my approach doesn’t really aim to be taxing it’s more like “binary, with a trick to turn the binariness back on”. It might look like an attempt at taxing from the list, but in actual play most of the installed Ichis don’t really get rezzed (unless I’m getting a funky draw with way too much econ) - they just need to be in position for when the runner makes a mistake.
This one’s about your list - I still maintain that spending influence on “econ ICE” is a mistake for NEXT. Pop-up might be OK, because it’s an awesome piece, but Caduceus strikes me as too expensive (influence-wise) for what it does. It won’t stop a run that actually matters (i.e. Siphon), and it won’t be making you money. Most decent runners will actually pay to take away the money trace from you, so it ends up not even making you the money. I’ve played plenty Caduceus in NEXT, and I’m telling you, swapping them for Inazumas and Viktor 2.0 for more Ichis is just… brutal.
edit: and by stopping a Siphon I mean “stopping in a way that doesn’t break your back economically”, dumping all your money into the second trace doesn’t count.
The first cards I’d put into NEXT would be 3 Efficiency Committee 3 Shipment from Sansan. They’re an incredibly strong pair and this is probably the best ID in the game for rushing out an agenda. A successful corp deck has to have an early agenda scoring strategy and a late agenda scoring strategy (the difficult one for NEXT), this combo uses that early strength to help with the weak lategame. Look at the tournament winning NEXT deck from Strausborg back in Mala Tempora. They actually used 2 Aggressive Negotiation, that’s how strong the combo is.
A few cards that should probably be at least mentioned in this thread are Bioroid Efficiency Research and Oversight AI. Before you write them off as more ‘fun’ than ‘competitive’ I think there are a few valid reasons to consider them here:
When this deck works you’re effectively starting with a 9 card hand on turn 1 just like Andromeda. This makes little combos much easier to achieve.
You hit diminishing returns on including small end the run ice at some point, probably around 16 copies and expensive taxing ice is probably a better fit with ETF’s economy and long game. You’ll probably draw more ICE than you feel like rezzing.
Flipping up a Janus, Wotan or Heimdall demands a different kind of answer from the runner and can extend Phase 2 allowing you to score out more agendas.
They can be thought of as economy cards that work better in NEXT than ETF. Bioroid Efficiency Research on Wotan is a savings of 11 credits. Oversight AI on Janus 1.0 is 14 credits. Of course an important part of Janus is the surprise factor so it’s not really worth that much but still, a significant amount in a deck that can have economy issues.
Melange Mining Corp is great in this deck but has high variance. If it gets sniped off R&D or HQ you could find yourself unable to afford ice like Heimdall 1.0 and Tollboth. Whereas if it works well you could have the money to rez Wotan, but if it doesn’t you can still Bioroid Efficiency Research it.
edit: Nice build Lysander, I think you struck a good balance. Did you ever find multiple Successful Demonstrations piled up in hand? When it happened to me I decided it maybe shouldn’t be a 3 of but that was before Reclamation Order. Speaking of, are you sure you don’t want Archived Memories instead? It enables the install advance ABT. When deciding between them for my Tennin Lightning my thought was that 3 Trick of Light should be sufficient win me the game, the ability to get 4, 5 or 6 wasn’t necessary. I think the same logic might apply for Biotic and SfSS. No Rototurret surprises me a bit, I find it a pretty solid when rushing that first agenda. Haven’t tried Guard but this deck can consistently create a two ice server so is it useful?
I have to agree with Peekay on Caduceus. It’s just never managed to pull its weight for me, really. I’m hesitant about Guard, but a Turn Zero scoring server with Guard might be fairly decent at rushing out an Agenda.
NAPD is filling an interesting role here, one that I’d filled with econ Agendas. I’m curious that they’re not seeing more use – it seems like a second-turn-score of Gila Hands or Profiteering is capable of doing quite a bit to get your economy rolling. Gila Hands is better overall, in my experience, because installing one thing and gaining 3 isn’t the worst way to spend a turn, while the BP makes future tax-by-size runs not a thing particularly… but neither seem particularly useful to folks. Then again, y’all run a fair few more Ops than I was running, which might make up the difference.
@willlt I think Melange is tricky, and certainly prone to sniping, but also provides you with a lot of options. A turn or two of running it (a scored EC makes that more than possible) gives you the credits to do a lot of that normally, which I’ve found tends to make runners hesitant, and allow for many more options. It also serves as a means to force a runner into a given server to deal with it (that you might have some Ichis in, for preference) to reset their board, allowing you more scoring opportunities. They can’t not hit it, generally, and if they do make it, it’s nice to not be sacrificing a real Agenda to do it (though admittedly, NAPD is nice for that as well).
I smell an article here… maybe I should finally write one up. I’ve always liked the idea of NEXT.
I really like some big ICE and Rez trix in here. I have a build in mind to take advantage of this once Upstalk hits. Nothing like dropping Tollbooths and Archers off ABT to raise the Runner’s morale (an aside: does the early drop of 2-3 ICE lessen the power of ABT?)
@GreedyGuts Oh, yes, Melange is very good here. I brought up the ‘feast or famine’ aspect of it not as a reason not to run it but because it fits quite well with Wotan + Bioroid Efficiency Research.
I also agree with you that Gila Hands is a nice fit, perhaps better than NAPD. But you also have to consider that you’ll need to drop another card to make room, probably not ice.
@spags The other issue that comes into play is the ID only has 12 influence. It would be fantastic but I don’t think you have the budget for Oversight AI and Archer. My last NEXT deck ended up with 1 Oversight AI, 2 BER.
I think you’ll have about the same amount of ice out with this deck when you score an ABT as a deck like Redcoats would. The difference is, NEXT does it a few turns earlier. One of the nice things about ABT is no install costs so I don’t think its’ value declines that much with more ice. You raise an interesting point though, the value of ABT is determined not just by your ice density but also your ice cost. I remember an ABT that hit three ice for me: Pop Up Window, Paper Wall and a NEXT Bronze. I think that was the game I decided to add in the Oversight AI/BER dimension.
If you want to run 5 3/2s, surely you want 3 ABT 2 Vitruvius as opposed to the other way around?
I tried out Successful Demonstration in my rush versions of NEXT and it very worked for me because most of the turns following the runner making an unsuccessful run were turns where I wanted to spend all of my clicks scoring an agenda that the runner just failed to steal. I think I’d prefer 3 Melange 2 Successful.
I also tried Caduceus, and like others have said I found it unsatisfactory. The main concern is that against criminal you have too many pieces of ice that are only good on R&D (Eli, Pop-up Window, Caduceus).
Looking at this deck on paper I am very skeptical that it will perform better than a pure rush version.
I would personally consider RSVP over Inazuma for the influence spots, as since you can run Ash in faction, a first turn RSVP is not the dead draw Inazuma would be. It opens a very early scoring window for something like ABT or NAPD, which could be nice. The biggest issue I see with NEXT, in all honesty, is that it wants to see ICE and agendas in very specific orders, which can lead to very awkward starts.
Successful Demonstration doesn’t reach past the early game phase, I think Jinteki can make better use of SD than HB. Everytime I played with successful demo, I wished it was literally any other card.
I mostly agree with this. I find Replicating Perfection is the best use of Successful Demonstration because it punishes the runner for jacking out after the first ICE/before accessing archives. I think 2x SD can have a place in very fast rush builds, but certainly not in anything designed to play into the mid-game.
My take on NEXT: I figure the ability plays best in a rush shell, and conveniently fast track makes rushing out efficiency committee on turn 2 much more doable.
Ice (22)
3x Chimera
3x Guard
3x NEXT Bronze
3x Paper Wall
3x Quandary
3x Rototurret
1x Wall of Static
3x Wraparound ●●●
Operation (18)
1x Biotic Labor
3x Fast Track
3x Green Level Clearance
3x Hedge Fund
2x Reclamation Order
3x Shipment from SanSan ●●●
3x Sweeps Week ●●●●●●
2 shipments means you can chain EC off of a fast track. I filled it to the brim with cheap gear check ice as possible to ease economy problems. It’s all cheap operations for speed as well. possibly wants blue level clearance
Lose the Fast Tracks and/or Green Levels, in some combination, for another three Ice and I’d say it looks interesting. Maybe some Ichis for post-Mimic program trashing? Or more Walls of Static, even, to be honest. It’ll make a real difference in getting the turn zero icing to go well, and neither of them tends to be of massive use in NEXT, I’ve found. You’ll be seeing 8 or 9 cards by your first click, generally, you’re plenty likely to have an Agenda by the time you need it.
EDIT: Yes, the Fast Tracks are useful for EC-Shipment chaining, but at the very least I’d suggest dropping down to 2x of each and filling in the WoSs. 22 Ice is pretty low, and really not something you particularly need.
Gear check ice is largely replaceable and the only relevant differences are what things you need to install to break them. I’d much rather have more fast economy, which is much more important to the rush than having a third ice.
Ichi is very expensive (installing it at the base of the server is a mistake, so minimum 6 credits for it) and can be clicked through, I stayed away from all bioroids for this reason.
Fast track is the main reason I’m interested in next, it used to be too swingy, as you absolutely needed to see EC early to win, having a second set has helped considerably
Fair enough. It just seems like getting everything you want without getting flooded is going to be tricky. Scoring the first EC, which it seems like the deck kind of leans on, is still going to be tricky in the first turns without a pretty solid Ice base to get the full 3. 2 might still work for you, but it feels like it’ll be brittle until you score EC and draw your SfSSs. Even then, without Reclamation Order…
I also think you’re doing yourself a disservice with 3x ABT and only one Vitruvius. If you’re not intending to trigger ABT (and even if you are), Vitruvius counters would do so much more for you. Over-advance one, and you can pop SfSS or Reclamation Order or whatever else to your hand, easy as you please.
I’m not a big fan of pure gear-check, which is why I made the (admittedly misguided) Ichi suggestion. But it seemed like you need more ways to turn it on, since EC doesn’t do enough to let you Fast Track, Install, SfSSx2 your Wotans, so they’ll have to spend a turn on the table (unless you Biotic>FT>Install>Advance>3EC Counters>SfSS>SfSS, which seems expensive and also like a lot of specific parts to have ready).
I played this 5 times on OCTGN over the weekend. Lost once. I know, that’s not saying anything, I may actually like this build better out of EtF or even CB.
An early test of a design that will change when Upstalk hits (Static becomes NEXT Silver, GLC becomes another card in Upstalk).
@Lysander I like that. As noted earlier, the rez cards can essentially be considered econ cards. Archer will be boosted by Upstalk. I like the idea of turning on Archers Turn 1 out of H-B.
I really think, if the money can be swung, a mix of FAT ICE and gear checkers is the way to go with NEXT. Raw gear check ICE is pretty boom/bust.
You know, that might solve NEXT’s anti-synergy with, well, itself. Whenever I try to make a NEXT deck, I always run into the same wall. The ability encourages a rushier sort of strategy, which means binary ICE. But the ability also encourages including a high number of ICE, which is better with taxing ICE. I like the idea of being able to turn the taxing ICE into gear checks. It basically solves the biggest deckbuilding issue with NEXT. Unfortunately there’s still the issue of actually fitting in all that ICE, but I think that idea might be the beginning of true success with NEXT.
Going to have to say no, I will preface by saying that I and many others have already played next beta test - it’s a fun casual deck but not very competitive.
Cramming the deck full of ice (23-24) to get good turn 1s and good beta tests leaves you starved for deck slots.
Using BE and OAI as economy cards has the downside of being an economy card that is conditional upon having ice to rez, an economy card that does not get you credits to biotic agendas, also throwing away surprise factor (ie the only good part about ice) to get econ.
BE is horribly priced. 3 credits to rez a bioroid isn’t saving you that much money - however it does seem like a savings when you have to click for all of your credits.
Spending 6 influence on economy cards (something HB has in spades) seems like mismanagement of influenece, you’re pretty vulnerable to a big rig as it is, what you need to win in lategame isn’t big ice, it’s tricks like biotic labor and aggressive sec - NEXT can be a really badass midrange deck, but you need the deck slots for 3/2s and biotic labor and a little recursion.