I think I disagree with this analysis. HB’s cards give them the ability to build ridiculous amounts of money (Adonis, Eve, etc.), make the runner pay through the nose (Eli, etc.), and capitalize on the money lead this creates (rezzing big scary ice, huge Ash traces, or maybe even Biotic Labor).
NEXT’s ability is frontloaded, yes. But the faction is otherwise backloaded. ETF decks accept a weak early game in exchange for an absolutely crushing late-game. My deck prefers to give up some of the late-game crushing in exchange for a much stronger early game, ensuring I can always make it to my still-pretty-strong mid and late game. It’s less flashy than an even-bigger glacier out of ETF, or a real rush deck, but I think it can be more consistent.
That said, I will definitely try Fast Track as everyone has suggested, and probably Biotic Labor as well. Capitalizing more on the mid-game openings is something I could definitely be doing better.
Alright, I think there’s room for that idea. Basically, I would look for an ICE package then that is based on 3-4 cost ICE, small enough to be able to regularly rez multiple on a turn, but big enough to have some teeth and taxing enough to keep the runner from getting in every turn. Right now you have a split between gear-check ice and big late game ice, I wouldn’t go quite so bipolar with your ice choice. You also want to keep your tempo from ABT’s and PriReq’s landing meaningful ICE, in my rush deck there was nothing worse than flopping two paper walls with an ABT. The Ice I would look at running are Eli, Viper, Caduceus, TMI, Inazuma or Tollbooth (it’s so good, but it might still be too pricey), Archer, and Rototurret (in some combination, Enigma/Bastion if you want to save some inf. Etc.) but none of these would be disappointing to rez with a PriReq, and all would be solid ABT triggers. I think with all that free rez, you gotta be rocking at least a couple Archers, but maybe that’s just my playstyle.
I think you’re going to want to focus on your tempo, since you’re straddling between being neither RUSH nor Glacier. You want to have the ability to both take it slow and build deep towers against an aggressive runner, but also start rushing against a deck that’s taking it slow. It makes your economy choices a bit trickier, hedging (heh) ~50/50 between burst and long term economy. Melange would probably be a solid include, allowing you to either tap it a couple times and trash it to start scoring, or leave it up behind an Archer or something to use intermittently when you are hard up for creds.
Blue and Green Level Clearance are great for this kind of deck because they’re draw when you want speed, and credits when you want economy. Adonis is an obvious choice, it might take some playtesting to see how often you can get away with Eves.
Thank you for the super useful feedback! I definitely agree that I need to think harder about my ice. And I can’t believe I haven’t experimented with BLC/GLC, that’s a great idea.
I’m playing around with some changes, and I’ll report back about how they do.
The ICE mix for my Next Design is below. It’s a totally different premise - trying to rush and then Fast Advance - but it has a similar idea of mixing very cheap show stoppers alongside more taxing ICE for the centrals. If you’re playing a long game obviously you need to up the taxing strategy. I call my deck “Paper Wall” for a reason!
In NEXT you’re really squeezed for deck space between your agendas and your ice. Other cards have to be really good to make the cut, especially with the huge economy demands of an ice based strategy. I’m not sure Fast Track makes the cut.
It’s two slots used to improve the agenda quality - and that’s something that tends to be pretty important in a rush deck (if you’re running agendas that actually aren’t blank).
You can run one ManUp while exploiting scoring windows for it as if you were running 3 of them. Whether that’s good enough to justify the slots, I don’t know yet (but am planning to find out).
So long as the economy remains solid, it’d be worth it. A game where you score ManUp is a game you’ve probably won, being able to make that MORE games just seems goodly. The only concern’d be a drop in econ – but that’s something that Gila Hands or Profiteering could fix in a way that fits in with Fast Track as well.
I think one of NEXT’s key strengths is in closing down runner decks who rely on successful runs for their economy: Desperado, Dirty Laundry, Account Siphon, Datasucker, Security Testing, Gabe, John Masanori etc.
If you play cheaper gear-check ETR ICE then it makes it much harder for the runner to get their own money going, which in turn means it will take them even longer to get their breakers into play and your early game scoring windows will be larger.
I’m a huge fan of Caduceus and he pulls double duty in NEXT because he is an economy engine as well as being an ETR ICE who still taxes for $2 in the late game once the runner has a full suite.
I’ve found 21 is just enough for what I’m doing. Obviously I would like more, but to fit the fast advance cards and economy in it’s pretty much the max I can get away with.
Yes, to all those changes when the cards get released. However once Lunar Cycle kicks in I think it will become a very different deck anyway. I think a lot will depend on what Domestic Sleepers does as to the direction it goes in.
Well that’s why there is the mulligan. 21 is a little light in NEXT, but luckily 2 installs and 2 draws is still plenty playable. Don’t get wrapped up in going so hard for ICE that your deck can’t do anything else–a lot of NEXT decks wind up being nothing but ICE, money, and agendas–just for that 3 ICE install every game. 21-22 gets it I would have to say, at least 75% of the time.
I’m pretty sure that those ‘sweet spots’ are due to rounding. I think it’s purely diminishing returns, the more ice you put in the less adding one more ICE makes it more likely that you see 3 in the top 5 cards. I haven’t played NEXT design. I’m kind of intrigued after looking at this discussion though.
I personally feel that two ice is the more important number. I will occasionally keep a two-ice hand if the other cards are good. And I’m not unhappy when I mulligan into two ice, unless the hand is bad for other reasons. A four-click tempo boost during your most vulnerable period is still good.
I feel like some of the perceived weakness of NEXT is that its design is a trap. It makes you want to run so much ice you can’t run anything else, makes you want to go all-in on a rush deck, etc. Unfortunately, that doesn’t tend to lead to a good, balanced deck that works with the deckbuilding rules and existing HB cardpool. It might be the case that any good NEXT deck would make a better ETF deck, but let’s not artificially handicap ourselves in the testing process.
Bingo. The whole point to the ability is to play 3 ICE for free, and draw back up. To lose 3 INF for consistently only installing 2 ICE is a failure, IMHO.
I think it’s fine to go heavy on the ICE provided it fulfils other functions. Use the ICE for economy: Caduceus, Pop-up Window, Shadow. Even Archer is only 2 influence!
One of the problems NEXT suffers with is agendas pooling in HQ if you can’t score them out quickly enough, so I actually like going heavier on 5/3 agendas in order to free up more card space. You’re that much safer from early accesses and will slow down the setup of run-based economy, so that offsets the higher variance of runner accesses while giving you more space to play with.
I don’t think that there’s enough influence in NEXT to play the fast advance tricks if you’re going out of faction for decent ICE (which you should be, since it’s the feature of the deck). So I think it lends itself more to a glacier/taxing setup. Make a big remote and protect 5/3s in there with Ash.
I’d probably play 3 x ABT (6), 3 x Prio Req (9) and probably one or more NAPD contracts, depending on my final choice of agenda. Once the fragment/shards come out I think some of them might go in here too.
I dunno. Efficiency Committee helps with installing and using Melanges (which tend to be my biggest source of Econ, personally. An overscored Vitruvius lets you recover from a poor ABT – or just get econ back to your hand when you need it to be there. It’s no Project Atlas, but it’s not terrible, either. Still, three of PriReq might be interesting/worth looking into.
This thread piqued my interest, and I’ve been extensively twiddling with decklists. Though I haven’t played any games yet (I’m busy transitioning to a new job), I’d like to share a few thoughts I have, so feel free to berate the fact that I have no play experience with NEXT since Opening Moves.
First and foremost, I really, really don’t think NEXT Design decks are similar enough to ETF to make the argument that you can use them interchangeably. The lost of 1c per turn is huge, and I feel as though you want cheaper ice in NEXT anyways so that you get full use out of its ability by being able to rez your ice first turn without too great of a hit financially (so less liberal use of Tollbooth and Heimdall). Secondly, such ice (Eli, Viper, etc) lends itself to the midgame best, and less so at lategame once the runner has fully assembled a rig and economic engine. As such, forcing through 5/3’s or 4/2’s through a remote at the end of the game seems impractical in too many cases to warrant their use. Supposing my argument is correct, I think all would agree such a deck would be quite different from a HB glacier such as Red Coats.
I see two cards in particular that thrive in this style of HB deck moreso than in other, more popular archetypes. The first and already discussed is Mandatory Upgrades, and the second is Haas Arcology AI. ManUp is highly conditional, as you need a scoring window of 2 or 3 turns, enough economy to advance and rez ice, and adequate ice to protect it. However, if scored, it all but guarantees the Corp is able to close out the game, so a deck dedicated solely to scoring ManUp quickly may be worth looking into (I’d recommend running 2-3 ManUp and 2 Fast Track). Haas Arcology is interesting in that it’s basically a win-win: the runner either spends resources getting to and trashing it (which is great for HB tax decks and can open up a scoring window), or the runner ignores it and the corp can score 1-2 agendas out of hand over the next couple turns.
I need to get around to playing!
Edit: for a dedicated ManUp build, I’d probably go with 3x Hive, 3x Caduceus for influence or something similar.
Thinking back to PhaseStar’s thread on NEXT, I’m wondering if the critical agenda should be ABT and not ManUp. In his initial experiments he goes to 45 cards just to maximise his ABT chances. Now that Fast Track exists, perhaps that’s an idea worth revisiting?
