New Angeles Sol

[Vapo]

@gumOnShoe

And getting TM to fire twice requires a really dense runner

There are a lot of decks around at the moment that basically have no choice but to give you 20+ credits over the game if you TM D4v1d. Patch greatly helps there, admittedly. With good timing you can often use it to slow up the runner in the early game and then give you a cash boost later on when you have a good read on what’s left that the runner will need. It’s very hard to assess the impact of forcing the runner to not only avoid playing, but hold multiple copies of a card in hand - since if they discard them you can then switch up to something else. Watching Kate get 2/3 of the way through her deck with a clogged up hand before finally ditching the PPVPs only for you to switch to TM Levy next turn is priceless, and has happened to me more than once.

@gumOnShoe

if you’re up against jank and you don’t know what they’re going to play Paywall is a more sound card to run.

I can’t argue there, I’ve had some really awkward Adam games where I have had absolutely no idea what to name. I would love to fit in at least 1x Paywall as an alternative 4th current to Predictive Algorithm, but right now Patch is doing an unbelievable amount of work. If we ever get a pumpable sentry breaker that doesn’t suck or kill itself, then I’ll happily swap them out

@gumOnShoe

I love patch. For reasons. But I don’t know that I’d splash for it in this deck. I don’t know that its a bad idea either, but I’m not sure I have another target I’d consider either.

It’s great on News Hound against anyone not running D4v1d. News Hound + Patched News Hound on the same server is pretty much Kate’s worst nightmare.

@gumOnShoe

My play style is to protect R&D, HQ, and a single remote.

Yep, I’m really enjoying being back on single remote, it feels like forever since I’ve run something with so few servers. Pop-up on Archives, what you gonna do now sec-test boy? CVS in the bin, Patchitect on R&D, News Hound on HQ - have fun trying to build up suckers.

Oh one more question - Lily Lockwell? I love her in Yellow Flash, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a News Hound tag stick, and since it’s a pretty glacier type build Anon Tip seems like it’d be better for burst draw, since you don’t care so much about having all 3 clicks to FA. Am I missing something? I’m thinking maybe cute tricks vs siphon spam but I don’t see any obvious silver bullets.

[gumOnShoe]

Lily Lockwell

When you’re going for the FA win, which I do get probably 40% of games its a great way to draw into an agenda at start of turn. Its also pretty good when you know you’re going to have a rush window, and it also is a pretty good NA bait target, where if they run they don’t do much but you get to get cards too. I’ll also sometimes pop it up if they run a legwork at me.

Its pretty rare to use her click ability, its more of a start of turn draw 4 sort of deal.

[Four_Leaf]

I’ve been on single server since I started building sol. I think it’s the only way to play it unless you’re on a FA plan.

[Vapo]

Fair enough, I have CVS in a similar ‘helps FA, but can also be a bluff and has other fringe benefits’ slot

[MasterAir]

I think it you’re up against Adam, Lovegood is a very good TM shout. Dirty Laundry is also almost universally present. I think you can bet pretty heavily that most builds are playing Stimhack too. Public Sympathy too - though maybe not always. I know they aren’t ‘must play’ cards, but that’s still half of TM’s power. Adam really wants to play cards.

[Four_Leaf]

Posted my latest with full description here: Hound Fortress · NetrunnerDB

[Vapo]

I hadn’t thought of Lovegood, given that I’m on single server, have lots of anti-facecheck ice and pop-ups to spare for archives, forcing runs could work out pretty well. Nice spot.

I have considered Dirty Laundry but it just doesn’t seem like that big a loss. I guess it’s a bit more valuable to Adam though.

[MasterAir]

Dirty Laundry is pretty good. I think it’s the card you most want to see much of the time if you’re playing Adam.

[gumOnShoe]

I find I end up trashing Always Be Running most of the time because adam faceplants a News Hound at the wrong time and wasn’t ready for it and then I don’t care much about lovegood. Suddenly he has to pay through my best ice and he’s down a leg.

[anon34370798]

Okay, Kate don’t like my Sol
Got a nice matchup vs @Calimsha’s Kate with mine. I think i’m on the way to T1.5 (still T2 I tend to think).

Work-in-progress (sorry for the presentation) :
Agenda (9)
1 15 Minutes
3 AstroScript Pilot Program
3 Global Food Initiative•••
2 Project Beale

Asset (8)
1 IT Department•
3 Jackson Howard
3 Marked Accounts
1 Project Junebug•

ICE (20)
2 Archangel
2 Data Raven
2 Eli 1.0••
3 News Hound
2 Pop-up Window
2 Quicksand
1 RSVP
2 Sherlock 1.0••••
2 Tollbooth
2 Wall of Static

Operation (12)
2 Closed Accounts
3 Hedge Fund
2 Paywall Implementation••••
3 Sweeps Week
2 Targeted Marketing

I like a lot this deck. I don’t know really why, because that is not really exceptionnal nor omgstrong. It’s middle-skill to pilot, asking for creative piloting by being very adaptative to the runner (typically my stuff), and I like seing kate clicking for credits again with it

News Hound MVP all the way. I was in love with Hunter, in Sol this ice is so good !

[gumOnShoe]

Instant wins are not to play these cards:

• QuickSand - I love this card, but it always eats parasite every game or it never accrues enough counters to get bigger than static. Static is usually just better.
• RSVP - Everyone can break this, its not a high bar & you’re not running anything that it matters with so there are times when its dead and you want every ice to not be dead.
• Sherlock - This card usually just bad. I’ve liked it in plenty of decks, but there are better 5 str sentries that don’t allow click through.
• Data Raven - Closed accounts is fine, but I don’t think runners will hold the tag and if they do you probably could have won another way vs them.

Instant wins are to play these cards:

• Wraparound, very good vs faust right now.
• Ash, gives you more remote play
• 3x the pop-up, its just cash and you need it.

Having seen sol “glacier” up I’m sure you’re getting wins. Its solid and news hound wins games, but those are the spots that seem weak to me. Sherlock & Raven are cute, but have minimal impact on game outcome imo.

[anon34370798]

@gumOnShoe Thank you for the analysis. I would still try to explain my choices.

The things I tried to do with them are :

• RSVP is currently a very good fire & forget trap codegate to protect IT Dep. If this is set and running, then I usually win. It is another weird trap like AstroJunebug to punish spaming runners if you will, but IT dep this one is designed to punish passive runners.
  I think you also neglicted gearcheck uses in front of the sentry traces (but could have put tl;dr if that was the main use). In a remote, it’s saying “you must parasite next ice for lulz, wait, wtf”. It’s nice innermost or not in front of R&D too (not on this deck). This is a matter of piloting with it I think : it is NOT a positional like chum or a zuz, and have lateral uses that I like a lot.

• Quicksand eats parasite, yes, but not necessary muck more than other ices. In this case, everysingle piece of ice eats parasite : Eli, Ravens, Popup attracts a lot of parasites too. If not, playing without Quicksands is only a 3c deal vs -1 parasite deal, with my Ravens / Eli / Popup running healthy. I like those for a lot of reasons.

• Sherlock is actually, I think, greater than you think within Sol-TM / Archangels : having codegates & sentries at 50/50% that bounces cards is greater than having codegates bouncing cards alone. Got allready 9 hard etr + 4 soft, sherlock usually finish the job at closing servers (mkay, I’m also in the process of a TM-Sherlockangel personal meta questioning in other decks too - with CP for exemple… This is my current toy let’s say)

• Faust gives me usually +10c : at least a solid 10 because of LARLA, and maybe +10c/+… if I guessed Faust, Wyldside, Pancake, DS’s timings.
  Non complete Anarchs would have money problems usually, whereas completed anarch would have trace & str problems because a lot of ice is rezed (& parasited ? +10c ?) so this is another familly of problem this deck can eventually give to the runner. So because of 2x TM I have not much early problems vs Faust that could be solved by 2x Wraparound.
  I don’t like the idea of semi-teching with Wraparound vs one not-so-problematic full-on-faust deck, that is usually playing corroders.
  A weak ice like Wraparound is dead in any single other matchup. This role is allready played by Quicksands getting counters at a DS (+10c ?) rate and not autorezzing them like a dumbguy. Quicksands also opens great answers for Katman or Calimsha Kate in front of R&D / HQ (8 agendas) with TM set on Ladies or in a Paywall mood.

• With wide scoring window openings this deck gives, Ash is not as crucial as in other decks, but I could try it. I’m not sure what to remove though because that is breaking some of my precious eggs

• I don’t need more cash on top of my more cash allready. Popup are weak spots that cost an ice spot, I don’t like putting more than needed if I don’t really have money problems… With Paywall running as a potential corp desperado, 2 is the number (I tried 3) to make a runner hesitant without sacrificing too much defense.
  “will i give him 2c ?” which is the question you & me always asks himself when seing double popup on a server like R&D. If I want the runner to ask this where I placed Popup, I sumon Paywalls, but 3 is too much I think.

• Dataraven bascially says etr or loose 2c + clic. These are little cheap tollbouth, not “hey gonna scorched U” threats. This is another brick in the plan which is making loosing runner’s credits. If the runner goes tag me, then he’s opening scoring windows with closed accounts. In a GFI deck aka “you have to steal more than me scoring”, this is, okay, very slow, but still winning games.

I don’t pretend it’s T1.5. It’s T2, with many T1.5 moments. Sometimes it can completly shut a game but as of today, I was only steamrolled once I think (Leela yesterday catched me by surprise). Every single runners, archetypes or not, had hard times to crack it.

[Saan]

@anon34370798

Quicksand eats parasite, yes, but not necessary muck more than other ices. In this case, everysingle piece of ice eats parasite : Eli, Ravens, Popup attracts a lot of parasites too. If not, playing without Quicksands is only a 3c deal vs -1 parasite deal, with my Ravens / Eli / Popup running healthy. I like those for a lot of reasons.

The next several games, make careful note how many times Quicksand gets run on and broken (by good players; some people just make bad runs, and you’re probably winning those games anyhow). After you’ve played a bunch of games, see how many times Quicksand got larger than 3 strength, and check how many times Corroder broke it at less than 3 strength. Every time I have mentioned this to someone, and they actually did keep track of it over a large number of games, they switch to Wall of Static.

Ignoring Parasite entirely, it’s still a pretty lack-luster card, even when compared to something as vanilla as ol’ Wall of Static.

[anon34370798]

@Saan I can count this stat and see that you’re right and it’s rarelly over str 2 or even str 1, but I can also count the number of games I had with many consecutive runs on a server, that stop spaming the server after I rezed quicksand.
For now, I’d say it’s around 2 games out of 3 (for decks without a icemelt solution, you can read the card as “for the rest of the game, stop spamming this server allready” - for those with an icemelt, QS are target #0 if I choosed the right server, like IT dep are target #0, etc. For 3c, it’s a cheap diversion to put on the natural runner’s faction central I guess, preventing DS for anarchs and preventing R&D spam for shapers - crim having cg etr on remote to solve).

Counting how many time an ice triggers is not really, to my eyes, the right way to evaluate the role of this barrier : this is a post-gearcheck solution.
“If I run with the right breaker there is still taxing consequences” is the question I want the runner to ask himself. Quicksand for barriers, Tollbouth for codegates and Ravens for sentries. Those 3 ices provoke lazyness, or ask workload.

(I played this deck ~20 times) : Quicksand is the cheapest no inf “punitive” barrier ever made, and the way it’s punishing is in the exact gameplan of this deck - I tried Markus and TMIs and this was not really working

Being disturb to spam runs in a GFI deck is a real problem for the runner, but I’d agree this is not evident to read with the decklist, with those “exotic” cards.

I’d also agree this is not a tournament deck : I think it’s slower than RP and it may be in the same familly, with yellow flavour. I’m not saying it’s T1.5 yet (finding a spot for ashes would maybe acheive that), but I studied the why’s for moderatly long time, and it’s a cute deck to play as of today.

[MasterAir]

If you play in a metagame where 2/3 of runner decks don’t have parasite or knifed, quicksand is a pretty good card. It’s equivalent to Wall of Static with upside against no parasite Shaper. Against Corroder it’s better than WoS the 5th time the runner runs it. (Which probably means that economically it’s worse than WoS, but it has an intangible upside that the runner avoids that server). I struggle to believe there are metagames where so few runners play parasite.

In ‘normal’ metagames where parasite is pretty prevalent, quicksand isn’t very good.

[anon34370798]

@MasterAir I think it’s really simple : most mainstream Crim and Shapers don’t autoinclude parasites anymore
Crim play derez and Shaper, economic alphashot & silver bullets. Anarch plays way too predictible decks for TM and may have eco problems before runing. DR are a problem for Kati jones & MO.
Throwing a 3c wall that gave a #0 problem is no big deal in a 15x eco card deck, or else people would really stop playing trap decks.

Still thinking “it’s cute”, not the alpha and omega of corp deck. I wonder how to find a place for ashes, what weakness it will give, what strenght it will give for 4-6 inf.

I could play a couple of Red Herrings maybe ? “Not being the best card” for the function is not a problem here for me. Red Herrings would be autorezed in any situation, if I’m running Paywalls, and the agenda distribution & taxing ice does necesseraly agree with defendings upgrades at a big cost.

I could try to remove my loved AstroJunebug & the weird RSVP + IT dep for Ash + Red herrings + Interns too. Those are not really critical, but this is removing lot of the fun and wtf moments. And Atman would start to be a problem to worry

I could remove IT, replace RSVP by TL;DR, play a couple of Red Herrings + Interns and find another two things to remove (like TL;DR + something if it is really bad, but I’d like to try it in front of a Bioroids like Sherlock / Elis : I was telling to myself last weekend that this ice would be a great splash for a full bioroid deck).

In non T1 corp decks, you’ll have to stop worrying about the problems of your deck at one point. If my deck still have problems but I have a lot of fun with it, then it’s time for me to expose the list so ppl criticize it (with a lot of truth, like you all did), and start swapping slot to their convenience if they like the base.
But at a given moment, this deck creates problems for mainstream decks like Faust anarchs / Calimsha Kate. It may be not enough, but it’s enough for me. Then I have to back off and expose the deck to ppl science (I can’t help to defend my choices, I think everybody who knows me noticed I’m a very stubborn guy ).

The most interesting matchup and games I had with this deck was vs Headlock Reina. I think it’s somehow early draw luck vs early draw luck that you can change with piloting in both decks. I had two games vs it, and those were really interesting to play at a gaming level. Anyhow, I do not really have problems with it being “only a t2 deck” or, I guess, being steamrolled by Noise that I not played yet.

[Four_Leaf]

I’m going to have to say I agree on most things said here. I do think the Data Raven isn’t as bad as other people seem to think. It’s a good tax since 90% of players clear the tag. even if they have a sucker and mimic it, they still are paying 1 click and 2 credits later.

If you count the total spent on it, that’s 4 credits at minimal worth of taxation from a piece of ice that’s not meant to do anything else in the list other than tax. Is it the optimal slot? Maybe not, is it awful, no.

[ericbtool]

quicksand is a nice card but it requires a particular deck that you are not entirely furnishing. The conflict with your deck is that the only benefit you have for a successful run is a credit. No tags on access, no loss of cards on access, no news team, etc…

The best placement for you currently is HQ since that is the best place for the runner to go early. It creates a decent tax in the early stages of the game and late game your focus will switch to remote+RnD anyways.

The dies to parasite argument is a misnomer in my opinion. Lots of ICE dies to parasite. He loses a Quicksand he keeps a Pop-Up (shrug).

I concur that raven is not so great without the punishment.

The junebug would be so much more better served as an aggressive secretary so if you fit that in that’d be slick.

I don’t mind RSVP but not so much in your deck. If you were running NAPD’s, ASH, or even Red Herrings I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad for gear check with a little extra tax. It’s really just better as enigma IMO.

have fun building!

[ericbtool]

Since we’re all in the sharing mood:

New Angeles Sol: Your News (Data and Destiny)

Agenda (10)
3x AstroScript Pilot Program (Core Set)
1x Project Beale (Future Proof)
3x Improved Tracers (Data and Destiny)
3x Global Food Initiative (Data and Destiny) •••

Asset (6)
3x Marked Accounts (Cyber Exodus)
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves)

Upgrade (4)
3x Red Herrings (Core Set)
1x Cyberdex Virus Suite (Order and Chaos)

Operation (12)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
1x Successful Demonstration (Creation and Control) •
3x Sweeps Week (True Colors)
1x Fast Track (Honor and Profit)
2x Targeted Marketing (The Spaces Between)
2x Lag Time (The Spaces Between)

Barrier (4)
1x Wraparound (Fear and Loathing)
3x Resistor (Data and Destiny)

Code Gate (5)
3x Viper (Cyber Exodus) •••
2x Archangel (Data and Destiny)

Sentry (7)
1x Ichi 1.0 (Core Set) ••
3x Caduceus (What Lies Ahead) ••••• •
3x News Hound (Data and Destiny)

ICE (1)
1x Excalibur (The Source)

15 influence spent (maximum 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Data and Destiny

So this is the latest iteration of my cute little New Angeles Sol project if anyone wishes to give it a run. As mentioned before the concept is mostly glacier. The intention is to have your cheap ICE grow with the state of the game so that they always remain relevant. It is pretty fun to watch your ICE go up by ~2 strength each game in a nice straight-forward manner.

Notes:

Improved Tracers is really cool in this shell. Go ahead and toss it in. If you score it you close the window further. If they score it put in the juicier agenda after taxing them out.

Successful Demonstration was going to work because I was stopping so many people. Then I put it in and the timing is all off…ain’t that some shit. Needs to be restructure again and the influence will probably go back to Eli 1.0. If it does i’ll swap the wraparound or the Excalibur for it.

For now I haven’t used Excalibur but I can still see value with it.

Red Herrings is a beast when you install it, and a cold-fish in RnD. Those slots were San Sans before which I realize sounds better but with clot I successfully scored more agendas with Red than with San San.

Cyberdex Virus Suite is less useful now that I have omitted the San Sans. I still have it for astro-training but there could be a better card. If I make a switch it’ll either be another Fast Track or Interns. Probably Interns just to have a look at it.

Fast Track is great at being able to slap in an agenda at the moment they go broke. It’s a nice security blanket as far as timing goes.

[gumOnShoe]

I need to play this just to know if it works

Its got so many things that I like.