Hey guys, I’ve put together a look at the most powerful decks around at the moment based on Stimhack and Netrunner DB reported tourney results.
Since this is a new section, I welcome feedback. I intend to put these out 2 weeks after packs are released to let the meta settle down. Throw me a comment to let me know what you’d like to see going forward.
Hey, great article! That was a fun read. Loved the Ice Age reference from that terrible Batman movie. 
I don’t know how detailed you wanted to make these articles, but people less familiar with decks might benefit from a quick breakdown of how various archetypes work. Something just a few sentences long is fine, this isn’t meant to be a strategy article for archetypes but something like:
"Pre-Paid Voicepad Kate is identified by the two cards in the name: PPVP, and Kate herself. Together, they create one of the most powerful economic engines in the game, that focuses on central (particularly R&D) access and locking down remote servers to win games. It is extremely flexible, reactive, and has many different ways to attack Corps.
You could even just focus on one a week to make it simpler. Besides that, my biggest complaint is that there wasn’t more of it (a good problem to have!) Thanks for sharing this article, and I hope you’ll continue to update us as time goes on.
Cheers! I might put a page together that’s a list of archetypes, and fill it out over time with details and examples. I started work on it a while ago as a new player guide but it became much too complicated. Thanks for the feedback!
Love the Awards section, even if you don’t feel like doing a tier list anymore, just do the awards 
Seconded. Not only funny, but also accurate, those awards were also a very good part of the article.
I feel like it’s hard to put hb on the same list as neh/rp right now. Maybe batty put it up there in some build but I haven’t seen it.
This is from going through the Stimhack and Netrunner DB decklists pages. HB Glacier has actually put up as many high placings as RP and Butchershop, which I found quite surprising. I do agree that it doesn’t feel as strong but there are good results. I’d like to refine the tier system over the next couple of entries, this is a starting point.
I disagree. My experience has been that HB is the most resilient of all the Corps atm. Quite a lot of different builds are feasable as well.
I have a much tougher time against HB than either NEH or RP as pre-paid Kate.
They build taxing remotes, and they’re super good at punishing you for diving into them (with un-rezzed Assets / Upgrades) or for not diving into them (by never-advancing 3/2’s).
RP is a lot more predictable, so you can generally make an informed decision about whether to run a remote, and their economy also has a little more trouble getting a bunch of taxing ice rezzed.
NEH is less predictable, but their non-Tollbooth ice doesn’t sting as much as HB’s, and they also struggle more to get it rezzed.
Did you go off of GNK+ winning list, SC+, Regionals? Nationals?
That was one question that was left a bit open… ‘Winning’ list, but winning at what level of play?
Awesome article. Gripes: Eater MaxX is not in the same league as reg MaxX, good stuff Whizz or Val, or Leela. Besides that spot on!
As a Leela player, I don’t think she quite has the power right now as she did during the Store Champ season. I am still messing around with different builds of passive and aggressive. With that though, I think MaxX, Val, and Kate are a few steps ahead.
I wouldn’t put HB or Eater MaxX amongst the tier one builds either, but tiers are always hot points of contention in lists like these, and ultimately they’re not hugely important. Compilations of lists are the main thing.
Excellent, concise article that presented the information well and was a fun read to boot. I’ve been thinking about writing something like this but you’ve done a much better job than I could have. Fwiw I’d strongly support having these hosted on Stimhack in the future, but of course it’s up to you where your work appears.
Thanks, I appreciate that. I put HB up because it has a decent Prepaid matchup and there are a lot of good results listed for it at the moment. It’s also very very consistent at making tons of money and creating a highly taxing remote with Ash and Caprice at the end of it. Perhaps that’s not enough for tier 1 without a “power agenda” like Astro or Nisei but the results are good.
Eater MaxX people are probably right about and should be tier 2. There wasn’t a ton of data and the overwhelmingly high amount of Kate made it difficult to judge other builds. I’ll have a closer look for the next edition.
Thanks to everyone for the feedback! These forums are the best Netrunner resource around so getting all this from you guys is really helpful.
I’m almost certain that HBFA/Rush is overally stronger than HB Glacier :).
You can be at match point way faster and that’s when HB is strong against Kate.
I played both a lot and HB Glacier proved to be much better in my meta, winning two Regionals undefeated or nearly undefeated.