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

Decklists
102

I’m not sure I agree with this. It’s the lowest of influence, so it can go anywhere else, and this is important because it works with all the IDs out there pretty much. HB has no high strength non porous ice, so at the end of the day, parasite and clicking through ice can destroy your IT guys. But Weyland has money, and archer, and could care for IT. If you use them with Komainu, even d4v1d is going to have a bad time, especially with a house of knives scored. Who knows what NBN could accomplish if they could keep people out of their servers, or just make architect go off in neh, every time. Blue Sun would enjoy the card, but even the core ID or because we built it would do well, because of the affinity IT department has with burst economy, and imagine woodcutter actually flat lining someone. Well, that last one can probably never happen without copious whirlpool plus builder jank, but the threat of it is totally real. It totally works in HB if you have a few bioroids stacked, but that takes more time to setup, and next ice dies to parasite along with rototurret. But for all I know biotic laboring 3 times while you have a scored mandatory and efficiency committee out, clicking for 10 tokens on IT could be the bossest of boss moves that wins worlds one day, off a zed 1.0 flat line. But, you know, probability…

103

To clarify, I don’t agree with the click enhancing relevance of HB with IT, but you’re right, it might not be the best place for it by the next tourney, at least.

104

Presumably it works well in HB because athe ice is both high strength and spiky.

105

just made a NEXT Design list, played one game with it, which is obviously all the testing I need to post a sweet screencap

NEXT Department

NEXT Design: Guarding the Net (Creation and Control)

Agenda (11)

Asset (9)

Operation (9)

Barrier (9)

Code Gate (6)

Sentry (5)

12 influence spent (max 12)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Source

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

he parasited about 5 or 6 pieces of NEXT

also i know it’s better to hold Merlin but I didn’t get Lancelots til end of the game and my NEXT was dying all around me

106

The high str ice in HB can be clicked through. Take a brain damage, and make them waste their counters. IT could be fun with bioroids if you’re using Heinlein, but its kind of combo wombo…y. Or you could make Sagittarius hit.

…
Ooooooooooooooh. You know, between rototurret, grim, archer and Sagittarius, you could really make a scary deck in any ID

107

Why is it better to hold merlin? The Rex cost? Merlin is stronger though, and isn’t a sentry. Wouldn’t you want to hold Lancelot for Galahad and merlin to accompany with?

108

yeah it’s not a hard rule, but the rez cost. although in this game my early galahads were turned off by an atman-1, before i had ITD up and running, which is another reason i installed a few merlin

109

So to be perfectly clear, you played a 4 strength piece of ice because of an Atman.

I think I can hear Alanis Morissette playing music in her ROFLcopter

110

Potentially, a few other ways to beat it:

Edit: Blackmail
Copycat.
Quest completed.
Perhaps grappling hook.
Theoretically, if you ran every turn (not likely) you could atman with the expected values.
Well leveraged switchblade/dagger and/or tinkering/paintbrush. But I think d4 (esp with e3) is way too strong a card not to include these days.

Full court press against other servers…

111

Copycat would totally fly with the right inside jobs and femme.
Quest Completed would kill your rig against good ITD targets
Atman 11 is brutal, but Atman 14, 19, and 25 are SOOOO overplayed

1 Like
112

what’s the mathematical term for the potential strength ITD can give? It’s been too many years. the term for 6+5+4+3+2+1 … I seem to remember a short-hand way of notating that

113

So, what your saying is that you countered Atman 4.
I think running is a filthy habit and you should aspire to be a level headed sysop.

That being said, I don’t know whether I want to shake your hand, or give you a coke for that.

114

Are you looking for geometrical progression?
Edit: Meh: it would be arithmetic anyway.

115

worst case might actually be Tenin.

116

I thought it was n!

Which, after a wikipedia search, is a factorial, and not quite what IT department does with str.

117

It’s the triangular sequence. The maximum you can pump with n IT counters is (n^2 + n) / 2.

4 Likes
118

There’s also the following:

  1. Install 3 HQ Interface.
  2. Install Raymond Flint
  3. Install NACH
  4. Install Activist Support
  5. Score 9 points from HQ
  6. Drop Microphone
7 Likes
119

Once I saw the triangle diagrams on the wikipedia page, an overwhelming feeling of understanding took hold of me, it was like being awakened.

Also, imagine a parallel universe where netrunner got a bunch of power creep and IT department did increase strength in factorials. But was completely overshadowed by datasucker 2.0 and Andromima, the mother of Andromeda, avenging her being cut from rotation.

2 Likes
120

OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS THREAD.

I was thinking of this, cause it would totally work, I had 6 agendas in hand at one time with CI hoarding IT tokens.
Just imagine how good Flint will be with Valencia then, eh?

121

At least the IT department is something new. as far as im concerned NAPD is the biggest problem card in the game by a wide margin. on the other hand sometimes i think my feeling of powerlessness as a runner is an ego hit i haven got used to accepting. i used to pride myself of being a good runner player. i used to win most of the runner games just based off pure aggression and account siphon just ending a genesis cycle game that i still play my runner games with the same expectation even though the reality is quite different.

1 Like