Is CI the Deck to Beat?

Netrunner General
63

I get that, but here’s the thing - I’m usually fine with getting my early agendas stolen. I’ll be drawing a ton more cards before I’m actually ready to score (hence, “having agendas to score ice ready” isn’t really a concern), so the worst part of this situation is the potential of a random RnD top-deck. Nerve agent is much worse late-game, when the agenda density is high and you can credibly win in one run (especially with parasite or Escher to clear they way).

The early play costs 7 credits (which ain’t cheap, yo) and takes up all your memory. So yeah, it might cost me 4 points, but it will delay the moment when they actually have the full rig significantly.

And if I’m running the NAPD version of my agenda setup, it’s completely possible they won’t have money to steal those points AND build up a credible late-game threat in time.

64

I agree. Assuming a normal agenda density, and average draws, it’s not crippling.

However, my last 4 losses with CI are all to this setup, so it’s definitely punishing if your draws are bad. To be honest, all of those games were agenda floods so that is a factor.

65

A lot of ‘hipster’ netrunners out there haha. Runnin’ cards before they’re spoiled yo

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66

H&P is so last month! We play decks with all the lunar cycle cards while drinking our Pabst Blue Ribbon. :smiley:

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67

Played in Finnish Regional today, with Cerebral Tag’n’Bag (PeekaySK’s version pretty much, but no 5/3s). 18 prestige in 5 rounds of Swiss, overall 4th place. Out of 7 games as corp I won 6, and in 3 or 4 of those the runner knew what I was up to, saw it coming from HQ or R&D. I still scorched all of them, once I even had to play SEA Source + 2x Biotic + 2x Scorch + Archived Memories + Scorch. Thanks PeekaySK for your advice with the deck, and thanks Arno for the great event!!

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68

Yeah, the deck is pretty badass - unless you lose straight up, you can usually scorch for the win. Decoys would be a problem, as would NACH… fortunately, most people just run Carapaces and call it a day.

In Vienna, the most extreme kill I pulled was “Biotic + 3x EffComm counter + SEA + Scorched + Scorched + Reclamation Order (on Scorched) + Scorched + Scorched”. Killing people through 2 Carapaces definitely feels like cheating :smiley:

What was the game you lost? Just leaked agendas early game and couldn’t kill in time? Or something else?

69

nice job, you run with shaper? howd it do?

70

any thoughts on corporate war vs NAPD? i know early cerebral decks played corporate war but it seemd to fall out of favor fairly quickly.

71

It’s, simply put, a liability. Either you go for the additional taxing of NAPD, or you go for the “just 1 Biotic Labor” finisher of Vitruvius. Corp War’s 7 credits, while tempting to minimize the window of vulnerability after scoring, don’t really seem worth it - if I’m to score a 4/2, I’d rather it be another EffCom :slight_smile:

72

i can see that. i was thinking it would be pretty nice to score corporate war after efficiency committee with the double shipments letting you keep scoring without ever dipping too far down in credits.

what about fast track? making sure efficiency committee is the first thing you score seems pretty important.

73

Problem is, the 7 credits aren’t enough to score the final agenda(s)… so I’d be wary of burning my scoring out for them. This is why the EffCom → EffCom play is strong - you actually get one spare counter out of it, letting you either Shipment three times if the opponent tries to stop you with Chakana/Source, or use Archived Memories to grab a Shipment mid-scoring (which means that if you’ve drawn all three of your shipments, you can actually make the recursion part of the scoring turn and win one turn sooner).

CorpWar could be a nice non-op way of gaining credits, if Donut sees play. I don’t think you can just replace NAPD/Vitruvius with it in the current builds, though - it’d need a somewhat different mentality to make the best use out of it. Possibly something more standard, with SanSan in a scoring remote. Then you could chain the Corp Wars, letting those +7 creds fund the 1 Biotic needed to score it with.

By the time you have two Biotics, you’ll almost always draw one EffCom. The exception to that is EffComs being stolen left and right, which happens from hand as often as it does from RnD. Fast track could help with that, but what do you drop? A piece of ICE? An econ card?

It’s not that Fast Track wouldn’t be useful, it’s more a question of opportunity cost, the way I see it. Warrants testing, though.

74

In the game that I lost, we were both sitting on craploads of money, and he was very careful, aware of my scorches. He loaded Kati every turn, and dug for the second plascrete. When he installed it I decided to start scoring, but then he ran my R&D with an interface and hit two agendas. So it was partly bad luck, partly wrong decisions on my part (tried to bait him with a panda, but after stealing it he just unloaded Kati and installed a carapace. So I just leaked two points. I’d say probably he outplayed me.

As for my shaper deck, I’m not sure it’s good anymore. Or I’m just playing it wrong. Lost to NBN astrotrain once (playing too slow) and to red coats once (playing too aggressively)

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75

i feel like there is some kind of nasty deck with neural emp/scorched and cerebral casts and possibly sentinel defense. not quite sure on the mix but the idea of reclamation ordering cerebral casts over and over horrifies me as the runner.

76

So I came 7th at our Sydney Regionals yesterday (no HnP) with my CI and Prepaid Kate.

Went only 2-3 as Corp though, all of which can be attributed to RnD giving up a fountain of points early on. In all 3 games, the runner (Reina, and I played the same Gabe player twice) was on 6 points before I could stabilize. The Reina match I was about to get to 6 and have a chance of winning due to NAPD. I was able to score 2 of them naked in a remote when he went down to 0.

Not much I can do about this, apart from maybe trying to fit more ICE in. I’m even thinking about cutting Green Level Clearance to fit in 2 more ICE and the 3rd Reclamation.

On the other hand, Prepaid Kate was amazing all day - just the 1 loss against Caprice on HQ with Archived Memories recursion. There weren’t enough agenda points in RnD (my opponent was CI) for me to win. When I switched back to HQ, I finally managed to get in, but I had 2 accesses to get 2 agendas. I only got 1 =(

Lists below:

Identity: Haas-Bioroid: Cerebral Imaging

Cards: 49 / 45
Agenda points: undefined / 20
Influence: 15 / 15

Agenda (11)
3x Accelerated Beta Test
2x Gila Hands Arcology
3x NAPD Contract
3x Project Vitruvius

Asset (2)
2x Jackson Howard ●●

Ice (12)
3x Bastion
3x Eli 1.0
3x Ichi 2.0
3x Viktor 2.0

Operation (24)
3x Archived Memories
3x Biotic Labor
3x Blue Level Clearance
3x Celebrity Gift ●●●●●●●●●
3x Green Level Clearance
3x Hedge Fund
2x Reclamation Order
3x Restructure
1x Scorched Earth ●●●●

Identity: Shapers: Kate “Mac” McCaffrey

Cards: 45 / 45
Influence: 15 / 15

Event (20)
3x Diesel
3x Dirty Laundry
1x Escher
3x Indexing
1x Levy AR Lab Access
3x Lucky Find ●●●●●●
3x Sure Gamble
3x Test Run

Hardware (10)
2x Akamatsu Mem Chip
3x Clone Chip
2x Plascrete Carapace
3x Prepaid VoicePAD

Program (14)
2x Atman
2x Datasucker ●●
1x Deus X
1x Femme Fatale ●
1x Inti
1x Nerve Agent ●●
2x Parasite ●●●●
3x Self-Modifying Code
1x Sharpshooter

Resource (1)
1x Same Old Thing

7 Likes
77

Now that Honor & Profit is legal, I expect we’ll see a lot of Legwork. I have already lost one game to it hitting three agendas, and I will definitely put it into my Shaper deck. So what should we do about it?

I am considering using Hudson 1.0 as a way to hose Legwork, Maker’s Eye and Interfaces (ánd the occasional Nerve Agent + Sneakdoor, though if I don’t see it coming beforehand then it’ll probably be too late). Problem is, Hudson doesn’t really do anything about Siphon and Indexing. Sure, my Scorched build is already pretty resistant to Siphons - but that’ll decrease if I have to delute my ice further. And same thing with Indexing - getting twice through Viktor 2.0 is hard, but throung Hudson 1.0 it’s pretty easy.

So what do you thing? What’s the bigger problem, Legwork/Maker’s Eye or Siphon/Indexing?

78

If you put in Hudson, it needs to be in addition to an ICE package you’re already comfortable with. Think of him as an untrashable upgrade, not an actual piece of ICE. So the question becomes, what do you cut? The best candidate I can think of is a third Reclamation Order, with a second Subliminal being a close second.

79

It can also occupy the slot that is a Quandary in my build and a second Heimdall 2.0 in yours. But simply adding him increases the vulnerability to Atman at 5. Atman, in my experience, is the single most powerful tool against Cerebral Imaging.

80

That slot in mine has had a Wall of Static for a while now :stuck_out_tongue:

Unfortunately, NRDB doesn’t have an easy way of publishing updates, and I don’t feel like spamming the published decks database with 1500 versions of the same thing, so there’s no easy way to see that.

Adding Hudson on top doesn’t increase the vulnerability, because you’re now running one more piece that can be broken with a 5-str Atman, but the total number of ICE that can’t be broken by a str-5 Atman remain unchanged. Still, it’s 2 credits every time, for a 3-rez ICE… that’s not so bad.

Agreed though, Atman is very strong against HB’s ICE in general (due to how clustered their strength tends to be).

81

My CI deck got rolled at Regionals (3-3), but mostly because I went 2.75 games without drawing a goddamn biotic labor :), and R&D gave up an agenda on 50% of accesses, so I started most games down 0 - 5. Crazytrain bad luck! The .25 game went long vs. a triple The Source player; I opened down 0-5 after 4 R&D accesses and all three biotics were in the last ten cards. I triple-biotic’d out two agendas, but legwork finished me off :).

Legwork is a problem, but I feel like it can be played around if we can actually, ya know, draw Biotics.

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82

Yes, it most definitely changes the ICEing pattern on HQ, especially for Scorchy variants. No longer is an Ichi and having credits enough to survive one or two Siphons enough :smile:

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