I didn’t think we had a thread for this ID, so I wanted to make one. If theres a dupe merge me in.
So is anyone testing this ID now that Faust is running amok? Is anyone playing it non-kill? Why? I have some deck lists that I’ve tested, but here are a few that I’ve seen that " work ".
Each has an interesting game plan that seems to work about once. Xanatos seems the strongest, but your high-risk/high-reward is kinda shat upon by Clot and anti FA stuff. That said, eff comm + mushin/overadvanced ProVits enables some hilarious EMP plays, if you’re rich. I’ve also seen big agenda punitive builds that are pretty gross.
I know going against the division can be stressful until you know what you’re up against, I wonder if this is exploitable in any way, and the -1 hand is just nice vs faust decks. Is genetics pavilion possibly worth a look? Locking down draws would be great. I’ve tested in RP and it is actually pretty nice.
I’m personally trying to see if I can make some sort of fusion between the usual FoodCoats and some Cybernetics jank. I’m still testing it, but it seems alright??? Needs a LOT of work though.
The problem with EoW is it can easily look like a headfake ash/adonis, and cause the runner to not run, then you’re out 2 inf and tempo…its tough to bait a run. If its late game, they can get in easily, but knowing when they’ll bite is tough. Such is the trap game I guess.
I can’t help but think -2 toll -1 EoW should be +2 batty, getting fenris and other ice BD triggers (the crux of my newish build). The problem is leveraging BD into a win vs a non-faust deck…
Of course the dream is Whirlpool/Howler/Janus into a Knight or Batty server, but mostly I just like the idea of IAA Overwriters, Junebugs, GRNDLs behind Efficiency Committee’d Wotans.
The 40 card deck size really messes with your head, since there’s a whole bunch of crappy ways to land brain damage, and all of them require a combination of cards to work properly. If you try to stick too many tricks in there you end up never being able to land any of them. Then the game is either a crapshoot while you hope they run your traps or it’s a money-fight and they make enough money to break all your big ice.
Here’s what I did with the Xanatos build; almost ran this this past weekend:
The prevalence of ICE Destruction Whiz makes me sad, since Parasite being on the MWL had opened a nice window for NEXT but I think that might be closed now?
The most successful CD list I played was @dodgepong 's Credible Threat. At it’s heart it was a deck that hinged on Mushin-no-Shin, and I think it did wonderfully there but that hinge can be a big turn off to a lot of players.
I also gave some extensive testing to @Marsellus 's Self-Destruct Chips / Batty list, and he moved it out of CD into EtF and now into Blue Sun Janus. Economy is a big deal with non-EtF decks it seems, and even his EtF list was scraping by economically.
The main problem statement is achieving three scenarios at once that make impactful use out of the brain damage:
Landing the brain damage in a functional suite.
Creating a board state where the Runner is pressured into getting brain or lose.
Utilizing the board state to actually force tough discards (which snowball into a score victory usually due to econ) or kills.
It’s a tough thing to do but its doable, especially with a fat stack of cash. It’s why I find CD decks particularly weak to Siphon spam. You aren’t punishing Wyldside if they spend down to hand size with Faust making runs and accesses. I think Hopper Factory and Lateral Growth will expand the options for HB to explore non-BB Campaign economy suites.
I would drop a Blue Level Clearance, since corp doubles are pretty awkward to play, and the draw effect is harder to use in the more limited hand size of Cybernetics.
I was thinking archer and dom sleepers (tough with the small deck size), and adding ice with a bite, as well as batty to rack up brain damage. I’ve not worked the archer or dom sleepers in yet, but I’m 3-0 with this build: http://netrunnerdb.com/en/deck/view/581041
Key things I’ve found that have lead to the agenda and deck choices are:
Runners don’t typically run advanced cards early on, especially if they think that you might know they can get in.
Faust up? Run everything advanced in the remote, and most things put in the remote, meaning throw traps and shit into the remote once faustcakes are up.
Faust not up? Half-ass attempts to get to get in. Mileage may vary.
Batty is super good with "brain damage’ subs up and running.
I played a lot of Cybernetics Division with Punitive Counterstrike when it first came out, and the release of Vikram made me excited to revamp the list post MWL and try it again. Here is where I landed with it.
The problem I had back when I was testing Punitive in Cybernetics was that it was super rare to actually get enough money to kill the runner, since non ETF HB is usually poor as shit. 13 ICE is also super duper low, even with the reduced deck size, so it’s going to be a bit before you can actually tax the runner’s money out.
There’s also the fact that the reduced hand size means that Punitive sitting in hand really restricts what you can play until you scrap the gameplan. It’s way too unreliable. I’d personally rather make my opponent expect a ton of jank or a ton of punishing face-check ICE, rush out a couple agendas while they can’t reasonably get through (because Faust hates bioroids), and then Biotic the final points later once the remote is easy to get through.
Splashing a brain trap or two makes the runner cautious about the remote installs as well which may allow bluffs to work more often than in most HB decks.
I’ve been playing a lot of variants on Xanatos Gambit lately. NEXT ICE just invites Parasites and cutlery though.
I’ve tried experimenting with the big ICE (Janus, Heimdall 2.0, etc) and an Eliza’s Toybox - which you can play out of hand once you get the 4th click online. Install a big ICE on a new remote, then next turn is install Eliza’s and rez the ICE protecting it. Then you can turn up crazy ICE everywhere for a while.
It works as a nice backup plan if Clots are stopping your FA: you can turn Eliza into a scoring server and replace her with agendas when you’re done.
Of course, I’m a jank-loving noob who loses a lot, so take that madness with a pound of salt.