[NEXT Design] Making It Work

3x Silver goes in for a Roto and two Paper Walls. Goddess stays at home, not a fan.

Um, why exactly would I want to rez all my ICE first turn? Barring blind Siphon + Indexing incidents, of course. My usual policy of not rezzing until relevant still applies, even though I got free installs… this is incidentally the reason why successful demonstration is so good here. It turns an ice wall rez on a blind scouting run from a mistake (giving out free info) into an actual, decent econ play (hedge fund look-alike!).

If you NEED to rez something, it’s for ETR purposes… and those pieces are all cost 4 or less. So yeah, I can always afford first turn rezzes that I actually need :slight_smile:

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Totally. Attempting to rez all your ICE first turn kills your speed advantage by losing you all of your money. The point is that a) you can rez anywhere if you have to and b) you’ve saved a turn and a bit getting to that point.

And I agree Demonstration is ridiculous early on in this deck - more so in your version I think. In mine you often had the problem that the turn you were able to play a Demonstration was the turn that you needed to score the ABT/Committee you had put down the previous turn. One of the big lessons of mine was when I couldn’t put Green Level Clearance in (not physcially owning the card) so have to use Demonstration instead. It speeded it up no end.

EDIT: I’m not personally a fan of Inzamu in this sort of build. It did try it (aiming to put it over Ichi on R&D or ontop of an ETR on the remote). But getting it in the first five really sucked and with so much of my ICE vulnerable to parasite I was often giving the runner a two for the price of one offer on ICE destruction.

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Rezzing everything perhaps the wrong phrase. More what I meant: Do you try to score an Agenda straightaway from a remote server? If so, do you think you’ll be able to rez to protect it if you also have to rez to handle Indexing/Siphon? Not the most probable, admittedly, but giving away multiple accesses always worries me – still, something I should try with my own NEXT Deck, perhaps that’ll make it play better. (My most common opponent is Gabe, so I’m used to having to rez HQ to slow him down, which maybe isn’t so essential against other IDs as much).

I’m curious about not being a fan of the Goddess. She didn’t seem ideal to me, at first, but having another piece of NEXT Ice seems beneficial overall in getting Bronze out of Yog range faster, even if she goes from impenetrable to just simple tax Ice.

Swapping GLC for Successful Demonstration and popping in a couple SfSSs are the two big changes that I really like the look of. I’m hesitant to swap away from a Melange economy, myself, since a couple of turns of it makes everything so much easier, but I’ll toy around with my list, taking inspiration from yours, and see what comes of it.

Reading between the lines of what @spags has posted here and elsewhere, he does because he’s a playtester. Us mere mortals have to wait.

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Makes sense, and much obliged.

I mean, that Domestic Sleepers isn’t likely to be NEXT-oriented given that we’re getting NEXT Silver (and Mother Goddess, I guess) is fairly obvious, but I was curious if I was missing a spoiler somewhere.

I am hoping this means it is the first 2/0 agenda like I want. :wink:


I honestly don’t understand the appeal of Mushin No Shin, he seems like anti synergy with NEXT’s ability.

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The way I use it in this deck is a stack of:

  • Inazuma
  • Ichi / Rototurret
  • ETR ICE
  • server contents

(eventually, I’ll be adding another ICE on top of it, to eat Inside Jobs… but that usually isn’t necessary until after the Inazuma is rezzed already)

That way, I get both flexibility in choosing which ICE to have Inazuma trigger onto, depending on what’s best in the current situation (this particularly applies to situations where I can rez either the Ichi or the ETR, but not both), and also gives a bit more resilience to the Parasite issue you mention. It means I have to hold Inazuma in hand for a bit, but that’s ok - I’m running enough ICE so that I never really have to use it sub-optimally.

Generally speaking, I’m playing NEXT to get an extra pseudo-turn of fortifying centrals (not necessarily to rush out an agenda on turn 2 or whatever). Won’t be going for a remote play unless I can afford it (without compromising my position afterwards too much). People playing “rush decks” often literally forfeit the game by trying to rush-score before they’re ready for the follow-up turns (and the runner’s response). This might work for Astroscript because of how ridiculous that particular effect is, but with other agendas that doesn’t work so much.

So, yeah - not going for scoring plays until I know the runner won’t be able to punish me too hard for it. I might be willing to eat an Indexing or a Siphon to get EC scored, but not both.

She’s a Rainbow that will also be a Destroyer and a Tracer. I mean… really? For 4 credits? With one sub? That doesn’t seem worth the buff to the NEXT pieces I’ll have rezzed. I will be of course testing her once she comes out, in her actual card pool - hard to properly evaluate now.

edit: Preliminary testing is done. Unfortunately, the ManUp version is tier 1.5 at best. Why oh why isn’t ManUp a 5/2 like Fetal? That would have been so much better. Could have even been a 5/1 for all I care, but the 2 full turns of advancing just kill the poor thing. I’m most definitely not going to run Biotics just to get that stupid thing scored in 2 turns! :stuck_out_tongue:

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Yeah I think we’re going to have to see how Lunar shakes out with those Grail ICE. As it is, NEXT is the only, ONLY, positive subtype (I mean, you could argue that like destroyer is positive in what it implies, but certainly not for HAVING that type branded to it), so I agree that Goddess is a hard sell. And what if NEXT ice get their own dedicated breaker ala gingerbread? It can only get so much better without some counterplay getting introduced into the mix, right?

BUT, with Grail (or other subtypes that the corp can interact positively with), having a wildcard ICE like Goddess becomes more valuable, making it easier to double dip with those strategies. Also, if you can reveal her* from hand to add the ETR to a grail ice…that’s a thing.

NEXT Ice getting a dedicated breaker, especially before Mythic Ice, and even MORE especially before NEXT Gold, is all but certain not to happen.

Even if it does, no one would run it, because only HB runs NEXT Ice in the first place, and all of them have other subtypes. It really doesn’t make sense to design one unless we get Next Platinum and some way for EVERYONE to run NEXT stuff. I mean, Gingerbread doesn’t see play, and everyone at least can run Tracer Ice.

Also, Goddess doesn’t overlap with Grail in any meaningful way – Galahad does the same as you think Goddess could in-hand (Goddess can’t), and can reveal more Grail stuff where Goddess can’t.

You can not reveal Mother Goddess from hand as a Grail Ice, because while it is in your hand the effect that would give her grail is not active. Similarly, you can not Bioroid Efficiency an unrezzed Mother Goddess when you have a rezzed Bio-roid ice.

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So, I’ve been thinking about where to take the Next deck next (hah), and I see two options:

  • Admit defeat re: ManUp. Keep the EffCom, swap in another 2-pointer. With the amount of ICE floating around, probably ABT (although the recursion is limited and click-intensive, so probably don’t trigger unless really needed)
  • Decide to be stubborn and put in support for ManUp. This means fitting in Biotics, which means dropping either the SfSS, or probably the BLC… though I’ll openly admit I don’t like how this approach takes out a fair bit of the econ.

After musing on this a bit, I think the version I like best is:

Drop EC, drop SfSS. Put in ABT, put in Biotics. Use the 3 Inf to put in Wraparound (taking the slots that will eventually be occupied by NEXT Silver).

What would that list look like? I’d like to provide input, but need a more visual starting point.

The NEXT Manly Beta-Testers

NEXT Design: Guarding the Net (Creation and Control)

Agenda (9)
3x Accelerated Beta Test (Core Set)
3x Mandatory Upgrades (What Lies Ahead)
3x Project Wotan (Creation and Control)

Operation (16)
2x Archived Memories (Core Set)
3x Biotic Labor (Core Set)
3x Blue Level Clearance (Fear and Loathing)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
2x Reclamation Order (Double Time)
3x Successful Demonstration (Creation and Control)

Barrier (8)
3x Ice Wall (Core Set) •••
2x Wall of Static (Core Set)
3x Wraparound (Fear and Loathing) •••

Code Gate (6)
3x Inazuma (Honor and Profit) ••••• •
3x NEXT Bronze (Opening Moves)

Sentry (8)
3x Ichi 1.0 (Core Set)
3x Ichi 2.0 (Creation and Control)
2x Rototurret (Core Set)

Other (2)
2x Chimera (Cyber Exodus)

12 influence spent (max 12)
21 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Honor and Profit

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I think my biggest question here is, do you think you’re getting full use out of ManUp here? I understand you’re having trouble with agenda flooding early, since you’re basically drawing up more of your deck, but having 6 agendas that require 5-6 advancements is going to make life hell for you. The best use of ManUp I’ve seen is the ability to score the rest of your agendas out of hand for the duration of the game (I think of it like SuperAstroscript), plus its synergy with Melange and the upcoming Eliza’s Toybox. It’s going to do very little for you here in scoring those Wotans (unless you have very little intention of scoring them?). With ManUp used in the type of deck to which I’m referring, Archived Memories isn’t as necessary (I’d run just one Reclamation Order), and you can utilize reshuffling abilities such as Jackson Howard or even (dare I say it) Rework.

My other question pertains to ice choice. Destruction + gearcheck is totally viable, but we also want to at least consider cheap taxation, such as Viper and Eli, since HB has the best cheap taxing ice in the game. This would allow you to incorporate Hive, which would be fantastic at scoring an early ManUp.


Also (this isn’t really directed towards you) keep in mind Biotic Labor and ManUp work well together, though you wouldn’t think so at first glance. It allows ManUp to be scored off the table in two turns rather than three. It allows you to score 4/2s out of hand, such as NAPD Contract. Finally, it means you can Fast Track a 3/2 and score it out of hand in the same turn.

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ManUp + 3-advance agendas works, if you draw ManUp first (or at least early). But, if it doesn’t, you just end up horribly flooded… even more so in a deck like this. To be completely honest, I’ve tinkered a 3x ManUp / 3x ABT / 3x Vitruvius / 2x Gila setup just last week and the results were underwhelming - with NEXT, you just get agenda-choked to hell in like 60% of games. To me it seems like 9 agendas is definitely the way to go here, just maybe not the 9 agendas I’m currently running :smiley: If I were to change it, I would be tempted to go for an 8-agenda package and Punitives. That would probably require even more econ, though… which seems like the start of a vicious circle.

In testing, my particular agenda spread hasn’t been much of an issue. Or rather, the games I lost I don’t think would have been winnable with a different spread, either. Sample size is still small, though.

Cheap taxation: I don’t like Viper. At all. It’s a piece of ICE that just doesn’t work well, in my experience - I don’t like the cost/strength ratio (especially considering how uncertain and vulnerable to link the subs are). It’s a fine piece for Making News, and actually becomes pretty strong with ChiLo (for whatever that’s worth :wink: )… but that’s a topic for another day. In HB, if I want a taxing code gate, Viktor 2 usually gets the job.

Eli is taxing, until you meet someone with a Morning Star. Morning Star is everywhere, so Eli loses a lot of appeal (and Hive even more, for the same reason). Also, it’s yet another piece of ICE I’d rather not see in my opening hand in this particular deck (because it’s not hard ETR), thus amplifying the ID’s issues. There are nine pieces that are pretty taxing already (the Ichis and the Inazumas), and they also fulfill other roles.

One of the things I liked about running Melange and Gila Hands, personally, was the ability to spend most of most turns building up wealth to play out vast quantities of Agendas, while letting mandatory draws pull them into hand. The big issue there being R&D lock, obviously – and to make having that much money worth it, usually including bigger Ice… which then itself necessitates getting more money before it can be rezzed, making more semi-unviable turn zero plays.

EDIT: Also, if Eli is too useless due to Morning Star, why NEXT Silver? Just to make Bronze better? It’s more vulnerable to parasite, and equally weak to Morning Star (and in terms of non-MS tax, you need four pieces of NEXT Ice before it does as well as Eli, aside from forcing payment instead of being click-through).

I think there’s no point in building a NEXT deck unless you have a plan for leveraging the head start that it gives you. Mandatory Upgrades is the right kind of idea, but I’m skeptical that it can actually work.

I have messed around with NEXT rush decks before, but ultimately I don’t think it’s as good as TWIY (or even Supermodernism). That said I’ll probably try it again once some Lunar cycle cards come out. Something like:

Agenda (11)
3x Accelerated Beta Test
3x Efficiency Committee
2x Gila Hands Arcology
3x Project Vitruvius

Operation (12)
3x Biotic Labor
3x Green Level Clearance
3x Hedge Fund
3x Shipment from SanSan •••

Barrier (6)
3x Next Silver
3x Paper Wall

Code Gate (9)

3x NEXT Bronze
3x Quandary
3x Yagura ••••

Sentry (6)
3x Guard
3x Rototurret

Other (5)
3x Chimera
2x Mother Goddess

Probably because NEXT Silver is a hard etr, whereas Eli 1.0 is not. Although, for centrals (barring Account Siphon), Eli 1.0 is a pretty good gear check.

It is? I really don’t see it as often as I think I should.

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Precisely for the reason LeoLancer states - it all comes back to the philosophy of rezzing only when needed.

Well, over here I sort of made people see that the ICE you can’t break with Morning Star, you usually can’t break with Corroder without bankrupting yourself in the process anyway. MS also nullifies Eli and WoT, and is all but immune to Power Shutdown. After repeatedly running peoples’ “taxing” servers for next to nothing, the lesson finally stuck.

(And everyone but Crim can cheat it out for free-ish)

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