IT Department is (probably not really) bad for the game

Decklists
82

I’m aware they stay for the whole turn; he had so much money that I was forced to double ITD the ICE protecting ITD just to keep him out.

I realize now I wrote he ran it twice; he ran it once, forcing me to use two counters. My mistake

83

Gotcha, I hate to be “that guy” but I wanted to be sure. :wink:

84

If you have 2 ice on the ITD, you can spend 1 counter on the outer one and then 1 or 2 on the inner one if they pay past. As long as your ITD is 5+ counters or so, the runner never wants to pay past the outer ice if it gives you the opportunity to stop them on the inner ice, even with 2 counters, since then they’re trading a pile of credits for 2 or 3 of your clicks, not just their own clicks.

85

Can someone please cut 10 cards from this deck so I can play it without feeling like a dingus?

I built this one, basically just a redcoats port:

IT (49 cards)

Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future

Agenda (8)
3 Accelerated Beta Test
1 Hades Fragment
1 NAPD Contract
2 Priority Requisition
1 Utopia Fragment

Asset (12)
3 Adonis Campaign
3 Eve Campaign
3 IT Department
3 Jackson Howard

Upgrade (3)
3 Ash 2X3ZB9CY

Operation (6)
3 Hedge Fund
3 Restructure

Barrier (6)
3 Eli 1.0
3 NEXT Silver

Code Gate (6)
3 NEXT Bronze
3 Tollbooth

Sentry (7)
2 Architect
3 Caduceus
2 Rototurret

ICE (1)
1 Mother Goddess

And this one, with Archers/Sleepers:

Archer IT (49 cards)

Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future

Agenda (10)
3 Domestic Sleepers
2 Executive Retreat
1 Hades Fragment
3 Priority Requisition
1 Utopia Fragment

Asset (11)
3 Adonis Campaign
2 Eve Campaign
3 IT Department
3 Jackson Howard

Upgrade (3)
3 Ash 2X3ZB9CY

Operation (6)
3 Hedge Fund
3 Restructure

Barrier (6)
3 Eli 1.0
3 NEXT Silver

Code Gate (6)
3 NEXT Bronze
3 Tollbooth

Sentry (6)
3 Archer
2 Architect
1 Rototurret

ICE (1)
1 Mother Goddess

I guess the reason to run 59 is that you play 1 more agenda and 10 more cards, which makes the runner need to work a little bit harder on random accesses, but is it worth the added inconsistency?

86

Imagine if they made force of nature playable.

87

His deck was based on this: NEXT Tech Support Hotline V2 · NetrunnerDB

He said he modified it. I think he had Successful Demos and Peak Efficiency (instead of clearances) and Grims (maybe +2 Grim, -1 Archtect, -1 Roto).

88

That is going against the common (seemingly) understanding and goes against logical reading. I mean, have you ever read the text of Datasucker?

Also for the Star Wars LCG, they recently errataed a newly released card (May the Force Be With You) with a turn restriction. So looking at the other LCGs that actually supports my point.

89

It does look funny, but the bigger deck also lets you durdle for longer. Seriously, some of these games end on 10-15 or so cards left in R&D, not to mention the noise game pictured. I find that with 2 bootcamps and 2 archived mem, it’s not at all hard to find ITD and keep it on the table. Successful demo is almost as good as hedge fund here and mulligans are good with 24 ice.

Here’s a 49 card build. Try both.

Edit: Your builds look fine too, but don’t settle for any fewer than 3 each of roto and architect.

ITD 49

Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future (Core Set)

Agenda (11)
3x Accelerated Beta Test (Core Set)
3x Domestic Sleepers i[/i]
1x Executive Retreat (Trace Amount)
1x Hades Fragment (Up and Over)
1x NAPD Contract (Double Time)
2x Priority Requisition (Core Set)

Asset (11)
3x Adonis Campaign (Core Set)
2x Eve Campaign (Humanity’s Shadow)
3x IT Department (The Source)
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) •••

Operation (7)
2x Archived Memories (Core Set)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
2x Successful Demonstration (Creation and Control)

Barrier (5)
3x Eli 1.0 (Future Proof)
2x NEXT Silver i[/i]

Code Gate (6)
3x NEXT Bronze (Opening Moves)
3x Tollbooth (Core Set) ••••• •

Sentry (9)
3x Archer (Core Set) ••••• •
3x Architect (Up and Over)
3x Rototurret (Core Set)

15 influence spent (max 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Source

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

90

To be fair, despite it’s shorter lifespan to this point, the Star Wars LCG has had numerous balance issues and design flaws (requiring a restricted list not even mid-way through the second cycle), the likes of which we have not yet seen in Netrunner.

1 Like
91

I made a version of this deck with cerebral imaging, and it uses burst economy, no asset econ. I feel that you really have to work with it to make it unbeatable, agendas definitely fill up in HQ, and eventually the runner will have enough money, and possible recursion, that its not a guaranteed win. If you have enough tokens on it though, you probably deserve it. Ash seems like it would be good to protect it, but when you click with it, you’re sacrificing your money, and if you have to put money into ash, you could probably have just played more ice. I think burst economy is really the way to go, peak efficiency is basically an in faction beanstalk royalties, but you don’t need to be rich with it, just have the money to rez your ice.

If IT department makes people put cards in their deck that they normally wouldn’t, I’d say that’s good for the game. Grappling hook definitely works for criminal, not just femme. D4v1d is a good anarch solution along with parasite, and shaper…can tutor things instantly, so whatever.

92

A:NR also has the luxury of learning from the mistakes and degenerate decklists from the old netrunner.

3 Likes
93

I don’t think that your games running long is good evidence that the big deck size is helping. If anything, I would expect the reduced focus and consistency in the bigger deck to make your game slower, requiring more turns, and then seeming to justify itself circularly.

94

Can’t argue with that. I’ll try 49.

2 Likes
95

The issue in this particular game was that Andy was sitting on 3x Underworld Contact, The Toolbox, and a Levy’d stack featuring plenty of Calling in Favors for 12+ credits. In this case, the long game did not help ITD 59. I had to spend 2 ITD counters per turn to keep him out of ITD, meanwhile my economy was long dead. It was a perfectly suited deck to take down ITD 59. HQ wasn’t safe, even with a Tollbooth and double NEXT, and he never ran RND where an Archer laid in wait. Even so, didn’t see any Domestics, and eating an Executive Retreat for an Archer is painful, but I gladly would have done it. It was basically my only way out, and the Runner never bit. He was scared away from RND by the Roto on bottom (Roto–>Eli–>unrezzed Archer IIRC) once ITD was online. In reality I should have Archer’d the ITD, but I don’t know if the opportunity was available at the time. It probably was and I simply misplayed. I think ITD is the first server you want to Archer. If they try to get rid of ITD, you blow them out with Archer. If they don’t, you durdle on ITD and win.

Be assured: The Durdle Is Real. I basically prevented myself from losing for at least 45 minutes, even though I had maybe a 5% chance of actually winning.

for reference the game is a 1.5hr chunk of my stream last night:

I will say now that I am sure I made many misplays, and likely could have avoided the end-game situation I found myself in.

1 Like
96

Is Reversed Accounts what you’re looking for in that situation? You might burn through itd counters faster defending two servers but you would actually be able to threaten the runner’s credit hoard directly

97

Totally agree, I actually really like the system (maybe as much as Netrunner), but the balance has been really sub-par. I have a feeling the testers are getting stretched thin between all the LCGs and everything else they put out.

98

I think they have different beta testers for different games, but hey, they could just open the jobs to people that don’t have crazy social connections and actually hire eager players willing to do nothing but play a game over and over again for balancing purposes. Or employ stimhack users.

Also, if you don’t protect IT Department with something that hurts the runner, you’re hurting the strategy of the deck I feel. Archer is a great idea, I use rototurret and grim, but I’m thinking about fenris and Janus more and more as solutions. The twins are going to be sick with it, cause you could just make the runner try your archer again, but this time, with less d4v1d. Or just bounce them with guard, I don’t know.

So can this thread be about how amazing IT department is for the corporate world yet?

1 Like
99

Been theorizing about this version, which is probably strictly worse than other variants posted here but uses an ID and some cards that I don’t usually use. The idea with IT in this list is to force more click-throughs than the runner would prefer to do, thus slowing down central access. Remotes should be protected by roto or lotus.

Stronger Geek Squad v3

Haas-Bioroid: Stronger Together (What Lies Ahead)

Agenda (10)

Asset (9)

Upgrade (3)

Operation (10)

Barrier (8)

Code Gate (4)

Sentry (5)

14 influence spent (max 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Source

Decklist published on NetrunnerDB.

100

I tried it out after all the whining. Why is it best tried from an HB shell? I went straight for replicating perfection. Jigged around a normal list so it had more hard ETR. Got rid of Komainu as parasite can make it sad. Kept pup and went to 3xlotus field. This was only a first draft, but I played it against @BTrain in the league just now and we both agreed it was horrific to play against. He was playing stealth kit, which i think is even a good matchup vs this because of the high strength-boosts with stealth breakers. But it was still a shutout.

Jinteki: Replicating Perfection (Trace Amount)

Agenda (9)

Asset (11)

Upgrade (2)

Operation (9)

Barrier (6)

Code Gate (6)

Sentry (5)

  • 3x Pup (Honor and Profit)
  • 2x Tsurugi (True Colors)

Other (1)

15 influence spent (max 15)
21 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Source

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

I don’t feel that this card is particularly fun and it can take just one turn of it being up for it to kill the game. I mean, in RP, what are they meant to do? Check every single remote? What if the ELP is in play? In short, as tiring as RP was to play before, this card makes it worse. Even if they get to it, it’s 4 to trash… I dunno, I genuinely feel that the quadratic nature of it is a real issue for the game. Maybe I’m wrong- but I’m glad the next lot of london tournies are before the source hits our shores.

4 Likes
101

Because it’s IT Department’s home faction, and HB has all the click-gaining cards. It might not be the best place for it in the end, but it’s the obvious starting point.