal one early (whereas with mostly 2-pointers and a couple of 3-pointers, it cuts their need to score a fourth agenda, which is a dramatic change), and while variance will always strike, by only having 7 important agendas in the deck, the odds of them getting seen are a lot less.
Yeah. As our game last night proved, it’s amazing how often you can see two/three 3 pointers out of seven in an opening hand. And unless you get Jackson or two counter-strikes (out of Dead Coats) that’s pretty much good night. Having said that, I don’t think the problem is very much worse than the eight agenda build that Red Coats uses. True, you can let a two pointer go a little bit easier, but the marginal risk is pretty small.
I tend to agree that you should need more money in the deck.
One thing i like to use in this kind of deck is Tollbooth. If you are here to be taxing the runner, you might want to play this as it is the queen taxing ice of Netrunner.
Also i think 3 eve might be a little dangerous nowadays. Because you need to protect her. If you play her naked against crim, you are going to feed their security testing.
On a last note i believe you lack hard etr ice. a bit. you got only 6 + 2 roto (that you would prefer to save for later) when you want hard stopping power early for HQ and Adonis protection, you might fall short. Viktor 2.0 and Ichi are good later on but you need to survive early game. If they are your only protection for R&D or HQ, you will fall to Syphon or RDi pressure.
One question : how do you like Mother goddess in the deck ?
Yes I’ve played SD quite a bit, so I know exactly how it functions. It’s amazing on turn 1. You will almost certainly rez something to end their run. Beyond that, it is very inconsistent. If you face a runner who simply sits there and builds up money waiting for you to put something in a remote, it’s a dead card. If you can’t rez ice that will stop the runner, it’s a dead card (when you need econ the most).
Runners don’t run rezzed ice that they know will stop them, so SD is an econ card that only pays you when you can induce a run on a server with unrezzed ice that you can afford to rez and that will end the run. Translation: very conditional past turn 5 or 6.
My experience with it was in a deck with very few bioroids, so in this style of deck, it’s problems are even worse. Smart runners will see bioroids in your hand or deck and start running click 1 or 2, making the card even worse. Bioroids are taxing, but they are porous. SD works far better in a Weyland style build that relies on cheap ETRs on barriers and code gates to get ahead early, and Archer/Roto/Grim/AggSec/Will’O to blow up rigs later.
