You have two plays with Noise: R&D/HQ for accesses, or put points into Archives. Sometimes you can bust a remote by surprise, but your tools are limited here.
The archives pressure is by far the more efficient, but putting insufficient pressure on the other two centrals will let them score out (by remote or FA - either way). Threatening deep Medium digs, HQ runs with Lamprey, taking out key pieces with Imp, acquiring Datasucker tokens - this either forces a defense (letting you have more time for efficient Archives pressure) or lets you run away with the game by deep Medium access or forcing purges, because your viruses are going nutsā¦
Finding this balance is critical, and by far the most difficult part of Noise play, because your cards all tend to do both of these things. Faust is a microcosm of that: do you play cards for HQ/R&D/Remote pressure, or play out those cards to help the milling pressure?
The correct decision is heavily matchup and board state dependent. It also leads to very interesting games when two players who each know the matchup well are playing.
With infinite computing power I agree with you that the game is solvable and thereās optimal play.
In an actual tournament environment you have about 30 minutes to make a huge number of decisions using three pounds of meat computer that was evolved to do monkey things on the savannah that donāt remotely resemble Netrunner.
Outside the game most people have very limited time to sample games, and the gathered statistics stale quickly when the meta changes.
As a player I have played a lot of different decks by a lot of different players and Iāve noticed that I perform better and have more fun with decks that suit my personal style. Iām much better served spending limited practice time working to my strengths than trying to relearn a new play style.
From the perspective of the Universal Computer, my Noise strategy is suboptimal and Pacerās strategy is suboptimal, but weāre both better off honing our own strategies than trying to learn to play like someone else.
If thats true, then I must play some bizarre third type of noise as I prepare a remote assault constantly while pressuring centrals, but I let it be known I can crush the remote, so that agendas pile up in HQ. This is a chain-reaction effect. No remote scoring ā agendas pile up in HQ ā attack HQ heavy ā corp defends HQ a lot ā RnD gets less defense ā medium to the skull. Archives at will.
This is the essence of Noise (and anarch) to me, constant, shifting, powerful, bursty exploitation. Over commit to my medium? Iāll Imp/lamprey/suckerfarmandpillageHQ, cover Archives too much? Iāll bluff hades and make you burn jacksons making RnD ripe for Medium. Noise is spread pressure at itās best IMO, focus on no server and play the lines your deck gives you. In this way, much of Noiseās game is laid out in deck building, specific and optimal lines develop over the course of the game, and that is why he is fun. The tools available now also give him few ābadā match ups.
Thatās a valid strategy. And itās good in Noise because Jackson is busy elsewhere. But corps should (and Iām thinking mostly of RP/NEH here, but itās true for any scoring deck) be able to score out against decks who are much stronger at remote lock (e.g. PPVP Kate). So if youāre crushing the remote, great - but I consider that an easy matchup, because the corp deck is clearly going to struggle against everyone if it canāt even score out against Noise.
Jokes aside, I wholehearted agree with @kiv . Tournament settings sometimes just demand faster response time; maybe that wouldnāt be the best way to play, but might seem like the most optimal passage to do so. Itās a lot easier to look from the side and analyze board positions and such. I find that typically, I canāt play anything other than a limited amount of decks on the runner side. Some shaper (Kate) mentality I just canāt grasp. Must be too dumb for it. Though with the decks I do play, I feel way more comfortable on practicing, improving, and adapting strategies.
Won a local 18 player ANR:PC tourney with Noise. Went 4-1 going against NEH Scorch, HB Caprice, HB Fast Advance, Biotech, and NEH Scorch. I went full on pussy mode with 2x IHW and 1x Plascrete. It paid off half the time, as I got scorched without being able to figure out what the NEHās influences were spent on. Without seeing Architect/Biotic, it honestly was pretty ambiguous.
The Plascrete/IHW worked on the second NEH matchup. Before I could figure out what type of NEH it was again, I got tagged off from scoring either an Astro or Breaking News off R&D. Hastily installed the Plascrete the turn following Midseasons, and just hammered R&D for 2 more agendas for the win.
Only card that I found underwhelming was the Cyberfeeder. It barely fired when using Street Peddler. When Old Hollywood hits, I will probably shift the cards around to add Utopia Shard and Film Critic into the deck. Will hopefully be a more flexible way of dealing with Scorch decks and any of the NAPD/TFP/Fetal Aiās.
Technical Writer is barely playable in Geist and definitely unplayable in Noise.
-1 for costing minimum 2 clicks to get any benefit
-1 for trashing itself so you canāt pawn it
-1 for waiting to get the payout
The thing with Noise is you want that money right away to set up. If you make it to the late game you generally have enough economy anyway that waiting all game to pop TW for $12 is not even that exciting.
I donāt think technical writer is a good stand alone econ card per seā, but it sure seems to synergize with a lot of the things that are/can-be in a noise build.
What kind of money do people playing the low econ style noise find them selves on, on average? Im still trying to temper my aggro as im hitting 0 too often, and with the oncoming tagstorm im getting concerned about how delicate the resource based engine is. My winrate is still 70-80%, but i know iv dropped games going too poor too soon (however this is not the same thing as just going too poor).
Tagging really can wreck this deck, with no scorch protection and an entirely resource based econ. Moneying up may be an answer, aesops is strong for that, but like i said above i think im too aggro and running my credits down to often. How much bank do others find themselves on?
Usually quite low. Sometimes even under tolbooth range!
The point is that at any point I can dejavu for 2 caches which will give me 16 credits if Iām fully set up.
And also mimic/faust breaking is practically free, as is IMPing.
VS butchershop/yellow flash Iāve made it a rule never to run without active Imp, so I can trash the agenda if I access it. At some point I can overwhelm with double medium + archives run and that usually seals the deal. But imping agendas is key.
Also note, Iāve lost most of the games vs butchershop before I started this strategy (which has proven to be good so far), so your mileage may vary
This +1000. Its the strategy thats helped me scrape a win from more than a few games. My worry is that the trend with low econ noise is going to be in that sub 3c range, which isnt a problem against midseasons at all because of imp, but sea source and the number of trace+tag cards we are going to be facing it very well could be.
On the other hand, maybe i should stop worrying and embrace the mill XD
Yeah, traces are definitely a weakness for Noise. If sea source comes back in the meta, it might be time to bring back a couple of those Iāve Had Worses. Will be interesting to see the effect of the D&D NBN cards. Worlds is going to be nutso.
