Palana Glacier vs Haas-Bioroid Glacier

Netrunner General
1

Hi all. I’ve been playing HB as my corp competitively since I started (around data and destiny release) and always a glacier build. However lately I felt disappointed with them at a tournament (though I still placed 4th/23 so not too bad) and tried some other corp decks. Long story short I played a palana glacier deck and I loved it, went 5-0 on jinteki since the first run with it. Here it is for discussion’s sake:

Edit: this is my slightly edited version. The original had -3 snare, +2 mumbad city grid and something else.

Agenda (9)
3 Corporate Sales Team
1 Fetal AI
2 Global Food Initiative ●​●​
3 Nisei MK II
Asset (6)
3 Jackson Howard ●​●​●​
3 Snare!
ICE (16)
2 Ashigaru
1 Crick
3 Galahad ●​●​●​
2 Komainu
3 Lancelot ●​●​●​
3 Merlin ●​●​●​
1 Swordsman
1 Wraparound ●​
Operation (10)
3 Celebrity Gift
3 Hedge Fund
1 Interns
3 Restructure
Upgrade (8)
3 Caprice Nisei
2 Cyberdex Virus Suite
3 Marcus Batty
credit to whoever made it-great deck sir

So I’d gladly switch, but I’d have to buy a load of new packs for palana so if I feel HB is as good I’ll stick with them. So I’d like input on comparing the 2 decks.

MONEY
The event based economy for palana feels more reliable and less effort and combo-intensive then HB’s assets+breaker bay. The card text for palana is slightly worse than hb I’d say, but the difference is tiny- main thing is HB get their cred on their own turn.

AGENDAS
HB has the advantage in terms of having two 3/2 agendas that aren’t particularly stellar in any way, palana has nisei mkii which I adore. The rest are neutral agendas.

ICE
The fact that this palana deck chose the influence-intensive grail ice says a lot here. On the other hand the fact that they can AFFORD to do this brings me to the next point:

CAPRICE-ASH-BATTY
The ability to run 3 batty and 3 caprice was one of my happiest experiences playing as corp. It’s just so, damn good compared to 3 ash 1-2 caprice. Also having the influence for a grail suite feels better than HB’s ice.

OTHER
HB has biotic and archived memories, jinteki’s goodstuff is mostly in it’s agendas and caprice/batty.

So yeah my preference currently goes to palana, as you may have seen. The fact is though HB have been winning tournaments more often, but that could be attributed to popularity since palana is such a young ID. Also I have to admit my HB build is quite out-dated so I havent actually played with vikrams or global foods in mine which might explain my sentiments to a degree.

I WOULD LOVE YOUR INPUT ON THE TOPIC, BUT PLEASE STATE IF YOU HAVE PLAYED ONE, BOTH OR NONE OF THESE DECKS IN YOUR COMMENTS

2

I’ve played both (although I play HB almost exclusively), and both ID’s are very good. I think arguments can be made for either. I myself think HB has the edge. I think HB’s 3/2 agendas actually are pretty stellar. ABT can almost win you a game sometimes, and Vitruvius counters are incredible (although at that point it’s not really a “3/2” anymore).

Obviously Caprice in faction is amazing, but Political Operative is a problem (to be fair, it’s a problem for Ash too). Batty gets around that well. Biotic just feels so strong right now with a hugely Anarch meta, I don’t like all of my agendas having to be advanced over the course of two turns.

I think HB wins tournaments more often because it’s generally the most consistent and resilient deck around, with the least bad matchups. It’s always a safe call to bring it to a tournament. However, Palana is a fantastic ID, one of the better ones in the game. You can’t really go wrong with either.

3

The one thing palana has going for it that HB doesn’t is the bursty econ suite that can let you race the runner. for example if I’m on 3 credits as palana I can gift -> restructure on my turn and start the next turn on 16 or 17 and can make a scoring play. If I’m HB with the same 3 credits, install adonis and click for 2 starting the next turn with 5 with no breaker bay or 9 with breaker bay. This is pretty tight and I may feel compelled to wait until the campaign pays out to attempt to score. the turns I wait is more turns for wyldcakes to take over the game. Ultimately I think ETF is probably better but in the current meta not having to wait on campaigns feels pretty good.

5 Likes
4

I have tried them both and imo HB is significantly better

5

Foodcoats:
Pros:Generally better ICE,long-term reliable asset econ,3/2 agendas,resistance to rather disruptive style runner (easier to recover from such a situation).
Cons:Asset trashing (notably Whizz),influence intensive (Eli,Architect,Caprice)

Palana Glacier (aka Foodfoods):
Pros:In-faction Batty and Caprice,burst econ,The Future Perfect,Nisei MK II,resistance to asset trash (basically pure operation econ).
Cons:Weaker ICE,more vulnerable against disruptive style runner (harder to recover from siphon,keyhole or others),lack of 3/2.

Generally both are strong but I slightly prefer to Foodcoats,HB ICE is just better at Glacier type of games.But Palana is also strong and may have somewhat more better position in current meta.I don’t know what the meta would become after Political Operative and Councilman though.

And never play Agroplex.N.E.V.E.R.

3 Likes
6

Played both, loved both.

Palana is the new kid on the block and very decent if Whizzard is prominent. I made the switch because of that (also to a Grail version). My reasoning was that the Grail ICE punishes the facecheck more than a lot of HB ICE, which is important because you want Faust to break your ICE multiple times, preferably. HB ICE is better against Parasite though.

Both econ packages are very strong. Palana’s is less disruptable. Therefore, usually both Runner and Corp are richer in this case, whereas HB can pressure the Runner to go broke to thrash their Campaign econ. HB’s greatest strength is this kind of remote pressure where you want the runner to check for Campains and never-advanced 3/2’s. On the other hand, Palana cannot play the never-advance game, but is rewarded with Nisei MKII instead, after Astroscript probably the best agenda in the game. Turntable is a huge pain though in this case.

In the end, I think it’s mostly a matter of playstyle. In my case, the constant PSI games when playing Palana get really fatigueing after a long day of tournament play. But they do give you an out, whereas HB can get to a boardstate where the runner just overruns them when they reach critical mass. It’s way more razor’s edge sometimes.

7

Palana with 10 influence spent on Hb ice is better

3 Likes
8

I feel kind of the opposite on that last paragraph. I think HB can get to boardstates where they just crush the runner. Especially when it comes to strong remotes and the never advance game. It cannot be overstated how much better it is to not have to advance agendas over two turns as far as pressure in the game.

I feel like Political Operative hurts Jinteki more than it hurts HB. It’s such a struggle most of the time for Jinteki to score their agendas without the help of their defensive upgrades. Batty is obviously good for avoiding Political Operative, but HB has more scoring options in faction.

I personally think that using solely asset econ and BBG in ETF is overrated now, as so much of the meta is teching against assets. It’s too easily managed, and I’ve cut Eve/BBG from my deck in favor of more asset econ, which allows me to move faster and not have to protect as many remotes.

4 Likes
9

Truth. When I begin flooding midgame with HB I often end up scoring a majority of the agendas I drew by just jamming them in my scoring remote.

10

I kind of looked at the decks from a worst case scenario. I mean, Palana with 2 Nisei tokens + Caprice is arguably a more crushing experience to the runner than a typical HB board state. I do agree that HB can score more fluidly because of both the never-advance pressure and stuff like Biotic in-faction. At the same time, HB’s scored agendas themselves do not create as much pressure on a runner than a scored Nisei. And sometimes the runner just comes out on top. In which case, Caprice still gives you an out. Palana just finds the Caprice that much easier.

I have not played against Pol-op etc. so far, because packs are coming in very slowly around here. :-/

My latest HB list went to a 2/2/2 split of BBG, Launch Campaign and Restructure, following the example of this list: ETF Hybrid (FFG Store Champ 1st, 45 Players) · NetrunnerDB

I’m hesitant to completely cut the Breaker Bays, because they provide so much value. But transitioning from Eve to Launch + Restructure makes you so much rushier. Which is great against the Wyldcakes running around.

1 Like
11

I think the ability to run 3 Caprice, 3 Batty, 3 Nisei means you are much more able to secure a remote early and easily.

12

Yeah, this is a really big deal. It’s one of if not the best agenda printed in a long time for a reason, and while almost every faction loves it, it’s perhaps the biggest part of the reason this years worlds cut was a sea of purple. As the only faction with no solid odd-pointed agendas, they really, really take advantage of this card to round out their suite in a way that no other faction does.

Tldr; Palana is great, but if you haven’t played with GFI you haven’t really played with a truly competitive hb list.

4 Likes
13

My experience is this:

Palana beats Anarchs consistently but often loses randomly to Shaper and Criminal, while EtF is more even across the board.

1 Like
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I’ve found the Criminal matchup much stronger against EtF. Palana runs 3 Batty, which basically cripples the Criminal matchup. It’s a little better now with Political Operative, but left un-rezzed he can lockdown a central or overwhelm Political Operatives on the remote. The random Snare! doesn’t help either.

15

If you are anarch playing vs palana I have one suggestion to improve your win rate: Destroy the remote.

2 Likes
16

When I was testing Palana, I only played Josh’s, which doesn’t play Batty, and I don’t play Crim. So I actually haven’t tested Crim v. Batty at all.

I can see how that might be different.

17

so I’ve played some more HB with the latest tournament builds (apparently dropping caprice completely is a thing now just to run more good ice). It’s frankly sad that hb has to spend most of their influence on their own ice, and dumblefork with some political operatives annihilated the build completely. Polyop just overloads 3 ash, and 1-2 caprice just wont cut the mustard anymore- I frankly cant picture a glacier deck being successful without these kind of ice multipliers (dude stil somehow won a 54 man tourney with just 3x ash though).

Palana on the other hand with 3 caprice, 3 batty and an interns+jacksons can just overload polyops completely. I thing these guys are the new glacier.

18

pol op is dead vs. batty, as they can trigger him before you have a chance to trash him with pol op. short of getting lucky with drive-by or just winning your psi games he can be really tough for blue. definitely a top trash priority in HQ and RnD (I will usually even keyhole him before agendas for this reason)

19

It depends how many Drive By you run, or if you play Leela, but that’s what I meant by ‘a little better’. Maybe I should have omitted the ‘a’.

20

I think that both are really good, but Palana has the edge right now. If we look at some popular matchups we can see why:

Dumble: It’s easier to destroy clickable ice, which Palana runs less of. Asset economy is the core of ETF and Whizzard ruins it. Ash is good but Caprice/Batty can keep any server safe. Point to Palana.

Shapers: ETF is more taxing than Palana, which is what you want since Shaper can get in anywhere. Caprice can still shut out a server where Ash might not be able to though. Palana does have the added benefit of being a bit quicker, which matters against setup-intensive decks. Film Critic is way more of an issue for Palana than ETF though. Having real 3 pointers is bad news. Point to ETF.

Leela: Swingy. Both decks can go very well and shut her out or have her run roughshod on them if she gets early pulls. Caprice is the differentiating factor. Operation econ is a good thing in this matchup as well; Celeb Gift is an amazing recovery card. Point to Palana.

Stealth whoever: every server costs nothing, so Ash doesn’t really work. Caprice bounces them after all their stealth creds are gone. Point to Palana.

There’s obviously loads of viable decks out there that I didn’t touch on, but I feel like Palana can perform more consistently than ETF right now.

1 Like