New Angeles Sol

Any thoughts on @beyoken’s Lunisor Flare deck that went undeated at a 23-person SC? Here it is:

New Angeles Sol: Your News (Data and Destiny)

Agenda (11)

Asset (3)

Upgrade (2)

Operation (21)

Barrier (5)

Code Gate (4)

Sentry (3)

12 influence spent (max 15-3☆=12)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Data and Destiny

Decklist published on NetrunnerDB.

@WhackedMaki took it to a local 14-person SC in our area and got second.

Here are some of the creator’s videos that describe it:

1 Like

I won a 23-24 (don’t remember) player store championship with it on Saturday. I went with -1 Little Engine, -1 Snatch n Grab for +1 Archangel, +1 Turnpike. The deck went 5-1, losing once to a lucky Whizzard during Swiss. I like this deck a lot. I’d probably take out Turnpike to go back to Snatch or Wall of Static. Otherwise, it’s pretty mean.

3 Likes

I played it this weekend, went 2-2 with the deck in a 18 person SC (placed 5th overall). First loss wasn’t really the deck’s fault, I drew agendas 7 turns in a row, with no Jackson or Midseasons. Second loss was 7-6, winning card on top of R&D, against a Tenma deck that stayed rich enough that even without Siphon he was outpacing me on econ. (To be fair, his deck was also a scorchy Sol, so he knew how to play against it.) First win I landed a 13-tag Midseasons then frantically dug for my kill combo before he could get the 7th point and barely did (thanks Resistor!). Second win I bluffed out a single-advanced Breaking News behind a Rainbow on T2 against a Dumblefork and advance/TA/Scorch for the win next turn.

I think at least one of the Midseasons should be replaced by a SEA Source. If the runner manages to get to 6 before you have the card or enough economical advantage to play it, the main mechanism of the deck to give them tags goes away. SEA Source forces the runner to consistently have econ advantage, even after they get to 6, though I admit it does force you to rely on the two Scorches more than the Traffic Accidents at that point.

I’m toying with putting in Cerebral Static instead of Paywall. It’s 2 to play, so you’ve got the issue of having to pay to keep refreshing it, but with Kate not around so much, Cerebral seems more likely to hit the now popular runners much harder.

Had a bit of a shocker at the weekend, going 1-4, getting particularly badly hit by awful mills in two separate games against Noise.

I suppose the issue is that you kind of want Cerebral to be “always on” but doing so takes away the Marketing. At least you can move to Paywall once the runner has either given up the ghost on the announced card, or installed it anyway.

Static is nice, but you can’t just put it in a deck that usually wants to run Paywall and Targeted Marketing. Both of those give you money, while Static takes it away, and those 2 credits add up over the game.

I found this out to my cost at the weekend: I was in a store champ final as Sol against Noise. I’d thrown the Static into my deck last minute on the reasoning of “this ought to be good against Noise/Whizz”, and had it out for the whole of the final game - but I lost due to lacking two credits on the deciding turn. I’d paid 8 for Static overall, and it made me struggle to keep Medium out with a deck that wasn’t designed for those kinds of upkeep costs.

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I think it’s a good deck, but I might be biased :stuck_out_tongue: Not sure if I trust singleton tech cards though (S’n’G).

2 Likes

Frankly I don’t like it myself. Never used it on the day, and thankfully never had to. Gotta pack an answer to Film Critic however! The alternative is 3x Breaking News, but Beale and Palooza are great to have in this deck, wouldn’t want to cut either agenda!

2 Likes

I took down our little local ANRPC qualifier (NACH series) yesterday, went undefeated through the day both with this and my runner (which was straight up Dumblefork). I face Dumble twice and won both as well:

Food for the Sol

New Angeles Sol: Your News (Data and Destiny)

Agenda (9)

Asset (3)

Upgrade (6)

Operation (13)

Barrier (3)

Code Gate (10)

Sentry (5)

9 influence spent (max 15-6☆=9)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Data and Destiny

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

I started with the plan of Targeted Marketing on D4V1D that has been mentioned here, after some initial tests I changed the agenda mix to @meh’s from above/Orbital Tangents deck on nrdb (Solfood (Post MWL) · NetrunnerDB) and adjusted my ice mix to focus on NBNs cheap, extremely efficient ice. Ash and Tollbooth are there to capitalize on the runner biting the bullet and giving me my marketing money (which also pays for SanSans and install costs for 5 ice R&Ds), while the rest is cheap to enable the deck to function if he chooses to view TM as denial instead of econ.

It works like most of these vegan Sol decks - it’s decent at rushing, FA and glacier, depending on the game state and runner actions, and it’s hellishly taxing to decks without D4V1D recursion.

I’ve only played a bit under 15 games with the deck and variants, but I’m liking it a lot. Going to keep playing it and tinker some more when I find new weaknesses.

4 Likes

Looks like a good mix. I was thinking of dropping a Paywall for an Ash too. I find myself flooded with them late game, though getting them early is nice. I’m disappointed you don’t have Fast Track, but to each their own. I also am wondering if Gutenberg is worth it to try to land the tag on Noise/Whizzard. How often does that work?

PS: Thanks for the shout out.

I’ve been feeling the same about the third paywall, and like the ash swap too, especially with interns in the deck. Have a slightly different build, 2 fast tracks instead of Gutenbergs, then -2 little engine, +1 archangel +1 assassin.

How have you been finding having 3 little engine? I can’t imagine ever wanting that many…

Gutenberg is an experiment, so far it’s OK - if they break it, it’s awesome. If they dump the tag, that’s a click and 2 creds, not bad taxation for a 2 credit ice. Wyldcakes will always dump the tag. I don’t think I’ve ever actually got to trash Wyldside off it, but that’s not really the point. But if they don’t run resources they’re free to go tag me and ignore it, which is a definite weakness when combined with Wraparounds (which also gets “turned off” by a fracter).

I’m considering going back to Assassins, but that’s another ice that’s only turned on if they give me my marketing money.

I’d love to have Fast Track, but I can’t find the deck slots. Building towers over R&D and drawing a lot has kept me going so far (if I’m drawing for agendas I’m not going to flood HQ anyway). Interns is an all star and fits with the flexible theme - recur Ash for glacier, SanSan for FA, ice if they’re going wild with ice destruction.

Love the little engines, but I haven’t seen CyCy or Gordian yet(!). It’s either Dumblefork or jank, and Dumblefork has no answer to Little Engines except D4V1D (which is the point) and doesn’t get much better with more money once they’re at the point of breaking Engines regularely. So far, at least.

Credit where credit is due!

been having a lot of success myself with a very similar list (though I miss the pre MWL version that went undefeated and took me to 2nd in two store champs…) the little engines are a great call against the faust/d4 business that’s so rampant. I might mention that as a possible meta call trimming down to 2 or even 1 for a third tollbooth and/or assasin could be a good way to go if you expect to see a lot of shaper. Pawnshop hayley had been very popular in my area, and cy-cys are a very popular way to quickly turn little engine “off.” (One recently was on multithreader/study guide as well for the late game , which made my little engines worse than dead weight, they became a liability)

Overall, however, I think this is a really good looking list, with pretty much all the right choices. Going to 2x paywall to sneak the ash in there is great, many runners won’t even try to contest it as they focus on centrals…

3 Engines is definetly a meta call, and so far it’s been the right call. Swapping one or two for Assassin/Tollbooth is a good idea, but you have to be careful - the runner has some control over the econ here (popup, marketing, paywall) so you need to be able to rez stuff even if he plays around it. I’d consider carefully before swapping out two Engines, but it might be the right choice.

Talking about meta calls, I think Gutenberg is still the right one. It’s not going to do anything, but very few runners can go tag me these days (too many good resources) which means it does the job of taxing R&D. Not to mention that the threat of QPM will often make the runner pay to break it (which is great) - it takes a while before he can be sure that you’re not playing QPM.

yeah, I like gutenberg a lot here for all the reasons you list. for a while I was actually on 1x psychographics just to exploit runners/friends who figured out that I have nothing to do with those tags and just let them pile up… definitely not a “best practice” include though.

currently I’m on 2x LE and 3x Booth - it really is a toss up depending on what percentage of runners you expect to be strictly relying on faust/d4; they’re so common right now I can’t imagine deciding that going down to one LE would be right, but it could happen.

The real question is what to slot instead of the second Engine. A fourth 'booth/Assassin is not supported by the econ, I think (unless they keep running your popups and giving you marketing money, of course, but you can’t rely on that).

Third Gutenberg?

Took third in a 20 person Store Championship; 5 rounds of swiss only. Sol went 3-2 while Dumblefork went 4-1.

Anyway, will “Clones are not People” be worth including? If you get it into play in Sol your next agenda is almost guaranteed to be worth +1 point, and you can of course replace it with a new current immediately. Would have to replace Paywall, so the deck needs more slots for econ.

“Clones Are Not People” would be an awesome include if it were an NBN card, but at 3 inf I’m afraid I’ll have to pass, especially since I’m running Biotic Labor instead of Paywall.

Still butting my head against this. Published this a while back: Full Article is Paywall Restricted · NetrunnerDB

But I always felt a bit poor when it came to the crunch. I am not a great player, by any stretch, and I’m trying hard to improve, so I’ve given this another bash cutting some cards to make room for PADs and Temples.

On paper, that makes the Whizzard match-up worse, but the logic is with Targeted Marketing you can use that to get your credits as you cycle through Wyldside, Adjusted, Liberated, Levy, etc, etc.

People in here always gave me the advice to play fast, but I feel like when I do that, I over extend and misjudge things far too easily, which is obviously a personal failing, not the yellow cards I’m slotting. This version is a bit slower, but hopefully can leverage that into board state.

New Angeles Sol: Your News

Agenda (9)
3x AstroScript Pilot Program ☆☆☆
2x Global Food Initiative ••
1x NAPD Contract ☆
3x Project Beale

Asset (8)
3x Jackson Howard
3x Mumba Temple ••••• •
2x PAD Campaign

Upgrade (5)
1x Crisium Grid •
1x Cyberdex Virus Suite
3x SanSan City Grid ☆☆☆

Operation (12)
1x Fast Track
3x Hedge Fund
2x Paywall Implementation ••••
3x Sweeps Week
3x Targeted Marketing

Barrier (3)
3x Wraparound

Code Gate (7)
2x Archangel
2x Enigma
2x Pop-up Window
1x Tollbooth

Sentry (5)
1x Assassin
3x News Hound
1x Swordsman •

8 influence spent (max 15-7☆=8)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Kala Ghoda

It feels like I’m shitting on you by typing all of this, but I sincerely hope you don’t take it that way. I’ve just been playing Sol a lot and have some opinions on it. Here goes:

I don’t think extra assets are were you want to be against Criminal, and the Never Advance bluff vs Dumblefork isn’t a winning strategy.

Criminal with a lot of money is not good for you. Extra assets are going to give them things to Security Test and Bank Job for free. That’s not where you want to be. You need to tax them down low for some scoring windows.

Dumblefork doesn’t care if you presure them with Never Advance because they want to run the remote and blow up ICE anyway. OK, so they don’t get points, but running to blow up ICE and trash your bluffed asset for basically free is not a bad trade.

I also don’t get the inclusion of Crisium here. Targeted Marketing is already great Siphon tech. Sure it frees it up to be called on something else, but I’m not sure it is worth the influence. If you choke a Criminal out by denying Siphon and things to SecTest/Bank Job, you generally have enough money to win without Marketing creds.

Swordsman is just bad. Even in a Dumblefork infested meta, I prefer another Assassin. You’re just not going to get the trash as often as you’d like, especially as a one-of, and Assassin is just more generally useful on other match-ups.

If you cut Crisium and Swordsman, you can get an Ash in here. He’s really good in Paywall Sol.

Lack of Interns, Tollbooth, and extra Assassin is disturbing, but those and the mix of 'em can come down to preference and playstyle. I do think at least one Interns is awesome if you toss in an Ash, though I run 2x.

3 Likes

Thanks for your advice. It’s funny, you’ve just basically told me to undo all of the changes I just made; the PADs and the Temples, cutting the interns and the Ash (which I did for this post Pol Op, Councilman world).

1x Crisium and Swordsman, I see your point, and this is my main failing as a deck builder. I’m trying to tech against things, apoc, faust, atm4n, things that generlly scare me in a match, but you’re saying it’s not worth the slots and inf for such narrow hate?

Do what the deck does best, and do it to 100%, don’t dilute it down.