New Angeles Sol

Here are some TM targets I thought of in no order of importance. There are more, this is just a general list. Obviously calling them early requires knowledge of decks and reading what you’re up against which is difficult until sometimes turn 2-3.

You’ll see some killers listed here which seem random, but that’s because everyone needs to answer to News Hound either generally with Atman, mimic & sucker (carver for Wooley whizz is an option), or a stealth breaker.

Kate: PPVP, Lucky Find, Sure Gamble, Levy, Breaker they need for your server
Noise: Wyldside, Cache, Clot, Faust, D4vid, Aesop, Lamprey, Medium
DLR: Blackmail (Val), WNP, Fall Guy, siphon
CT Bagbiter: M.Opus, BagBiter, Hyperdriver, Faust, Vamp
ABR Quetzal: Always Be Running, E3, Medium, Ice cutlery
General Stealth: Cloak, Ghost Runner, Lockpick, Switchblade, Dagger
General Criminals: siphon, siphon, siphon, Desperado, Security Testing, Faerie, breaker they need for your server
General Anarchs: D4vid, Liberated, Datasucker, Mimic, Medium, breaker they need for your server
Not sure what to call: Sure Gamble

I saw someone call TM on Levy against a MaxX with two cards in her deck. It was pretty beautiful.

2 Likes

Kate does not like to have SMC / Clone Chip TM’d, in my experience.

3 Likes

I actually think TM is very strong versus Kate. Turn 1 TM for PPVP is pretty good. She really needs her first pad against this deck. After they have 1 PPVP I wouldn’t name it again. TM becomes super flexible in that match up after that. In my 2 games against Kate on Sunday, I named PPVP, Lucky Find, Cyber Cypher, Levy, and Atman. Most of those got me 10c. The Lucky Find actually did not; in the heap were 1 DL, 1 LF, and 1 Gamble; 1 installed PPVP. Kate ended her turn on 1c after paying a bunch and scoring 4pts off a TME. I decided to name Lucky Find. Kate topdecked DL to recover. Dirty Laundry was 100% the better card to name (Archives was unprotected).

tl;dr Don’t forget DL against Kate. My experience so far is that it’s tough to have a spare ICE for Archives to turn it off, and IMO it’s her best recovery tool against this deck for that reason.

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If your ENTIRE ID ability is that they can’t play a certain card (and they still can if they really need to), that’s not a great ID. Yeah, I get that you can name a different card when it resets. I just usually don’t play the card they name and then win because they are playing a blank ID (with news hounds :stuck_out_tongue: ).

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They’re not playing a blank ID if you’re not playing the card they’ve named. That’s kind of the point.

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I was just imagining an alternate reality where New Angeles Sol had a different mechanic.

New Angeles Sol
NBN - 45/15
Before taking your first turn, you may choose a Current outside the game that you own. New Angeles Sol gains the text of that Current.

In this reality, NAS gets less flexibility with more consistency. You no longer have to dedicate card slots to Currents, but you no longer have the option of changing Currents mid-game, or changing TM targets, for example. Cerebral Static means both players play with blank IDs, which is kind of cool. ELP seems pretty oppressive, but it would basically make you RP. Surveillance Sweep becomes much more viable, as do Housekeeping and Paywall. If my thinking is correct, your ‘Current’ is online all game, because of the referential nature of mechanics. The original Current might be ‘trashed’ (impossible since it’s not installed) but the text would remain on your ID.

After thinking about it more, I actually think that it would be a very cool and reasonable ID. No currently released Currents would make it too oppressive. News Hound would be sad, though. It may need a nerf to 45/12.

My deck should be able to win when it doesn’t draw the named card, so it can probably win if I just can’t play it.

Another point is that TM is a very difficult card to test with, because in a blind Swiss round there is a really good chance you will name the totally wrong thing.

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Easy to do if you sacrifice or score a 15 minutes, at that moment of the game.

Did this +/- 3 times vs Faust decks (this is a goal in any match vs this breaker). It’s a reverse Syphon, but with corp credit benefits are say 1.5x better :slight_smile:

That’s because your opponent is stupid and don’t name your fracter. Or your money. Or central keycards.

Not being able to play a card because you don’t draw it is significantly better than drawing a card and not being able to play it because it makes the Corp rich. You don’t the resources wasted in drawing the card for starters.

I think the point about testing is a good one, part of me thinks if you can’t figure out what to name, then you should be able to win more often than not because their deck is a brew. Most brews aren’t good enough, especially against NBN. If it does nothing but supercharge your News Hounds then it’s probably not too bad.

I do like having Paywall Implementation as a 0 cost alternative for when TM really isn’t yielding much.

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That would be pretty cool. Manhunt and Cerebral Static feel a bit too oppressive, though, for this to be realistic. The only reason those currents aren’t as powerful in Sol is the cost of bringing them back in after a score. 2 and 3 creds respectively is not a small price to pay every time the runner steals.

I disagree about Static, since as I mentioned it just means both players IDs are blank. Manhunt could be problematic but I think the low base of the trace prevents it from ever being too oppressive. In the brief time it got played in a few NEH builds, they would rarely boost it so it ended up being a 1 or 2 credit tax on the first run, which is significant but not back breaking. Ah, but I enjoy what-ifs a bit too much

I know I feel really screwed when UWC gets named against my Sunny.

TM has been fairly good to me. Usually it’s just a placeholder until I find a paywall, but against big rigs it can be pretty useful.

The best it has been was against a stealth haley with a 2x tollboth remote and TM on refractor.

I made 80 vs noise by naming cache once. Game got super easy.

3 Likes

Agree to disagree there … static really hurts a lot of runners. It would never fly to be able to blank the runner completely with no way for them to counter. Static as a current isn’t that good, but static as a static ability (no pun) that can’t be turned off by the runner would be devastating for many IDs. Daaaaaang. But yeah, what-ifs aren’t to be dwelt on too much anyway :smiley:

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Sol feels super strong to me. I have been doing a lot of testing with it lately both in person and on Jinteki, against a variety of decks from the straight up jank to world class fine-tunes. Here’s my Current build (lame pun intended):

Solfood aka Fastfood aka ICEcream Parlor
New Angeles Sol: Your News (Data and Destiny)
49 cards (min 45)
15 influence spent (max 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
Cards up to Data and Destiny

Agenda (9)
3x AstroScript Pilot Program (Core Set)
3x Global Food Initiative (Data and Destiny) •••
2x Project Beale (Future Proof)
1x 15 Minutes (Data and Destiny)

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

Upgrade (5)
2x Ash 2X3ZB9CY (What Lies Ahead) ••••
3x SanSan City Grid (Core Set)

Operation (16)
3x Fast Track (Honor and Profit)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
2x Interns (Mala Tempora)
3x Paywall Implementation (The Spaces Between) ••••••
3x Sweeps Week (True Colors)
2x Targeted Marketing (The Spaces Between)

Barrier (3)
1x Wall of Static (Core Set)
2x Wraparound (Fear and Loathing)

Code Gate (8)
2x Archangel (Data and Destiny)
3x Pop-up Window (Cyber Exodus)
3x Tollbooth (Core Set)

Sentry (5)
1x Architect (Up and Over) ••
1x Assassin (Data and Destiny)
3x News Hound (Data and Destiny)

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

Breakdown

First, credit to @TheBigBoy for the build he and his wife worked on and props to them for repping ANR at one of my local LGSs (Mead Hall!). Their build is the basis of this deck and my starting point while I was building and testing. Also, I took some ideas from @gumOnShoe and his version. Furthurmore, I took ideas from the thread too. Basically, full disclosure, 70-80% of this deck is just a mashing of various ideas together. Here’s why I think it works:

Agendas
I think the suite I have here is the best in the game for Glacier. There’s a lot of reasons why…

First and foremost, the density is super low at 9, of which they have to find 4 of those. Since 15 Minutes just goes right back in if it isn’t the last one, there’s pretty much only 8 they can reliably steal. With 3x Food, those are all worth just 2 to them, meaning total number of reliably available points is just 16.

Second, Beale increases the density JUST for you, giving you essentially 22 available points to score. If you have two Astro scored, you can NA it for 3 points and the third score for the win, or you can IAA it and score normally without them. Even better, it can just do the normal FA out of hand score with a single Astro or a rezzed SanSan.

Third… Food. Oh my Jackson, this card is stupid. Especially in this deck.It is chance 3-5 to a 3 score win (the first two being Beale), gives slots, lowers density, and can be scored in a variety of ways; Duel Astro, Astro SanSan, IAA, or IA on a SanSan. Big, beefy points with no risk.

Last thing I want to mention is NAPD. Yes. It is missing. If Film Critic was not a card, and if Val were not so popular at the moment, it would get a slot. As is, FC ignores the tax and Val makes them take 5 advances to score. If I’m going to do that, I’d rather get 3 points on a Beale.

Assests
Our Lord and Savior, although he’s not always needed at 3x. He can be used aggressively to just shuffle back in non-trashables like Sweeps or Hedge, or as remote running bait.

Upgrades
This might be blasphemy for the Paywall deck, but Ash is underwhelming unless credit lead is amazing. Still, he’s a low-ish influence way to lock down a remote with decent stack of ICE.

SanSan is the star here, because of course it is.These are bait if remote ICE stack is big enough or or installed turn before score, depending on matchup. Even though Wizard gets them out at a discount, he has to run that stack.

Missing is Cyberdex. It isn’t here because the deck has the ICE to just score agendas behind. If they interrupt the score, no big because they still have to run a fat stack of ICE most of the time.

Operations
Fast Track is a beast, and this card alone allows me to effortlessly transition between FA, Glacier, or Rush. A secure a SanSan remote with a decent stack of ICE and the Astrotrain choochoos out of deck. Also, screws up any R&D lock plans.

Interns allows cheap, influence free SanSan recursion OR a bigger remote stack if the installs start becoming 3-5 credits for the next piece of ICE.

The rest is pretty standard.

ICE
Pretty standard suite here too. Wall of Static might need to become something else, but the choices aren’t really great. Another Wraparound might not be a bad idea. Other options that might be worthwhile are Mother Goddess or Resistor.

Changes to Test
-2 Ash, -1 Paywall, -1 Architect & +2 Caprice, +1 Predictive Algorithm, +1 Guard. This would give the deck a better remote lock. Still maintains 5 Currents for News Hound, which is just about right, and Guard lends to Rush potential.

Same cuts as above, add Grail ICE. The Ashes could become Will o’ Wisp and ICE would change to fit in 3x Galahad, 3x Merlin, 2x Lancelot, 1x Excalibur. Paywall might not be as good in this one.

Closing/Overall Thoughts
You might be thinking: Why is this better than Foodcoats? Also: Why is this better than NEH?

The answer is that it isn’t. Not at what those respective decks do. HB is better at taxing and locking remotes for cheap, and NEH is faster. They are just plain better in their respective niches. The thing this deck DOES have is versatility. It can Rush, it can FA, and it can Glacier up. Better yet, it can do this depending on gamestate and matchup.

Sol is one of the better IDs to do this style of NBN in simply because it can keep up Paywall for turning the Runner’s own tempo to your advantage AND because you get to use News Hound. That card is a little badass with how cheap and taxing it is.

4 Likes

Nice Work. I think not running 2-3 Elis in a Glacier deck has got to be a mistake though. When I played Sol and Making News he was by far the best ICE in the deck. I’d rather have 2 Elis than 1 Architect.

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You’re not wrong, but the next iteration I am leaning on trying is the Caprice build I mentioned under Changes to Test. He doesn’t really fit in that one. Should it prove to be a poor use of influence, I might try the posted build with -1 Architect, -1 Wall of Static, +2 Eli.