That’s right, I said they don’t run REZZED ice that will stop them.
They do run unrezzed ice all the time, but in that situation you still have to spend money to rez the ice. SD Gives rewards you with 1 extra credit for stopping them, but in essence it is probably still worse than Hedge Fund because you had to spend money on ice to keep the runner out, which means you had to have more than 2 credits anyways, and you can’t use it when you draw it, and often it will sit in your hand for many turns.
The number of times you will be able to rez ice and end the run goes way down as time goes on… indeed, the whole point of the game for the runner is to reach a point where they have a full rig and a robust enough economy engine to not be stopped every time you rez a new piece of ice. Bioroids contribute to the problems with SD, as smart runners won’t be “surprised” by your Ichis and Heimdalls. They tax, but they don’t end runs generally.
I would agree with you completely. Hedge Fund is a much better card than Successful Demonstration. However, that is not really the question at hand (I don’t think). Instead, we are discussing if Successful Demonstration is worth the card slot at all. Here’s where I think it can work - with 3 Restructure and 3 Hedge Fund you have 9 burst economy cards, which most of the time will be playable and are worth a great amount of credits, for zero influence!
No one ever discuss if playing Sweeps Week is worth it, yet how often do you sit on that card for 2 or 3 turns waiting for the runner to draw up to a full 4 or 5 cards? (often) Now, I’d say (shockingly) that Sweeps is a better card than SD for most decks, but I think SD works for a high ICE deck. Still need to keep testing, though, to see how often it sits in my hands as (mostly) useless.
Imagine being forced to go down to 2 or 3 (or 0 or 1) credits with that kind of economy. You can get in really bad situations where they can just siphon chain you and you are sitting on a hand of Hedges and Restructures and SD’s and clicking for credits to try to get back on your feet. That is one of the weaknesses of this deck, it cannot operate at all below 10 credits, and so relying on having money to be able to make money is not great, you amplify its weakness. No one disputes that when glacier gets set up, it is very very strong, but this is the reason HB glacier isn’t Tier 1.
Sweeps Week can sit in your hand for a bit, but unlike SD, you don’t have to rez ice and spend money to be able to use it. It’s a little more versatile, if they’re not drawing cards then they don’t have as many options, and is in-faction for NBN. No reason not to use it. Also, NBN can operate on very few credits, unlike HB, so not only is NBN happier about clicking for credits if they don’t draw cards, Sweeps becomes live when you need it too (they draw cards and have more options). Also, it is really good for recovering from Siphon, whereas if they successfully siphoned you in HB, you are not likely to get off a SD next turn.
I used to play SD in a deck that emphasised greatly on securing centrals and a remote for Adonis. So I packed a lot of Hard Etr and only a few bioroids.
But my experience is that SD, in the appropriate deck is not inconsistent. If your deck can’t ever stop the runner after a wile, i guess you are in trouble anyways. I also used archer as well as CTS that helped ending a run midgame.
When i first looked at the card, i dismissed it. That is only after playing it over many games that i realised it just did not fail me and even better, did some amazing come backs for me.
This kind of deck needs to keep some cash. The runner knows it. So he keeps you rezzing ice all the time and most of the time you have to answer, you have to go broke or almost to keep him out of your servers that’s when SD does magic and gets better than Hedge Fund.
Lastly, this gind of deck can get filthy rich if it gets a good early game. SD helps you having that good early game. It’s not just about turn one and you know it. There are many turns beyond turn one when the runner will be stopped in his run by your ice.
Later on, SD will, sometimes be impossible to play. But that’s usually at a point in the game where you don’t want to be spending your clicks for money. You want to be installing ice, Ash and more importantly advancing agendas.
Last but not least. Landing a Succesfull Demonstration feels almost as good as sneaking an agenda. The runner feels so bad : he just got stopped and now you are making a pile of cash…
That’s a very interesting list. Simliar in many ways to mine, but some pretty big differences I’m interested in the reasoning behind. Mine is a bit different in that I don’t play it is as a glacier anymore. I have 3x Archived Memories and I’m all about pressuring the runner with aggresive use of agendas rather than looking to grind them down over a long game (though it can do that too).
Only 1x Melange? I find Melange to be amazingly useful - either as money generation or just a way to force the runner to play a breaker earlier than they might like and run through something quite taxing. I also run Wotan to stick the Melange behind, which means Shaper has to bleed out to get at it (against Criminal it’s a Pri Req target on HQ).
No ASH? Maybe it is inate conservatism on my part, but I struggle to see how I would win games without ASH. The ICE alone often isn’t enough taxation to set up the flatline or to score safely - especially if both players are on match point and the flatline isn’t an issue anymore.
Guard? To protect Melange against Inside Job prehaps - but you only have one? I don’t see the value you get out of this to be honest.
I’d love another, but deckspace is an issue. Can’t really go below 22 ICE if I want to lock out Andy with NEXT’s ability.
[quote=“bayushi_david, post:28, topic:1838”]
No ASH? Maybe it is inate conservatism on my part, but I struggle to see how I would win games without ASH. The ICE alone often isn’t enough taxation to set up the flatline or to score safely - especially if both players are on match point and the flatline isn’t an issue anymore.
[/quote]Definitely need more testing here, but I rarely have enough money that could make Ash really work, and if I do have enough money then Punitive will usually win me the game. And, again, deckspace is an issue here. I really need all 9 operations for money, plus the one Melange.
First, I have 2 of them in the list, but that’s not really the point. I put Guard in here for 2 reasons:
To give me more (fairly) cheap ETR ICE at the beginning of the game, and
Minor protection from Inside Job in a scoring remote
However, I think you are right that there is better ICE for here. One major reason is runners install Mimic early on for Roto protection, which completely screws over Guard. Let me think on which ICE to add instead and I’ll let you know…
EDIT: I added an ICHI 1.0 and a Grim. The bad pub would hurt, but with so much gearcheck ICE I think a program gone would be worth it.
Further, I thought about the new Chronos Project agenda. This would be killer to go against most decks and would still work for Archer fodder if need be (also slightly faster to score and the Never Advance option is usually wide open). It does give the runner an easier time stealing three agendas, but it’s worth testing out. Here are the proposed changes:
I meant 1x Melange. But I agree, my experience with Guard was that it is just too overpriced considering it is only good against one card (even if that card is a real pain for the deck). I don’t have any great suggestions - my deck is a lot lighter on ICE than yours and everything I run is already accounted for except Tollbooth.
I agree on the deckspace. It’s an absolute beast trying to fit things in. At the moment I’m not even running Jackson (the more aggressive playstyle plus the Archived Memories and low scoring agenda density mean I think this is doable even against Noise - at least that is the experience so far).
Guard might as well not have the text about bypassing on it. Criminals are usually the only ones playing Inside Job, and every good Crim deck has Faerie x3. Not that blowing a faerie on Guard feels great, but the point is Guard doesn’t achieve the security that it seems to. It might make them waste an Inside Job, but paying 4 just isn’t worth the chance that you get to.
It’s fine against Shaper who probably have to install Femme to deal with it, or parasite it away. Anarchs parasite it or Mimic it.
I’ve changed a bit Polar Night, and results were very good. It seems that with those small changes the deck became more straightforward, but nevertheless much stronger and a bit faster and consistent in terms of economy. The current list is below:
Agenda (10)
3x Domestic Sleepers
1x Eden Fragment
3x Priority Requisition
3x Project Wotan
Asset (9)
3x Adonis Campaign
3x Eve Campaign
3x Jackson Howard ●●●
Ice (19)
3x Eli 1.0
2x Ichi 1.0
2x Lotus Field ●●
1x Mother Goddess
3x NEXT Bronze
3x NEXT Silver
1x Rototurret
2x Tollbooth ●●●●
2x Viktor 2.0
Operation (music)
2x Celebrity Gift ●●●●●●
3x Hedge Fund
3x Restructure
Upgrade (3)
3x Ash 2X3ZB9CY
Changes:
Archer is out. Although Archer is very strong, it turned out that if I’ll forfeit Sleepers - the game itself will last much longer. For tournament plays it is not the best choice in general. 2*Tollbooth took the space and influence.
Caprice is out. Here i’m still not sure, but I have some thoughts about it. Caprice is good when you install something in the server with Caprice and pass - it is very disappointing for runner to break some ice for 4-6 creds, get 1/3 odds to get in to score 1-2 points. When you play IAA in order to score 3/5 - you need to be sure that runner won’t get 3 points from your remote. Expensive server in pair with Ash’s trace are going to solve that problem, and Caprice is not necessary. Maybe, Red Herrings is even better is this case to prevent agenda stealing. Caprice is still good for additional RnD and HQ protection.
2 “free slots” were taken by Restructures instead of Interns. More money is a must. Here you can also try Successful Demonstration.
2 Caprice slots were taken by Celebrity Gifts and 2 free influence were used to include 2*Lotus Field.
Hello !
This is becoming really straightforward and i really like it !
I have a few questions though.
Eve : don’t they feel awkward when you draw a couple or even three early game ? I have always had the feeling eve is really potent but not too flexible and drawing too many really doesn’t help when you need cash fast.
14 cash cards and “only” 19 ice. Maybe it is psychological but i’ve always felt the need for more than 19 ice in glacier as too few ice early game can lead to a quick defeat or a bad start when you cannot defend adonis… In this regard, don’t you think your ice are a bit too much late game oriented and not enough for the early ? Only 9 ice are early ice and Ichis really don’t help in the begining…
Other than that, i really like your changes. I think Lotus fields are a must and that Tollbooth are better there than archer considering you do need this agenda point !
Maybe you’re right and 3*Eve is too much and 2 is enough. On the other way, there is no reason to rez eve as fast as you can. You can wait for runner to go broke while evolving his board position and then rez it (I’ve done this once, it works). So, he won’t be able to trash it on the next turn, and then he’ll forget about it or you’ll protect it with 1 ice.
You don’t need a lot of ETR ice in the beginning. Of course, sometimes you’ll lose to random access, but runner actually need to steal 9 PTS from you. Odds are in your favor, so if runner is going to click through Eli 1.0 to see 1 or 2 cards - it’s ok for you in the first 1/3 of the game. You can even let him to take some free accesses if you don’t feel comfortable right now to rez ice. Remember - agenda setup itself protects you
You can also defend Adonis with Eli 1.0 or Victor 2.0, if you plan to use this server for Howard or Eve after. If runner still wants to pay clicks and money to trash your protected assets - just let him dig an economical pit for himself with such ineffective decisions.
I played with your first setup and realized a few things.
1: If I have to score one agenda, Wotan is better. I had an early flood so with Jackson I was able to pitch a few cards. Went with the priority req and all it did was get me a free archer that got emergency shutdown’d. Scoring remote was Eli on top of a Viktor 2.0, which meant until he dug out his e3. Lucky roto’d his Yog.
2: Ice Assets.
3. Just keep ice out.
Even with e3 remote with Eli + Viktor is quite taxing - 3 clicks + 1 cred. Just install 3rd ice and it’ll be fine to score behind Ash. Sucker-Yog is bad, so you can try to ice centrals 2-3 ice deep and purge.
As for Atman - usually Atman decks are not so rich (because they rely on Atman+sucker). For example, even for Atman server with Eli+Ichi is quite taxing - 5 creds. If you expect Atman - try to mix Ice strength on different servers.
The strategy of Polar Night in general is not about to stop runner because he need full set of breakers to run. It is about to create great taxing servers even for runner with full rig. That’s why there are no cheap ETR ice included, such as Wraparound and Quandary. They fail at taxing runner in late game.
Actually, most dangerous runner’s card against this build is Stimhack. Because when you think that you have a scoring window, stimhack easily can change it. If you expect it - you’ll need to build stronger remote before scoring.
Yea that game ended with a good chain of bad choices. Namely he played the slow game and had enough to beat an ash trace while I wasn’t properly keeping him out for siphons.
During my last live play session I tested Punitive build, and it turned out to be quite good and funny. Once I even managed to kill Noise with Plascrete installed by playing 3 copies of Punitive in one turn, lol.
Big thanks to JohnnyCreations for an idea.
Decklist (right now it is far from optimal build):
This build sometimes provides very interesting and creative ways of play. For example, I’ve build a trap in Archives for Noise with 6 points lying there and waiting to be stealed. Well, even when the runner knows the way you can punish him for aggression - he is going to be a lot more accurate and slow, thus giving you some time for developing your economy and remote defenses.
So, this may be another branch of developing the concept of Polar Night.
I’ll mention weaknesses of my current decklist:
Caduceus seems not so good when the runner is going to be careful. Might spend these 4 influence on something more useful. Any ideas? Tollboth is too expensive for this set of econ.
Sometimes there are not enough money to build fast defenses and be able to threat runner with flatline at the same time (you’ll have to land 2 traces at runner, and this is not possible when you face Account Siphon and sometimes very difficult when runner got Desperado and Security Testing).
It is very difficult to switch your plans. You need to know when it is better to score, when it is better to sit on money and smile with Punitives in hand and when you are going to sell an Agenda behind Ash for all runner’s money and kill him after that.
