[NBN] Butcher Your Enemies, Butcher Your Friends

Deck Archetypes
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There has been some discussion in various other threads about the NBN kill deck known as Butcher Shop, and various decklists have been doing well at different regionals around the globe, but there hasn’t been a place to have any focused discussion about optimization or meta calls. I’d like to use this thread as that place.

The original decklist by @jakodrako is as follows:

##Butcher Shop

Agenda (11)

Asset (9)

Operation (16)

Barrier (3)

Code Gate (3)

Sentry (5)

Other (2)

17 influence spent (max 17)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)

Different versions have been used that replace the Melange with PAD Campaigns to switch out some of the burst econ with more robust, long-term, harder-to-trash econ, the addition of Daily Business Show, as well as SanSan City Grid to help both the fast advance secondary win condition as well as set up kills from the hand using Breaking News. A couple versions used Private Contracts as their econ assets as well.

Agendas are largely similar between most decks, but some experimentation has been done to bring in anywhere from 1-3 copies of TGTBT to have both the surprise tag potential as well as include more taxing agendas. The versions using 3 copies have also imported a random 3 pointer with no intention to score, but this seems like more of a liability to me.

The ice suite seems fairly malleable, as several lists have done well, but recent lists also include a hard ETR code gate or two in the form of either Quandary or Enigma. Many lists forgo the Reclamation Order in lieu of either Pup or Eli 1.0 for more taxing ice as well. Gutenberg has also been fairly popular, but I’ve hear from several people that once the runner stops caring about tags and just needs to run (ie you’ve found and landed Midseasons, but can’t get all the meat damage online) Gutenberg is more or less blank. I still think a copy or two is a fine inclusion, though, and have had success with it myself, although I can’t say I disagree with the criticism.

Here’s the list I played that carried me to 4th in the Portland regionals, not because it’s great, but because it shows the differences possible with the deck.

Puppy Butcher

Near-Earth Hub: Broadcast Center (Upstalk)

Agenda (11)

Asset (10)

Upgrade (3)

Operation (15)

Barrier (2)

Code Gate (4)

Sentry (4)

17 influence spent (max 17)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)

As you see, I was much lighter on the ICE, and much heavier on the remote-spam. If I had to do it again, I think the Quandary would be an Enigma, as it doesn’t die instantly to Parasite, which was an issue. Also, Medium was a problem, and maybe a Tollbooth wouldn’t be out of the question. I anticipated more Kate, so I put in Pups, thinking Eli would just get ran over by Lady. Instead, I saw a field of anarchs, who just Parasite it and move on with their day. It did well for me regardless, but maybe Eli would have been a better meta call. I never really missed the Reclamation Order.

Anyhow, those who have found success with the deck, what have your choices been and why? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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This is the build i took to my regional, it only dropped one game due to a misplays by me.

Near-Earth Hub: Broadcast Center

Agenda (12)
3x AstroScript Pilot Program
2x Breaking News
3x NAPD Contract
3x TGTBT
1x Utopia Fragment

Asset (9)
3x Jackson Howard
3x Marked Accounts
3x PAD Campaign

Operation (15)
3x Hedge Fund
3x Midseason Replacements
3x Scorched Earth ••••• ••••• ••
3x Sweeps Week
3x Traffic Accident •••

Barrier (3)
3x Wraparound

Code Gate (4)
3x Pop-up Window
1x Yagura ••

Sentry (5)
3x Data Raven
2x Information Overload

Other (1)
1x Universal Connectivity Fee

17 influence spent (max 17)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Order and Chaos

i took yagura as my free inf pick , it pretty much get 1 net damage, and a safe RnDthe first time its rezed. , also forcing out the codegate breaker as another tax the runner must pay to get into your RnD, i would be tempted now to change our the utopia shard for a restructured data pool, dont really ever score it, but if you do, being about to drain there credits with wasting clicks.

as far as scoring servers, i find its either dataraven->dataraven-> agenda. or data raven -> UCF->agenda. which later turns into DR-DR

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The Reclamation Order slot seems to be the place to improvise in this deck. 2 Eli’s can help you on R&D a little more than the Pups, but Pup is nice too. My argument for Eli is that you have so little Ice that Parasites are deadly. You’ll be hard pressed to bait more than 2 and still have Ice remaining.

Lotus Fields aren’t the worst either. Costs you a lot, but costs the Runner more if they want to deal with it. I like Eli better.

1 Archived Memories in the Reclamation Order spot could win you games too. I had one in a 2-Scorch, 2-Snare variant where it acted as a poor man’s scorch.

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That was what I found at the PDX regionals. They’d tax a bit, and then they’d die. It’s really, really nice having what is effectively Pop-Up Windows #5-6, and it just feels great rezzing them for a buck, but against Anarch Eli is just better, and Anarch is just really popular these days.

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The biggest problem I see is that everybody now expects Butchershop. In our meta Plascrete is the first thing added to the deck. Decks like Kate and Whizz can compete in the econ game. In those scenario’s, how do you play?

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Why isn’t running 3x Breaking News the norm? I only ever lose to Butchershop when that card is involved.

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I’m actually testing a version that uses 3x Breaking News and 1x TGTBT in place of a Beale. I could also see it in place of an NAPD, but NAPDs are bad for the runner and I don’t generally want to be scoring agendas that aren’t called “Astroscript” anyhow, so it matters less to me. Not sure which is better yet. But I agree, Breaking News is nutso.

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I think there is some merit in thinking about a merger between the traditional butcher list and the Yellow Flash lists running around the past week. Especially now that the Plascretes are around in force.

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The deckslot / influence limit makes them really difficult to run together… And both Butcher shop / flash are tough to play against PPVP Kate, by diluting the card pool for more alternative win condition means that you’ll have to cut your ice or your econs, making the match up strictly worse…

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I think you are overestimating the difference between the two lists.
Both lists are run with the goal of landing a Midseasons and capitilize on that.
While the Flash deck don’t bother with taxing the runner to increase speed and econ generation while Butcher Shop taxes runner clicks checking/trashing new remotes that pop up.

Also I think the influence spent in the Flash decks are not very strict. For example I think Errand Boy can easily be replaced by Gutenberg, and Green-Level by Anonymous Tip. Combine that with the 3-4 extra deckslots and 5 influence from running NEH and it might be worth building around.

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I have been wondering also why not use 3x Breaking News. I feel it is the strongest agenda in the deck which will give you a win when you are leading the credit race. I like replacing Beale with BN and TGTBT.

Against stronger opponents it can be harder to win with asset economy because they can do Midseasons math much better. I have had more success with 3x Restructure version because it can mess the calculations by allow playing 1-2 operations before Midseasons easier. Also Whiz is now everywhere. Deck relying more on assets might be better against weaker opponents. Also I find Butcher Shop almost default NEH now so trying to mask deck as a normal FA NEH doesn’t work so well.

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I don’t have much to add as I’ve not played the deck, but I have come up against it a lot, and found some runners (e.g. Leela) had a pretty great matchup against it and others (e.g. Val) a very poor one. Is this impression of high variance between matchups accurate?

I’d love to see a rundown of how it plays in the different matchups if someone wants to write one. :slight_smile:

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I think the differences are big enough to make a hybrid difficult; Butchershop loves Breaking News and Flash doesn’t for example, and ice-based tagging is much better in Butchershop since the threshold for bad shit happing is 1 or 2 tags vs 2 or 3 tags for the Flash decks.

Using every out of faction money operation you can is very important in the Flash decks (in my limited experience) as you need to keep the density of burst economy high enough so that drawing cards (be it Clearances, Errand Boy subs, or whatever) directly and reliably converts to more credits. Losing GLC for Tip hinders that.

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I’ve been running NBN kill decks for the 2 years of playing Netrunner. And the problems I’ve always faced with adding Psychographics to the mix are:

  1. you need a lot of creds to use it on Beale, but you usually broke after midseason.
  2. it clogs your hand, where you already need to keep midseason and meat damage.
  3. it doesn’t synergise with 1-2 tags from ice or BN, as Dis mentioned above me

So, based on my experience, it’s not worth it to run psycho in the kill deck.

My thoughts on the rise of Whizzard decks:

  • adding some CVSs to protect RND from whizzard medium runs
  • FA with sansan is good against him, cause he usually don’t run clot
  • rushing astro’s behind ETR is also good against anarchs, so adding a couple of enigmas may be good desicion.
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I’m constantly surprised by PAD and Marked Accounts, especially Marked. No one plays private contracts but me, and I feel like the world is crazy.

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Private Contracts – 8 clicks to net 11 credits feels underwhelming, and that 3 credit rez cost. I like it with The Root.

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Whizzard also pisses all over it

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It’s a really tough call, because you lose an economy slot to play the third BN and a TGTBT.

The main win-win line is to IA the Breaking News and Midseasons if they steal and Scorch if they don’t, and that line only works if you have the economic lead, or (rarely) they had a bad draw and actually can’t break your remote.

The BN is also worse against Anarch since sometimes they can let you score it, and then commit your kill cards and they just don’t die because of one or more IHW, then the tags go away.

At my regionals I played 2 BN and a Daily Business Show and was pretty happy with that.

I did lose one game because the first BN got stolen from R&D and the second one was 5 from the bottom, but I might have lost other games by flooding or being too poor had I gone the other way.

No, it’s you.

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One other good thing about the 3rd breaking news is that people think there are two, and if both go, they’re unlikely to respect the threat of a single-advanced or unadvanced card with astro-token in play.

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I think you can quite easily find how similar the lists are if you think about how you would convert the Flash list into NEH and what cards are underperforming in that ID.
While not original in the same way as TWIY in the current meta, it’s very arguable if it will perform worse speed-wise.