[NBN] Yellow Flash, Full Speed Ahead

Deck Archetypes
1

Here is the deck posted by @linuxmaier and originally designed by @benticurus. The game plan is to quickly out-money your opponent and score off the table while being rich unless the runner lets you midseasons, then you psycho beale for whatever points you are missing.

The deck already struggles with being clotted prompting @linuxmaier to run cyberdex trial. It’s a pain in the ass weakness especially in a metagame where basically every deck runs clot. Additionally, it probably doesn’t have the deck slots to tech against film critic either.

HOWEVER, going fast is extremely important in this metagame, and this deck is very consistently fast. NEH astrobiotics decks can run as fast as this deck, but it is much more RNG dependent - when people say they randomly lose games to NEH, it’s because nuts were drawn and allowed NEH to steamroll with speed.

Additionally, there are many compelling reasons to just give up using ICE as a tax and put up less resistance in favor of operational speed.

I will be tooling with this style of deck as the card pool develops, but runners these days are completely spoiled with how long games are running and allowed to pull ridiculous bullshit that they have no right getting away with like data folding/ UC based econ.

That being said, the spoilers from D&D have been heavily leaning towards NBN getting more of the taxing tools that the other corps have, and I wouldn’t be surprised if FFG completely designs-out the viability of fast advance in the near future, let’s not take our speed for granted and enjoy it while we still have it.

Yellow Flash

NBN: The World is Yours* (Future Proof)

Agenda (10)

Asset (3)

Operation (21)

Barrier (3)

Code Gate (5)

Sentry (2)

12 influence spent (max 12)
18 agenda points (between 18 and 19)
44 cards (min 40)
Cards up to Breaker Bay

I haven’t played this version more than a handful of times, but there is still room for improvement with this particular build I think. I’d trust @linuxmaier’s take on it more, but the ICE could be improved/teched further (wraparound for wall of static for example).

The main reason to play TWIY is how insane BLC is, if you were to run biotics or similar tools, you’d probably want to reconsider the ID as well.

Breaking news basically just blows up Kati if the board state and rng allow you to make the play. Using tools that complement breaking news is probably better than cutting it for explode-a-palooza/NAPD for the extra card slot - but not something I wouldn’t consider.

Anyhow, that’s the deck. It’s under-rated, and the game plan is solid enough that it isn’t just winning games off the back of it’s rogue factor.

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I played a version of this at FFG’s regional shortly after benticurus put up his list. My main change was switching to NEH for the influence so that I could gain a couple celebrity gifts. I was much more focused on the midseasons/psychographics plan than rush, although most of my games were over quickly.

I ended up 4th seed going into the top 8, but only ended up at 5th. My overall record for the day was 6-2, with a loss in round 4 and a loss in the cut. Here’s the list I used:

NEH Flash - FFG Event Center Regionals Top 8

Near-Earth Hub: Broadcast Center (Upstalk)

Agenda (11)

Asset (3)

Operation (24)

Barrier (3)

Code Gate (7)

Sentry (1)

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

Decklist published on NetrunnerDB.

My loss in swiss was because the runner got more money than me and I didn’t rush hard enough. My loss in elimination was because I couldn’t find a way to close out a game against Prepaid Kate with clot.

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3

I wouldn’t call myself an expert; if we could get @benticurus (not sure if s/he’s on stimhack?) to comment I’m sure that would be much better, since they played it a lot more than I did. I basically took that deck because I feared for my ability to pilot any other corp in the current meta because of Faust pushing Anarch into full on PPVP Kate power levels.

I think the Yellow Flash deck is a nice baseline deck if you’re worried about your corp game. It gave me 3/5 wins on the day (7 point beale against @spags!) and that was totally fine with me. That said, I think it’s got a very low skill ceiling. It’s basically a machine designed to be extremely consistent at achieving a good state for psychobeale. If your runner opponent has a good way of dealing with that (significant clot recursion, heavy medium dig ability), then you’ll probably lose quickly. If they don’t, or they don’t get the cards they need very quickly, you’ll likely win quickly. Unfortunately, both Anarch and Shaper are pretty well positioned and very consistent that they’re probably both >50% against this deck if they know what to do.

TLDR; if you’re out to sea about a corp option and want something pretty fun and very easy to pick up while being fairly effective, I think this is a great deck. If you want your corp game to be solid and not have to give up any matches, you’ll want something that doesn’t have as many hard counters as this deck does.

EDIT: It should be said that your opponent has to have a VERY solid economy or very lucky clot draws in order to win against this deck. This deck will invariably make a ton of money very quickly and will usually draw into its important cards very fast as well. If your runner deck can move faster than this one (or have another counter like Clot or win on Medium digs), there’s almost nothing you can do to out-play them. If they don’t have the speed needed, they probably won’t have the ability to out-play you.

PS EDIT: Totally spaced on answering the quoted point. The ICE suite is mainly designed to speedbump the runner, but I think space for an Information Overload over RnD would be valuable to blast out those Medium digs. Honestly, I think this deck wants to be in Haarpsichord instead of TWIY, since multiaccess is really the bane, here, and ICE is never going to be strong enough to actually slow the runner down without compromising your own speed. I wouldn’t do the Wrap->Static swap since Wrap is sooo good against Anarchs before they find Corroder, and afterwards it’s not an issue. If you can make them find the breaker, that’s mission accomplished; hopefully by then you’ve got money and the combo in hand and you can start naked advancing agendas to either score or bait the midseason.

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4

Just finished watching a handful of kiv’s games with this deck, I like the idea. His version splashed Errand Boy to help draw up even faster.

Is Cyberdex Trial better tech than Virus suite? I guess it has the advantage of not being trashable out of R&D, and can still facilitate a psycho beale. Not bad.

Will try this out.

2 Likes
5

After watching @kiv play TWIY Flash (The Flash Wears Yellow V2) in a few of his videos recently, I decided to give this deck a go:

NBN: The World is Yours* (Future Proof)

Agenda (9)
3x AstroScript Pilot Program (Core Set)
3x NAPD Contract (Double Time)
3x Project Beale (Future Proof)

Asset (3)
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves)

ICE (10)
3x Errand Boy (The Source) • • •
1x Tollbooth (Core Set)
3x Quandary (Double Time)
3x Wraparound (Fear and Loathing)

Operation (22)
3x Sweeps Week (True Colors)
3x Restructure (Second Thoughts)
3x Psychographics (Core Set)
3x Midseason Replacements (Future Proof)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
3x Green Level Clearance (A Study in Static) • • •
1x Corporate Shuffle (Double Time)
3x Blue Level Clearance (Fear and Loathing) •• •• ••

Total Cards: 44
Total Influence: 12

Right off the bat, the deck feels powerful and like it puts the runner off balance.

With how ICE is basically nothing more than a speedbump these days, this deck plays only some of the most efficient, early ICE (Wraparound, Quandary), a single nasty piece (Tollbooth) and a Sentry breaker gear check that either advances your game plan or forces the runner to make awkward choices.

You can simply have so much money with this deck, as is obvious from the amount of operation econ in the list. You can happily keep a hand that has no ICE, as you’ll likely draw into it, and the runner pinching an agenda is typically good for you.

You get to play a completely different style of Corping, where you place an agenda down naked, advance it and dare the runner to go for it. If they do? 3, 4, 5 point Beale. If they don’t? Score it out normally. You’re running astro, but you don’t rely on the astro train. But a single scored astro puts even more pressure on the runner than it normally would.

I haven’t had a chance to play it against PPvP Kate yet, but it works against the typical problems most corp decks have against Kate. It’s fast, which lowers the amount of setup time that Kate has and it makes more money than she does and doesn’t need to spread it out. Multi-access may be an issue, but they have to have the multi-access early for it to be helpful, and it may simply play into your own game plan.

Regardless, if you want to keep yourself fresh in a tournament, this will help you a lot. Your games will be short, for better or worse. In my experience, it’s better.

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6

I beat some variant of this pretty handily as PPVP Kate.

When it finally managed to out-money me, I just didn’t pay into the Midseasons trace and won off Legwork and Indexing.

Anyone got experience with the Headlock Reina matchup? Seems like it might be … unpleasant.

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7

I think you still need a Data Raven or two to get an initial FA Psycho threat, especially if Film Critic becomes as big as people are hyping. Land those first two tags and everything gets so much easier for you.

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8

Was it only one game as Kate? Because that sounds more like variance. I’m guessing they didn’t have the tools to make the most off the midseasons.

Doesn’t seem that bad. You have plenty of money and can get it more quickly than Headlock decks can. Reina’s economy is also heavily resource based, so even one tag scares them a lot, which means they have to be more careful when playing against NBN. Their answer to wraparound is usually one or two D4v1d, which they may not have fast enough to deal with, and they don’t have substantial recursion for it.

Losing one cred a turn to lamprey isn’t that big a deal for the deck. Desperado Headlock variants may have a slightly better matchup. But typically Reina Headlock is going for quite a controlling game plan via econ denial while building a credit differential, and it’s quite difficult to deny these decks their econ.

Film critic will certainly make for interesting times for this deck. That’s why many people are running Breaking News at the moment I expect. Data Raven isn’t reliable enough for getting tags, unfortunately.

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9

I don’t think headlock would be an issue, aside from keyhole. If the corp has more money than you (this deck will) then you can’t vamp and start the headlock. Add wraparound to the mix and it’s tough.

I pulled errand boy from the mix because i wanted something in the deck to not instantly die to parasite. Errand boy was a great call for what i have to assume was a criminal heavy meta, but at least round my way I’d never see errand boy live long enough to have its subroutines fire. Lotus field is better than Architect here as parasite hate since there are so few installable cards.

I think good stuff Anarch and ppvp Kate have really strong tools against this deck. Cyberdex trial (chosen because it doesn’t trash out of rnd or hq) definitely helps those matchups, but I’m not sure it’s enough.

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10

Thanks for joining the discussion everyone. You guys are really right about the skill ceiling being low on this exact deck. Upcoming cards that help the archetype are the same things that help butchershop: explode-a-palooza for sure. Some different card drawing options.

Future struggles for this deck would be the fact that butcher gets sunny lebaeau and explode-a-palooza, meaning fast and easy access to film critic becomes the rock to beat those scissors, and flies through our paper as a consequence.

Losing to silver bullets RNG sure is great game design.

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11

I’ve played all of 1 game in the matchup, so can’t say much, but it seems like this deck had trouble building a remote knight couldn’t get into and keeping me out of hq at the same time.

on a side note, why not put this in MN? gives you access to draco and helps the midseason, the 6 card handsize didn’t seem to be too big of a deal and 40 card deck size is likely less useful than 3 influence. Haarpsichord on release would likely be good for this style of deck as well.

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12

I suspect there’s two big reasons, @SamRS:

  1. Holding stuff in hand. You need Beale + MIdseasons and a second agenda to perform a Beale win, so a larger handsize allows you to hold more. As a side benefit, you will be slightly stronger against HQ accesses.
  2. You want to go the speed of light with this deck. You want to go Astrobiotics fast, except a million times faster. ICE is only there for two reasons - stop accesses, or advance the gameplan. If it comes down to taxing a runner out, you’re probably done. So a smaller deck plays toward that, and you probably don’t actually need that influence too much. Is there something specific you’re thinking of that would benefit the gameplan from the slowdown and you need the influence for? Also, Midseasons is the only trace card in the entire deck. I’m not sure Draco is a suitable ICE for this style of play.

Also, a first-turn BLC is awesome because you you play a second card and keep everything instead of having to discard. Just a minor cool thing you can do with TWIY ID.

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smaller deck speeds you up a lot less than people seem to think it does, adding two anonymous tips would more than compensate if you’re really concerned with it. I mention MN because draco ( or even caduceus) out of MN is a very good gearcheck for sentry, which the deck doesn’t seem to have.

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I have no idea what’s faster, I’ve never run the numbers. It may also be a consistency issue, there’s a ton of 3-ofs… But I suspect that’s why it’s in TWIY at this time. Draco is only a good gear-check if you can win the trace, which is probable, but not always guaranteed with this deck (MN would help with this). If the runner has a sizable amount of money, keeping them out becomes expensive; that’s money you may need for Midseasons and Psychographics to win out, or possible rez a Tollbooth to keep an agenda on the board safe.

I’ve only seen this deck in action, never played it (with or against), so maybe I’m off-base, but that’s the impression I get. It may well be better in MN, but making TWIY viable is also really cool and fun. :smile:

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Maybe Sam can back me up on the math here, but I thought it was long established that MN is better than TWIY unless you’re playing a VERY specific combo deck like Grail, because of how much the difference between 40 and 49 is if you consider 2 Anonymous Tip in the MN deck. Adding the extra influence is the icing on the cake.

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16

This isn’t quite fair. Annonymous Tip will draw agendas; a smaller deck won’t.

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Deck size isn’t the only benefit here (note you can also run anonymous tip in TWIY). PsychoBeale is absolutely a card intensive combo, especially if you hold cyberdex to counter clot. If it all comes into hand, we’re looking at Psycographics, Midseason, Beale and Cyberdex. Often times you’ll want to hold a restructure as well in order to hide your own credit total for the midseason turn. That’s no room left for ice you don’t want to play yet, other agendas you may want to try and score or a sweeps week you’re waiting to profit on. This deck uses the hand space.

Add to that the fact that 6 cards in hand is a nice HQ agenda defense early and i think the deck is better in TWIY than MN. That said, I’d 100% swap for Haarp when that comes out, as multi access defense is key. Unfortunately, Haarp comes out in the same pack as Film Critic, so i think I’m putting the deck away entirely.

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18

Seems reasonable, I don’t remember any math discussions about MN/TWIY; however you don’t give a shit about agenda density either. The influence would be the main reason to switch.

I didn’t really consider MN because caduceus is a little lackluster right now, but draco’s pretty cool guy.

Is MN better than NEH at that point? The influence seems more likely to be better than the trace credits, but you’d have to put together an ice package and decide which is faster I think. MN can employ cheaper ice and be reasonably effective… I’m not sure what you’d do with that much influence. Celebrity Gift and Biotic seem useful.

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I think biotic is the right call. Good decks have a plan b and if you’re behind on money, this deck has no plan b. Biotic would help with that.

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20

Agreed. A plan B is good. Another possibility is San San. At the very least that sucks credits from the runner.

I really like a Closed Accounts or two in this kind of deck. This allows going all in on Midseason when, for example, you have 43 credits and Kate has 40. If you don’t have that Closed Accounts, Kate takes the 43 tags and has infiinite money advantage to score out before you get enough money to fire the winning Psychographix. With Closed Accounts you’re in a good spot if you have any ICE rezzed. Close Accounts good vs. Siphon too.

Closed Accounts also motivates adding in a Data Raven or two, but now we’re further down the slope of quite different deck.

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