I don’t think Rabbit Hole is needed in criminal when you already have a lot of good in-faction answers to CtM’s strengths. Splashing for Employee Strike is much more impactful and also better against a diverse field of corps.
In faction, everyone’s mentioned Temujin, but Networking’s fine, Sec Test punishes open remotes, cheap event economy like Exclusive Party & even Easy Mark is the toughest to disrupt. Maybe just an answer to big code gates (Tollbooth, Archangel) is needed as that’s the worst part of the Criminal-NBN matchup.
I don’t know how many CtM decks are carrying enough meat damage for a finisher, but my limited experience shows it’s not a major focus. Tags (and ice) relying on central traces, except for Breaking News which is either telegraphed or never-advanced (leaving the corp only 1 click). Tag punishment leaning on Closed Accounts, swapping that GFI for a Breaking News, and wiping out your resources with All-Seeing Eye. I’m gathering that your main counterplay foci are:
Making enough money to beat big traces and clear tags (whether through normal money, or recurring credits like Crash Space).
Coming back from 0 money.
Draining corp money and trashing money assets.
Getting enough link (4+) to force the corp to pay to land tags.
For those with more experience, does that seem to cover the bases generally, to the point where you can plug in your faction’s solutions to beat CtM?
Opus lets you drain corp money if they try to make traces, and make the money needed fast enough to deal with the important assets. It lets you come back from 0, and Rabbit Holes help.
Andy makes a ton of money with Sec Testing/Temujin, and wins money races via Siphon, but is less consistent because you need a good start vs just an Opus.
Whizzard makes money via his ID and Employee Strike/Slums act as link does, turning off CTM’s ability. Sometimes there’s a bad start and you don’t get rich, and it’s hard to come back from 0 - which is why this is probably the most high variance of the strategies (but often the most one-sided when it works).
Edit: Don’t get too obsessed with link. Each point of link counts as 1 recurring credit to trash things vs CTM, and helps a bit for some ice. Rabbit Holes in Kate are like 5 credits for 3 recurring credits for trashing things. But this will only help if you have a ton of money to trash things with anyway, hence Opus.
Link right now hits a lot of very good and very widely used pieces of NBN ice. Having 3 Rabbit Holes in a 1-link runner can basically act as a straight-up breaker against things like Data Raven (!!), Gutenburg, Archangel, and Resistor. It’s especially nice vs. Data Raven since its 4 strength sits in a pain spot for Mongoose. Those are most of the NBN ice I see, and the fact that it thins your deck when you dump all 3 of them is nice.
Sure, but you were probably packing (and need to install) the relevant breakers too. I’m not saying don’t play them, but think twice about importing them into Andy and expecting good things to fall out of the sky.
Put together my own spin on an Andy deck. Only thing I’d really be worried about is Breaking News into All-Seeing-I. I’d put some NACH into the deck, but space is tight and NACH is still kinda clunky. I went with Atman to cover HB (HB exists in my meta) and other annoyingly strength’d ice instead of Rabbit Hole because of deck slots, but I’m not sold on its inclusion. Peacock is there strictly for in the event Gordian Blade is trashed.
Any thoughts on how the Atman inf could be better used? (Maybe an Employee Strike and a Zu.13? Rebirth? Rabbit Holes? A second Gordian?) Is Film Critic all that necessary? I’d probably swap that into Employee Strike if it wasn’t.
I’ve been playing Spy Camera Geist a lot lately, Forger to remove a tag and/or Sports Hopper link goes a lot way to stopping the tags from CtM. The only problem is that Geist doesn’t really hit the ground running like most criminals. I end up having to be very careful to check servers so they’re less likely to sneak out a Breaking News.
This is the Andy deck I’ve been playing with very positive results against CtM. It doesn’t win every game, but I win more than I lose without any really direct hate cards against it (Strike, Slums, Rabbit Hole, etc)
Resource (13)
1x Political Operative (Democracy and Dogma)
3x Temüjin Contract (Blood Money)
1x Kati Jones (Humanity’s Shadow)
3x Daily Casts (Creation and Control)
2x Security Testing (Honor and Profit)
3x Earthrise Hotel (The Source)
There’s always Sac Clot+Artist colony/Data Dealer; prevent them from Fast advancing and sell any agendas you steal. Remove all the points from the game and CTM can’t win!
Seriously though, 4+ link does wonders against CTM. You turn every trace into a vamp you don’t need to spend your own credits on if you can afford a click and 2c to clear a tag. Not to mention CTM likes tracer ice like Resistor and turnpike. Those become far more tame when you beat the trace by default or for 1 c.
Slums also turns off their ID pretty nicely if you have the influence to import it.
1, Use NACH
2. Ignore remotes
3. Stay above 8 credits.
4. Keyhole.
CtM either wants to kill you or tag storm you. If you can’t be tagged, I don’t think they can win. Does anyone see a problem with this that I’m overlooking?
yeah been running andy with good econ, and two employee strikes. Generally is dece enough. The worst part is having to recover from breaking news into closed accounts into hhn. Anything else you can generally do fine against. Desperado is the best card here, siphons early can do work, and then just attacking HQ early, and R&D soon after is generally good enough. There’s a point where you can of course go tagme, but resistors do suck a little bit at that stage. But yeah, it’s pretty manageable, even when you don’t draw employee strike (though employee strike + desperado can give you turns where you just get way ahead, or at least very much even things up again)
The spots are too tight. Honestly if I was to cut 3 cards to make room for something, it would be the three copies of Daily Casts, making Career Fair much less attractive.
I’d think you could cut a Networking, one Inside Job or Emergency Shutdown, and a Sports Hopper to fit in 3x Career Fair. The econ gain would probably make up for losing networking and the others might not sting too much. Otherwise, if the econ is consistent enough, you may not have to do anything.
