Hi everyone!
So, The Spaces Between just arrived here. And Noise has resurfaced, it’s been a really long time since I played against him and now he’s stronger than ever. I’m playing Blue Sun mostly (using a proxy) but I’m having trouble with The Foundry aswell.
Therefore, I’ve come asking for help on how to better play against Noise. I’ve found that I need to accelerate my play because my deck goes by faster and the longer the game goes the worse it is.
How do you usually identify scoring windows against him? In the past it was easier but now he can install cache for 4 credits on his turn and sell something at the beginning for a 7 credit swing at least.
So, I’ve come here for tips on how to better play against him, cause unlike Andy or Kate he plays a very different game.
- Do not rez Central ICE until a Medium, Nerve Agent, or Datasucker hit the table. Rez before these cards only if you must.
- Two cheap pieces of ETR ICE is all you need for a scoring server vs. Noise.
- Getting Parasites used on remotes is much better than centrals.
- Play fast. Even if your deck is slow.
- Force him to use Crypsis. Scoring fast makes a lot of Noise players panic and start making 12 credit Crypsis runs.
- Use Jackson very, very wisely. For a few months you must include him in almost all decks.
- Accept the fact that mills may just hand him a free win.
As salty as this list sounds, playing against Noise is always somewhat fun. If you lose to a pure mill deck that made little to no runs, it was your fault (or maybe horrible, horrible luck)
Blue sun vs noise is a tough matchup I’ve been trying to figure out how to play. In terms of deckbuilding, I’ve settled on 2 lotus fields and 2 interns. Other solid choices would be architect and archived memories, which are influence-heavy but also useful in other situations in other matchups as well.
As for piloting the deck, this is where the real skill comes in… If the game goes late, and he gets set up with crypsis and pawnshop, it’s very easy to get locked out of being able to score anything. So even more than in other matchups you need to focus on rushing stuff out (which, if you succeed at, conveniently frees up jacksons for mill defense).
The “early game” phase is actually split into two phases - in the first few turns, if I have an agenda (non-NAPD), I like to leave some centrals open (often both hq and archives) while I go broke rezzing a hive/caduceus/etc and scoring something. This has to be before the runner can assemble datasucker + parasite. In the later turns, but still in the early game, I shift focus to icing all 3 centrals to try to shut off datasucker tokens. If he has double datasucker this is even more important – you’re fine if he’s killing a caduceus or datapike every other turn, but not if your tollbooths and hadrians start dying.
Late game is all about counting how many d4v1d counters the runner can have in a single turn. Ash helps a lot with this (doubling how many he needs to get in) and I often save an interns to make sure I have him. Noise’s pawnshop economy is extremely swingy, so sometimes you can make scoring windows by pressuring his money (TB, ash, and NAPD are great at this even if he has lots of d4v1d counters); other times he is rich but only has 1 d4v1d, in which case curtain wall can finally shine (assisted by ash). I almost never use curtain wall in the midgame but try to keep one in hq for this situation late. Finally, if you got relatively lucky on milling/jackson, he’s not on match point, and you can use an NAPD contract as bait to create a scoring window.
Also, some miscellaneous tactics:
- Protect oversighted curtain walls from d4v1d by putting datapike or lotus in front of them, almost as if the curtain wall itself is an agenda.
- Don’t click to draw extra cards early game. I often regret this when it gets to the endgame and I have 5 left in rnd and can’t create the last scoring window in time.
- Ice up archives before it’s necessary, preferably with a pike or lotus (not a caduceus), and wait until he mills an agenda to rez. This lets you keep jackson safe in HQ, and/or lets you shuffle 2 agendas back with him instead of prematurely using for just 1. (Shuffling back oversights is much less relevant than vs shaper or crim.)
- Advance ice wall to 2 strength to play around grimoire+parasite.
Not rezzing central ICE against Imp?
I don’t have much to offer. As a frequent Noise player, I can say that don’t be afraid to purge viruses. A well-timed purge can set Noise back several turns. Secondly, consider Interns. I have been playing at least 2 Interns in basically every Corp deck for several months. It’s not just good against Noise, either; it can reinstall trashed assets/upgrades, and allow you to ditch late-game ICE early and Interns it when you need it.
Hello fellow Stimhackers.
It seems that Faust Noise is the deck to beat these days. It became faster and way harder to rush against (faust>crypsis). With some upcoming tournaments I’m looking for a good counter vs Noise (that is still decent vs other decks).
I used to be confident with my HB FA matchup, but these days it’s not enough anymore imo.
So what are you guys playing vs Noise, or is it true that he has at least a 50% matchup against all corps.
Fight variance with more variance and play PE 
Out of the most widely played Corps, HBFA, NEHFA and Butchershop all have decent matchups unless Noise gets his engine going from turn 2. Then it’s an uphill battle for everyone. Believe in the heart of the cards and pray his mills hit not too much good stuff.
Yeah, the main lesson to take from Noise is that if he hits Pawn/Wyldside turn 1, you will likely be losing. It’s dumb, no one likes that there’s a runner with an auto-win draw, combined with the occasional “whoops, I guess I win!” aspect of his ID ability, but it’s life right now. Breaking news to trash resources against Noise can be critical, especially if you can nail them with All Seeing I. Program trashing can also be a significant economic setback, keeping them from having plentiful Aesop targets. Also pray that your opponent doesn’t have any Noise secret tech against what you’re doing, because there are Noise builds that are close to 90% favored vs FA or Glacier, depending on how they spend their influence.
Play HB if you want a good shot against any Noise build. Eli, Ichi, Architect, and Turing are all strong Ice against Noise, and can force him to get different programs faster than even Wyldside can find them sometimes.