Is Quetzal’s thing really that she can make 1 good run a turn?
If so, its a tough spot. Most of the best effects in the game want you to run multiple times in a turn rather than 1.
Probably will get much better with the big box. Especially if Anarchs get some really good events.
I think it’s more about when you commit to attacking all three centrals, threatening DLR and Siphon, all while Imping and Parasiting ice away, Quetzal’s ability is increasing the defensive strain on the corp
So an AoA style deck with a retooled breaker suite.
I wasn’t sold on it after watching Medio’s great pre-games but I might try it. I played a lot of AoA with Reina.
Minor nit, but I’m pretty sure that you cannot break tollbooth from 2 credits as its encounter ability will kick you…
That is what I came up with in testing as well. E3 takes time to get out, and ultimately isn’t worth the influence. The fact that she can invalidate the higher strength ice (a lot of which is barrier) and focus the parasite aggression on low strength code gates and sentries, makes her a natural fit for a recursion deck. In testing I am still finding the need for a little more support before she really shines though. I think inject will do a lot to make her more viable.
Took first place in a 16 person tournament here in Tacoma yesterday. Cspeiker and I were undeafeated before facing off in the fourth and final round of swiss. After splitting our runner games my sos was slightly higher, allowing me to come home with coveted Reina mouse pad.
Quetzal was 4-0 on the day, beating a PE flatline deck, two supermoderism varients from each of BaBW and GRNDL, and a NEH astrobiotic deck. I’m 3-0 with Q against astrobiotics in tournament play now, yes that’s a tiny sample size, but it’s not a matchup that intimidates me at all.
The deck is still based off the AoA framework, but with the inclusion of Inject I’ve reduced the number of programs significantly. As a source of card draw it has done massive work, netting me close to ten cards one game. It’s a cringeworthy play when more than one program shows up. As I said in the Noise thread, Inject is a card you need to build around to extract maximum value.
Begrudgingly I added a full set of Plascrete to the deck, and it ended up saving me during both Weyland games, as well as being an immediate install during the Jinteki game. Unfortunately it’s seeming like giving up the deck slots (where I was experimenting with Demo Run) for the plastic is necessary, even beyond my Scorch heavy local meta. The deck needs to go tagme at some point, and if you tip toe around Weyland too long you lose the credit denial aspect of Siphon, which is usually my first line of defense.
It’s turning out to be a pretty brutal deck for the current meta, and at this point I don’t see a better ID for it than Quetzal.
Post up a decklist if you don’t mind! I have been having fun and success with Quetzal since release, but I’m not running an AoA-style deck. Interested to see what yours looks like. My success has only been at the casual level.
Haven’t used a deck builder in awhile so I’ll just punch it in here
3 Account Siphon
3 Deja Vu
3 Dirty Laundry
3 Inject
3 Sure Gamble
3 Plascrete
1 Crypsis
2 David
3 Imp
3 Knight
3 Parasite
3 Armitage Codebusting
3 DLR
3 Fall Guy
2 John Masanori
3 Joshua B
1 Same Old Thing
So I piloted a Quetzal deck to 2nd place in last night’s store tournament. Granted, we didn’t have the biggest turnout (two of the usuals just didn’t make it), and even when I did lose, it was close - against @djhedgehog I didn’t install the Plascrete I had in my hand all game, despite being fully aware that his tag-heavy Making News was probably going to try to blow my apartment up, which is just a rookie mistake. Stole a lightly guarded Breaking News, Midseasons->Scorch->Scorch->GG. And against an HB FA deck, I picked the wrong card on the game-winning run - I installed a D4V1D, expecting a large ice like a Heimdall 2.0, when I should’ve installed (this is not a typo) a Morning Star, to punch through the small barrier instead.
Yes, Morning Star: I was originally inspired by @bayushi_david’s idea of using Quetzal as a Morning Star enabler - against corps who are new to Quetzal, it’s unnecessary, as they just won’t install barriers. Smarter or more seasoned players will stack barriers, or use multi-sub barriers, and that’s where the Morning Star really shines.
Anyway, the deck.
Weaponizing the Heavens 1.0
Quetzal: Free Spirit (First Contact)
Event (14)
1x Déjà Vu (Core Set)
1x Express Delivery (Honor and Profit) •
3x Inject (Up and Over)
3x Queen’s Gambit (Double Time)
3x Retrieval Run (Future Proof)
3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
Hardware (8)
2x Clone Chip (Creation and Control) ••••
2x e3 Feedback Implants (Trace Amount) ••••
3x Grimoire (Core Set)
1x Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead)
Resource (5)
2x Kati Jones (Humanity’s Shadow)
3x Liberated Account (Trace Amount)
Icebreaker (8)
2x Atman (Creation and Control) ••••• •
2x Mimic (Core Set)
2x Morning Star (What Lies Ahead)
2x Yog.0 (Core Set)
Program (10)
2x D4v1d (The Spaces Between)
2x Datasucker (Core Set)
2x Djinn (Core Set)
1x Medium (Core Set)
1x Nerve Agent (Cyber Exodus)
2x Parasite (Core Set)
15 influence spent (max 15)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Up and Over
Deck built on http://netrunnerdb.com.
Some thoughts on choices.
Self-explanatory cards: Kati Jones, Sure Gamble, e3 Feedback Implants, Plascrete, fixed breakers whose name isn’t Morning Star, Grimoire.
Inject + Retrieval Run: Inject is simply bonkers in this deck. I think I played it at least twice in every game, and with the program spread I’ve got, I usually lost between 0-2 programs. This deck drew me more cards than it threw away, the exception being when I pitched both my Mimics in the HB FA game - of course, I just Clone Chipped it when it was necessary.
Retrieval Run, I feel, finally hits its stride with Inject. It used to be that tossing a huge breaker in the trash was an obvious signal of an impending RR. With Inject, tossing the breaker just looks like a side effect; the RR isn’t as heavily telegraphed. And if it is blocked, that’s why I’ve also got Clone Chip and Deja Vu.
Queen’s Gambit: Mostly playing this to save influence over a Lucky Find. Will probably end up swapping it for Day Job when that’s available. This only backfired on me once during the entire tournament, when - for lack of funds - I double Queens Gambited what turned out to be a Project Atlas. (I still won.)
Liberated Account: I pooh-poohed this card for the longest time due to the install cost, but at this point, I’m even happy to see this in my opening hand. This deck doesn’t really have a problem with money.
Atman: Atman has been largely useful against Blue Sun at this point, but it has also served as a stand-in for other breakers, at a cost. When I couldn’t find my Mimic, I was content to put down an Atman 3 until I could. Atman 4 was a gamechanger against decks I knew were packing Lotus Fields. So on and so forth. I don’t really have to tell you why Atman is good. Having a second Atman also proved useful a couple times for breaking into servers when my Datasuckers were purged and cut off.
Morning Star: Okay, maybe it’s overkill. I usually install it for 3 by Retrieval Running, but I have installed a Morning Star for its actual install cost before. It makes mincemeat of those cards that would cost a chunk of cash using Corroder or even Quetzal’s ability + E3: NEXT Silvers, Ashigaru, Galahads, even - with Datasucker assistance - Heimdalls, Curtain Walls, and Hadrian’s Walls. Of course, a lot of the time, people will just avoid installing barriers altogether against Quetzal, which I think is the incorrect choice, and so sometimes I don’t even need this card - but I don’t feel that dismissing Fracters altogether is the right choice.
Medium, Nerve Agent, Djinn: I prefer Medium as a form of deck attack over Keyhole, just on a personal level; you could probably run Keyholes instead and be fine. Djinn was almost never a dead draw, and using it to rummage up Medium, Nerve Agent, Parasites, and Datasuckers was always valuable.
Express Delivery: I was at 44 cards and 14 influence. I figured a card that functioned as a draw without actually trashing programs would be okay.
The things I wish I had done differently:
Imp. I really wish this deck had Imp, but space is tight - I’m already running so many 2-of programs, and 1-of my multiaccess cards (granted, Djinn really serves as copies 2 and 3 of those cards). I couldn’t squeeze it in and I was designing this last-minute at work before taking it to the store tourney. In retrospect I probably could’ve replaced the Djinns, or 1 D4V1D, with Imps.
Thanks so much for sharing this.
Really hoping / expecting that things will only get better with O&C and better Anarch toys to hit with Inject.
comments:
Often, especially early, a run on archives is unguarded, allowing a Morning Star, or what have you. I think your deck would do better with more “one of” program solutions rather than fearing the inject and doing 2 ofs.
In particular, I would look at a femme as a useful addition. Others to your taste. But you maximize your upside on a successful retrieval run.
I love Queen’s Gambit - advance the trap, run and trash the upgrade. Kind of like an anarchs answer to feedback filter.
The big issue with liberated (for me) previously was the click for cash necessary to install. Anarch didn’t have enough credit cards to make the liberated install without a tempo loss. Now with inject, and cache, and other cards liberated becomes smoother and easier to play.
For me, the true Liberated Account enabler is Queen’s Gambit. LA is playable as a result of QG becoming so.
In other news, your deck looks a lot like what I’ve come to with Whiz, only I’m running Armitages instead of Retrieval Runs. Most of the time, I have enough to hard-cast the big guns when needed, and I found it plays better with Atman this way.
How are people handling Blue Sun? You can’t very well go tagme. Obviously Dave is awesome, but all the other anarch standards are miserable. I feel I’ve got a shot vs NEH and RP with my current list, but I’m really sad vs Weyland.
I love Atman in Anarch, but I’m pretty sure it’s least helpful vs weyland. They can do awkward things with ice wall and there’s the curtain wall problem.
Can you play Queens Gambit against Weyland?
Blue Sun is Quetzal’s easiest opponent imo. Mulling for E3 or D4v1d completely shuts down Blue Sun. Most of Blue Sun’s ICE is barriers, so Quetzal has an automatic advantage.
I built my Quetzal deck specifically tailored to take on BS and NEH. (It has bad match ups vs. NBN Midseasons/tag and some Jinteki decks)… Having 2 yogs is nice as well, to deal with the annoying small str codegates (Datapike, or the occasional Enigma) in Weyland. Knight can help you with doublestacked high str barriers, but you need to move the knight off of it if you’re concerned about it getting trashed when blue sun zapps it back into hand.
Weyland is the one I’d be most reluctant to play it against. Overadvanced Atlas is bad news, but in theory if you know you can get in or know what it is, it doesn’t really matter.
My general take on fighting Blue Sun is make lots of money, so I’m messing around with swapping some of my clone chips for magnum opus. In theory I like Keyhole more because it forces another server defense, but there are other factors there.
I think experience will play a huge factor as well since Blue Sun isn’t just good, it’s very different as well.
Thank you.
If you’re running Clone Chip, Inject, and big breakers, there’s no reason not to run Stimhack! Great for a backup Yog/Morningstar enabler, but also for making a Really Big Atman.
Rather than splashing for Atman, I’ve been experimenting with The Personal Touch on Yog.0 to get through Lotus Field. It’s cheaper on influence, Inject doesn’t trash it, and Yog.0 covers code gates better than Atman (code gates are spread, often in the same decks, from 0 (Yagura, Quandry), 2 (Enigma), 4 (Lotus Field) and 5 (Tollbooth), making Atman a real poor choice).
Problem is, it’s both conditional to set up and takes up quite a few deck slots. Atmen can serve as backups for whichever breaker you’re having trouble finding, as long as you keep one at 4 for Lotus Pwnage.
I’ve thought about this too, but then you’re spending 7c on your codegate breaker (assuming no Stimhack-Clone Chip trickery)
Same cost as a Str 4 Atman - and often a code gate breaker at Str 4 with free breaking is better than a Strength 4 ice breaker. It’s not like you want to use it to break Eli in Morningstar Quetzal decks, for instance.
Peekay’s objections (that you need that particular card) are valid, but I’ve been running a higher breaker density (3 Yogs) and 2 or 3 PTs. And it’s not like the PT is wasted on Yog (or even on Mimic in some decks).