[NEXT Design] Making It Work

Deck Archetypes
182

Oh fair enough, 3-6 clicks makes complete sense. Sorry, I missed your explanation up above.

183

12 Influence looks like enough influence to me. Has anyone tried it? HB’s not exactly missing econ/ice/or agendas. So I don’t see a reason to not get just tricks with your inf.

184

yeah I considered taking that into account as well

185

I tried to make a NEXT rush deck pretty recently. It was OK. Then I played the same deck out of ETF and it was way better. It’s just a worse ID than ETF and I don’t think there’s some trick we’re missing.

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186

As I said in the imaginary card thread, if they had made NEXT Design so that you always got the full benefit of its ability (the first 3 times you install a piece of ICE each game, gain a click and draw a card), it might actually compete with EtF, as it would be capable of some very interesting and potentially strong rush strategies revolving around SfMM as a replacement early game Biotic for cheap.

As it stands though, I don’t see why you just don’t use EtF unfortunately. Getting a free credit every turn of the game is just so good in general, that for another HB ID to see play, it has to be very build specific (see Twins Foundry or CI sillyness or MAYBE something out of CB if there’s ever a combination of 22 influence that you can spend that just breaks something), which is unfortunate.

Random tangent, this is why I think NBN has some of the best ID design on the corp side. None of their IDs are always useful no matter what you’re building like EtF is. I mean, NEH comes the closest, but if you aren’t running very asset heavy, it doesn’t do too much for you…but no matter what your deck is trying to do, you have to install things.

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187

This brew is tested and works. It’s simple, but not FA, it trashes programs and flatlines, it wins against Kate. May have problems with Valencia, but it’s a rush deck after all, so you can simply be faster.
Other options - Biotic/Domestic Sleepers as a finisher or 3 pointers, but they’re probably better in glacier decks. I may actually put more Efficiency Committees.

NEXT Design: Guarding the Net (Creation and Control)

Agenda (10)
3x Accelerated Beta Test (Core Set)
1x Efficiency Committee (Creation and Control)
3x NAPD Contract (Double Time)
3x Project Vitruvius (Cyber Exodus)

Asset (4)
2x Aggressive Secretary (Core Set)
2x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves)

Upgrade (4)
2x Ash 2X3ZB9CY (What Lies Ahead)
2x Corporate Troubleshooter (Core Set)

Operation (12)
3x Blue Level Clearance (Fear and Loathing)
3x Green Level Clearance (A Study in Static)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
3x Restructure (Second Thoughts)

Barrier (7)
3x Eli 1.0 (Future Proof)
3x Galahad i[/i]
1x Wraparound (Fear and Loathing)

Code Gate (6)
3x Enigma (Core Set)
3x Merlin (All That Remains)

Sentry (6)
3x Architect (Up and Over)
3x Lancelot (First Contact)
12 influence spent (max 12)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to All That Remains

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

188

Looks solid. One remark - with 19 ice these are your odds:

2 ice starting hand (19/49)
First try 0.6522069512
After mulligan (no mandatory draw) 0.8790399952

3 ice starting hand (19/49)
First try 0.2881260737
After mulligan (no mandatory draw) 0.4932355131

Not sure I like them.

189

Yeah. 23 is the sweet spot here IMO.

190

12% of not having at least two ICEs in your before-start hand is a gamble this deck is willing to take.

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191

I think this is a good point to keep in mind with NEXT. I personally ran 22 when I was playing with it but I felt that it was a mistake to think that the point was to maximize the ICE you install early at the sacrifice of the deck’s flow. Ultimately it’s a rush deck that prizes early set up so much that it’s more important than EtF’s incredible economy boost. In my experiment, I wanted to get ICE on the board almost mostly because I wanted to get that extra early draw to draw into more sweeps weeks and hedge funds. In this case, you get to draw into some clearances and hedge funds and keep your rush rushing.

The problem I had with NEXT is that there isn’t much reason for the runner to try and match your rush. I think Efficiency Committee is probably the ICE I would least want to let them score, but ultimately HB doesn’t gain much by scoring agendas.

192

This is why I like the Mushin NEXT deck so much.

Triple-advanced Vitruvius gives you incredible choice later on. You can ABT at next to no risk, you can can pull back econ cards or Jackson, you can grab the NEXT Ice they parasite for extra installs… it pulls so much work.

Or scoring an ABT from the get-go if you’ve got interns or Jackson in hand, not quite as safe but still safer than in many other situations.

EffComm is pretty obvious in terms of value, but the deck also runs an Eden Shard (nice for building big servers without ETF’s ability) and PriReq (nice to turn on other bits of NEXT Ice, though I long to replace it whenever HB gets a decent 5/3, even Utopia Shard is tempting since there’s no Ash for taxing).

So I really think it depends on which agendas you’re running and how you’re trying to score them. Regular advancing tends to leave little room for over-advancement on Vitruvius or to recover from a misfire on ABT before the Runner has the chance to do so themselves.

Of course, it only works because the deck also runs Overwriters and Junebugs (and Aggressive Secretaries, but that’s less relevant early). So there’s a lot of influence dedicated to just making this plan work, but I think it works very well by and large.

193

For this option, why are you in NEXT? It seems almost anti-synergistic since you’re going to be throwing ICE from your hand, whereas to get Mushin to work you’ll need another piece in hand to throw onto the Mushin’d server when you’re done. It seems like since NEXT doesn’t help with the Mushin play much, you’d actually get some benefit from EtF by gaining a credit when you play Mushin.

Unless you’re using NEXT’s early rush to get an economy remote started, I can’t see why NEXT is helping your Mushin play.

When I was playing NEXT, I would regularly install-advance ABT while holding a jackson in hand so I had the opportunity to recover if it blew up. I also did this with Vitruvius to overadvance but it was a BIG mistake. Investing a click and a credit early to maybe get something nice back late in a rush deck was disastrous for me as I got torn to pieces once the stealth andy deck got set up. I’m sure it works better with Mushin, though, since you’re not setting yourself back.

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194

Because you can do this turn one or two due to having centrals protected, which other IDs can’t risk doing due to the tempo hit. That’s synergistic, right there. You don’t always need to protect a Mushin server, either, because most runners get wary about it. Not all of 'em, but even good ones will. After all, on turn one, do you want to risk a flatline or otherwise losing that hand you decided to keep? To safely run a Mushin against this deck, you either need to: break my economy (which having cheap ice out already makes difficult) or draw up to 6 (which takes the full turn plus the run if you want to install ANYTHING).

This isn’t a glacier deck. It’s a gear-check rush deck, which is something NEXT does really well.

[quote=“linuxmaier, post:193, topic:1212”]
When I was playing NEXT, I would regularly install-advance ABT while holding a jackson in hand so I had the opportunity to recover if it blew up. I also did this with Vitruvius to overadvance but it was a BIG mistake. Investing a click and a credit early to maybe get something nice back late in a rush deck was disastrous for me as I got torn to pieces once the stealth andy deck got set up. I’m sure it works better with Mushin, though, since you’re not setting yourself back.
[/quote]Yeah, Mushin helps with the econ woes and makes the whole thing less of a risk. It suuucks to try and take advantage of these agendas normally. Mushin makes it a lot more doable, because you get most of another turn to either nab the overadvance or deal with the fallout.

Realizing that I might have found this decklist elsewhere, so I’m going to do a write-up for it, I guess. Really wish I could remember where the original was from, I think London? I’ll ask my roommate if he knows.

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195

Ah, I see; that does make sense. You definitely move your Mushin turn forward a turn and a half or so by being in NEXT. I guess I’m not sure what that gains you, though; if your Mushin is meant to be frightening on its own, is it really going to be less frightening in a turn or two? Or if you do intend to protect the Mushin, will you actually have the ICE around? Can you check my intuition about a good turn?:

Play 2-3 ICE on HQ&RnD and possibly a remote/archives, then draw into some burst economy and spend turn 1 gaining cash (maybe 2 hedge or a 1 hedge 1 BLC or whatever?). Rez cheap NEXT/gear check ICE against central attacks if neccessary and then on turn 2 you Mushin (drawn into by opening hand/NEXT draws/BLC) anything Mushin-able and then advance 1 or ICE depending on how you’re feeling.

Does that sound right? If so, I guess I’d have to play it to get a feel for what you’re aiming to get. I practiced a bit of NEXT and it seemed quite strong to me (as I said, the problem is that scoring agendas doesn’t help the Rush like it does in Weyland or NBN), but I don’t see how Mushin would help the problems I was having.

196

Mushin NEXT

NEXT Design: Guarding the Net (Creation and Control)

Agenda (9)

Asset (5)

Operation (15)

Barrier (9)

Code Gate (8)

Sentry (2)

Other (1)

12 influence spent (max 12)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Spaces Between

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

It’s certainly not finished, but I like it a lot. Only 20 Ice, but that’s usually worked out okay with getting a couple for the centrals T0.

It’s still pretty aggressive, though I’ve moved it slightly toward a more midrangey build over time, kinda unintentionally. Probably going to try and bring it back in a bit. It can score from almost no credits, and the only things that cost more than 4 are the Hedge Funds.

The overall plan is to just try and push the runner as much as possible. Mushin without protecting it Turn One if you like (particularly nice if you draw a Hedge Fund as well). Biotic out an ABT for 5 credits with a Shipment. Make the runner pop their SMCs early and push their speed limit as much as possible.

The original decklist was [TWA] NEXT aggression v:1.4 · NetrunnerDB, it ran 45 cards, with -1 Mother Goddess, -1 Enigma, -1 Rototurret, -1 Aggressive Secretary, -1 Adonis Campaign, -2 Walls of Static, -1 Jackson Howard, +1 Shipment from SanSan, +1 Guard, +2 Blue Level Clearance. There’re another change, apparently, but I can’t find it with the Mk. 1 Eyeball, so until I get Net-Ready Eyes you’ll have to find it yourself, alas.

I found that 45 cards, despite the “rush” aspect, led to R&D death too frequently for my liking. As noted, the original deck loses hard to aggressive runners without Junebug, which I wasn’t a huge fan of. The lack of AggSec as a way to turn off the runner’s rig felt like a glaring omission, especially against Criminal and their limited recursion, and not having an Adonis meant that an unadvanced install become more conspicuous, which is never ideal.

I added the Jackson only recently, because as amazing as SfSS is, it was sitting dead in my hand too often as I waited to try and score EffComm first or get a Biotic to cheaply FA something, and had limited recursion when I couldn’t overadvance Vitruvius (which is a pretty common thing with Mushin, but by no means a guarantee). So the one-of Jackson helps there, despite making R&D a bit more porous. Being able to have another way to recover from ABT is nice (would’ve sworn I ran interns, but nope, that was my older list before the Mushining). Also makes Parasite a bit less of an awful thing to deal with, which NEXT ice often struggles with (although Quandary and Rototurret help take the brunt of it).

I honestly don’t remember taking out the Blue Levels, and thought I still had 3. Wondering if they got swapped to another deck sometime. Definitely going to take at least one back, perhaps in place of a Biotic Labour or WoS. Drawing through the deck quickly is important, you want to press the early advantage as much as possible.

It’s a weird deck, I won’t lie. I take a lot of risks with it I normally wouldn’t, but it’s been doing well for me against PPVP Kate and Leela. Siphon Recursion CT gave it some trouble recently (largely because I wasn’t expecting it from CT for some reason, though I think an opener with Opus, 2 SMCs, and a Siphon is hard to handle as most any Corp), but I could’ve played around it better in retrospect. Eddie Kim is a menace, but that’s nothing new, and is relatively easy to lock out early on anyway.

The reason for it to be in NEXT over ETF honestly is just that one and a half turns you save with the set-up. The NEXT and AggSec help a little bit if you get dragged into a longer game, but ideally you want to be aiming to score out ASAP, before the runner can get set up sufficiently. (Biotic and SfSS help there, too, with scoring 5/3s without giving away that it’ll be a game-winning score.)

Side note: I often toy with the list slightly, popping in an Overwriter or taking something else out, largely to make Junebug a less reliable assumption. Overwriter isn’t as ideal, but it makes an IAA Junebug a viable kill, so that’s always fun.

Other note: NEXT Gold costs too much for this list. I’m tempted every so often by the thought of a one-of, but I rarely have 8 credits to spend on something that won’t ETR. Still, it might be worth a try in place of one of the Rotos, I guess.

[quote=“linuxmaier, post:195, topic:1212”]
if your Mushin is meant to be frightening on its own, is it really going to be less frightening in a turn or two?[/quote]Not nearly as much, in my experience. Runners are very disinclined to lose their opening hand, and if they do then it sets them back significantly. It does depend a bit on the runner and their build, admittedly (Andy doesn’t care much, for instance, so I’d try to hold back a turn or two until I can ice things against her). But PPVP Kate, for instance, usually wants to play things and set-up on her first turn, losing 6-8 cards is a hefty blow – manageable with Diesel or Quality Time, maybe, but still painful. It’s not just the flatline risk, it’s the risk of hamstringing the runner’s ability to develop a favourable board position.

[quote=“linuxmaier, post:195, topic:1212”]
Play 2-3 ICE on HQ&RnD and possibly a remote/archives, then draw into some burst economy and spend turn 1 gaining cash (maybe 2 hedge or a 1 hedge 1 BLC or whatever?). Rez cheap NEXT/gear check ICE against central attacks if neccessary and then on turn 2 you Mushin (drawn into by opening hand/NEXT draws/BLC) anything Mushin-able and then advance 1 or ICE depending on how you’re feeling.
[/quote]Certainly not a BAD first turn, but not the most ideal. If possible (depending on what else is in my hand at that point) I might prefer to Mushin immediately and then either play an econ card, click for a credit, or either ice or advance the Mushin target (again depending on draw pretty heavily).

Yours is a more realistic and sane option, and one that is definitely the right move if you don’t hit your Mushin + target out of the gate. By turn 2, generally I’m able to Mushin something, and in those cases your plan is pretty ideal, yeah.

In retrospect, also, the local meta is perhaps a bit weak to this kind of deck. There’s a lot of slower, glacier-y corp builds around (including another NEXT) and most runners are more midrangey to compensate. On the aggressive side of that, for sure, but PPVP Kate is probably the most outright aggressive deck around (other than occasionally Qimpossible Quetzal), and that still wants a turn to set up before busting down all the doors, usually.

[quote=“linuxmaier, post:195, topic:1212”]
I guess I’d have to play it to get a feel for what you’re aiming to get. I practiced a bit of NEXT and it seemed quite strong to me (as I said, the problem is that scoring agendas doesn’t help the Rush like it does in Weyland or NBN), but I don’t see how Mushin would help the problems I was having.
[/quote]I do think it’s a lot of fun, but it’s also a very different kind of NEXT deck. Think I communicated poorly a bit, meant “this is why I like Mushin NEXT” as just that, not as an indicator that it’d solve everything.

But Mushin’d HB agendas really do help rush, believe me. 3-4 Vitruvius counters lets you grab agendas safely, or just keep on slamming BLC/GLC until you hit whatever else you need. It lets you ABT (more) safely which can provide a pretty huge tempo and economy boost, in my experience. It lets you score in general without losing out to Leela some, and provides an easy way to trick the runner into a kill.

Also, there’s nothing as fun as asking an out-of-towner “Cards in hand?” at the end of their turn vs NEXT and watch them drop a Plascrete because “why the fuck does he keep asking me that?” apparently overrides influence counting sometimes.

197

Right. But there is a little more to it. Do you keep 2 ice but otherwise crappy hands? If not, your odds get a lot worse.

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198

You mention Leela a few times, which is my running of choice right now. I can’t help but thinking that any reasonable starting hand for Leela would make for a very hard game. In your ideal start, for instance, you’re Mushin + Econ for T1 after icing HQ and RnD via the ability. If I’m Leela in that situation, I get to either play for aggression (if I’ve got 2 breakers in hand, run HQ to get you to rez then install and siphon/legwork/regular run to fish for another agenda to bounce the remote or just improvrish you to get the remote the normal way) or build state to take advantage of your next scoring turn, where you’re either leaving yourself very vulnerable or you’re spending clicks to recover state after the agenda score, possibly robbing yourself of vitruvius counters.

Are your Leela players mostly Logos Leela? My aggressive Leela loves poor rush decks (EtF rush is a nightmare, though) because I can really leverage Siphon to open up the board.

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199

As long as people are trying the identity out I’ll just leave this here…

Grail IT (49 cards)
NEXT Design: Guarding the Net
– Agenda (10 cards)
3 Accelerated Beta Test
1 Efficiency Committee
3 NAPD Contract
3 Project Vitruvius
– Asset (11 cards)
3 Adonis Campaign
2 IT Department
3 Jackson Howard
3 Melange Mining Corp.
– ICE (22 cards)
3 Architect
3 Galahad
3 Lancelot
3 Merlin
1 Mother Goddess
3 NEXT Bronze
3 NEXT Gold
3 NEXT Silver
– Operation (6 cards)
3 Hedge Fund
3 Restructure

It is not my current build however I found this to be quite effective. IT department is not the objective however if the opportunity presents itself it’s game ending… no really… in casual play people just give up and say let’s try again. Nobody enjoys playing against it, which is why I moved on from it not because it wasn’t good. However if you don’t care about people’s enjoyment and are competitive/selfish/and just want to win! By all means!

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200

Yeah, this was one of two main IT builds when people were first out proving that card was nuts, right? NEXT seemed like a perfect home for that. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have money to pay for taxing ICE if you can make sure Rototurret is going to fire if the runner ever attacks it again.

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201

I was as surprised as anyone to see myself doing well against Leela, but they were both pretty aggressive in terms of build at the tournament. Got one to run into an Aggressive Secretary after seeing him pitch a passport (having Zu already on the table) making him dig for his other Rex and the replacement Corroder and giving me time aplenty to score out despite his initial lead from my scoring an early triple-vitruvius (with HQ Ice rezzed already, was happy to risk R&D). The other I don’t recall as well, I think I was able to rez enough NEXT Ice to tax him hardish even on Archives and ended up taking the lead with a lucky ABT (with Jackson or Vitruvius available as protection if it went wrong), something like a Roto and NEXT Silver.

The thing with NEXT ice is that rezzing them early is much less of a cost to me than other things would be. So long as I can afford it, even if you can break in I’m not entirely out of luck, and with an econ boost T1 I can often keep a credit post-siphon to land a Junebug. And because I’m more inclined to keep rezzing, it’s a bit harder to get the bounces later on.

Losing the extra advance on Vitruvius sucks, yeah, but any Vitruvius counters are great, even just one or two, especially when I save credits in the process. I’ll take two and use my last click to recover and be pretty happy about it as often as not.

It might’ve been luck, but I’ve worn about 70% of games against Leela, including against players somewhat better than me. Not saying it’s undefeatable, obviously, but I’m well aware I’m not a high-end player and this deck has allowed me to punch above my weight class as often as not.

But it’s worth noting that I switch around to building 2-3 deep centrals as soon as I can, once the initial burst is over with and I’ve drawn more ice, and that helps a lot against decks that want to run in heavily. Not a 100% thing, but with Mushin timing and SfSS making for happier IA play of 3/2s, Leela seems like a much less frightening matchup overall than I expected her to be, at least (though having her call my bluff click one after having killed the same person on a Junebug the last time we’d played in the same way was… less fun, bounced my HQ ice, siphoned me, removed tags, not ideal).

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