If enough people do that, then the counters are already in place. Patch, encrypted portals etc.
I think that as usual it’s wait and see. At the moment code gates feel very strong, so maybe if a few decks walk through them more easily (with some hefty set-up involved) again it might not be a bad thing. If every deck has yog/NRE in it within a month then it’s a different story.
Guess I am just anxious since my regional is in 11 days heh. But hadn’t though of encrypted portals as an answer. That’s an interesting way to beat Net Ready.
On the topic of Excalibur, a guy in my local meta has been using it to great effect in a Biotech Greenhouse build. It basically wants to rush, and thus Excalibur + a scored Nisei counter makes it pretty easy to chain agendas. I don’t know if the same philosophy/trick could be used in RP to rush out against match-ups that become harder in the long game, however.
I was, however, not thinking about a rush deck. RP is a versatile deck and it does not need to force the long game in order to win. You should use early scoring opportunities to score agendas whenever possible. If I was gaining 4-6 credits per turn from Sundew/MHC, I would be eager to score a Nisei, then another one behind Excalibur and a TFP soon after.
This is exactly what I’ve been doing all tournament season to great effect. It’s really strong and often an overlooked move. It’s why I believe Excalibur is strong in RP.
I think the concept of Excalibur being bad came from its main use after release, which was to put it on archives to stop it being a cheap server to use to bounce across to a remote.
Completely agreed. Excalibur is nuts in RP and I think it should be considered a mandatory include.
People actually did this? Caprice might as well be cutting bonsais with the Excalibur, that’s how much they love each other.
What makes Excalibur nuts is it’s interaction with Caprice and Nisei MK II, not necessarily any interaction with RP, specifically. I think it could also be used quite effectively in combination with Ash (if you have a lot of money to stop the first access).
I still think it’s stupid
Now I’m confused 
The Biotech deck I have seen was a rush deck. I was thinking that the main combo, Excalibur, then ETR with Nisei counter, was pretty powerful, and probably useable in THIS kind of RP deck - the one being discussed in this thread - even if it does not normally want to rush. Then Cerberus agreed and there was much joy.
I play with Fast Track in RP for quite a while now and it really is amazing. Whenever I did cut it to try something different, I did regret it. Being able to exploit a scoring window at will is quite awesome and with Excalibur thrown in the mix it gets even better.
Fast track in RP is all kinds of awesome. The nisei train is a thing.
So meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the Sansan Cycle hasn’t hit the shores yet. This means no Crick, Cortex Lock, and Blacklist. However, I’d still like to run an RP deck for our regionals in a few weeks. Meta here is mainly Andy / Maxx / Noise, with almost no one playing Kate (some CT decks pop up).
I’m trying to model the deck based on the newer lists that have been popping up, but I feel that my ICE suite is just bad. I feel that Komainu and Tsurugis are bad in our meta because of all the Maxx / Noise / Andy decks.
I’m currently running this list:
Jinteki: Replicating Perfection
3 TFP / 3 NAPD / 3 Nisei
3 Jackson / 2 DBS / 3 Mental / 3 Sundew
3 Eli / 1 Bako / 1 Wall of Thorns / 1 Wraparound
2 Lotus Field / 2 Quandary / 2 Tollbooth
2 Komainu / 3 Pup / 1 Tsurugi
3 Gift / 3 Hedge / 1 Interns
3 Caprice / 1 Ash
Sorry for the decklist format. Still have no idea how to format decklist posts.
Thoughts? Should I just play Grail RP? Should I slot in an EBC? Should I run the 8 agenda version? I feel like I should ask the better players for opinions.
Don’t know if I am a better player, but…
If you have many Anarch players, I would probably try to increase the strength of your ice, so it is harder to parasite them away. Cyberdex virus suite is also good to give them a nasty surprise.
If you have many keyhole-eater decks in your meta, you might consider to slot in a swordsman or two. Crisium grid is also a good counter to eaters.
I feel like grail RP is to easy to parasite down to feel comfortable with them.
Yeah grail unfortunately dies a bit to parasites. Shame really its a fun ICE suite.
So whats the score with the agenda spread, iv read some very solid arguments for 8 agendas and some equally solid arguments for 9 agendas with a 1-pointer in place of the 3rd NAPD. Whats bearing out in peoples testing? Or has this been put to bed and iv skimmed past it?
It wasn’t til the discussion came up here that I remembered I always used to swear by 8 agenda RP when I was running it last year. Totally forgot this when I built my deck for regionals obviously and slotted a Chronos, which turned out to be basically useless. I think the only time I scored it was vs Leela (big whoop!) and I ended up winning with 8 points, so I basically just wasted a turn to get it out of my scoring server.
I say go with 8, the stats suggest it’s certainly not a lot worse on random accesses and they don’t take into account the fact you get a whole extra deck slot to play more good stuff.
Somebody crunched some numbers early on in the thread. 8 agendas may be a bit less prone to random accesses.
Thanks for the heads up on me running a Grail suite. Now I’m kinda bland on what Ice suite to run. Komainu? But that’s just worse.