If you can click Kati for seven turns and take the money off, Kati is great. But I’m frequently finding that just isn’t the case - you need to trash assets, or install things, or lose her to Snatch and Grab, or Breaking News. Or run four times with Lamprey.
9 is a lot of money on Kati, and it takes four turns to get it.
When people coddle how efficient kati is, they often ignore that 1.) it takes forever to get the money. My original play partner (a hardcore magic player) did the math on econ cards armitage, opus, and kati and swore off all other econs because kati was the only really efficient one. Unfortunately, the game isn’t played with infinite turns, and at a steady pace. Tempo is pushed constantly, and efficiency has to go out the window sometimes.
Data folding’s real downside is that the 3 cost is just slightly too much, especially when you have to supplement it with added MU later in the game when your rig is up, which is just an additional cost to the 3 in cards+slots+install cost. Though having used it a fair amount, its not nearly as bad as it seems on paper.
The 3 install cost is marginally worse than Kati, but the tempo hit is less.
It’s never worth running if you need to run extra MU. But when your rig is Lamprey, Parasite, Knight, Crescentus - transient programs - you don’t need to worry about MU. This is especially true if you run three Vigil (which is really strong in this deck).
I’m playing at a Regional tomorrow and taking a deck very similar to this, but I’ve got one card slot and one influence left over. I’m running @SamRS’s revised version, with the following minor alterations:
-1 Sneakdoor
-1 Kati Jones
-1 Eater
+1 Lucky Find
+1 Scrubber
My choices are to either put a third copy of Eater or Knight back in and go with only 14 influence; include an extra economy card (I was thinking either Easy Mark or Compromised Employee) or perhaps something else?
Advice welcome. It’s an out of town regional and The Valley has only just landed in the UK so there aren’t too many clues as to what the local meta might look like.
Thanks
I’d put a compromised employee, however, as a 1-of it probably won’t do much.
Did you replaced Sneakdoor by one emergency shutdown and one Hades Shard ?
Maybe a shard? The 2 good ones would both see use, and this might be the only deck currently that would appreciate triggering eden shard
I went with 3 comp employee
The original version of this deck, way back in mala tempora, was running underworld contact and a single helpful ai that I would tutor through hostage (after find aesop to pawn off my wyldside and leftover casts/armitage of course). It was a significantly weaker deck, although not having to worry about wraparound and asset econ helped it a lot. If you have some way to turn on contacts it might be worth it, or horrible and slow, not sure which.
Every time I play Headlock I never feel like I just have all this extra MU just laying around. I always feel like I cap out pretty quickly. Just not sure Data Folding would benefit me that long. Next few games I’ll analyze it more closely, but even with Vigil online my programs are cheap and easy to load up on.
Maybe you need memstrips ;p
Why didn’t I think of that
Just played a long game against Blue Sun. Comp. employee is amazing in this matchup. I kept a hand of 2 and got the third about halfway through the game.
In this matchup parasite wasn’t a dead draw. I would instal it on an ice knowing they would have to pick it up, play it and then rerez for me. Costing him +2 and netting me 3 credits.
Rooks are especially good in this matchup as it makes re-rezzing things so much worse; but xanadu and reina are good too.
I started here way before this became a thing and it rocked the meta for a while. Gotta say the deck is a lot more consistant these days: Econ Denial · NetrunnerDB
The lack of a lot of the current cards and even clone chips is probably a pretty clear oversight, but its a historical deck anyways. You needed to use account siphon back then. I took another run at reina about half a year ago now that did the compromised employee thing with crescentus, but I was way too focused on the supplier.
These decks are almost always good though because a lot of corps can’t be built to handle them and all the other threats they face.
Had a wonderful game yesterday with ETF that I can’t share cuz my list is all top secret and stuff, but I love this archetype in general. Not sure that there’s a best list, just a lot of really good options. My latest list doesn’t even run crescentus, though.
Rooks are good in the Blue Sun matchup?
If they can’t rez, they can’t bounce
Here is what i’m testing, based on @SamRS list
Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter (Mala Tempora)
Event (7)
1x Déjà Vu (Core Set)
3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
2x Vamp (Trace Amount)
1x Test Run (Cyber Exodus) •••
Hardware (5)
3x Clone Chip (Creation and Control) ••••• •
2x Vigil (Order and Chaos)
Resource (17)
3x Liberated Account (Trace Amount)
3x Compromised Employee (Trace Amount) •••
1x Scrubber (A Study in Static)
2x Xanadu (Humanity’s Shadow)
3x Kati Jones (Humanity’s Shadow)
3x Daily Casts (Creation and Control)
2x Symmetrical Visage (The Valley)
Icebreaker (5)
3x Knight (Mala Tempora)
2x Eater (Order and Chaos)
Program (11)
3x Parasite (Core Set)
3x Crescentus (A Study in Static) •••
1x Keyhole (True Colors)
3x Lamprey (Upstalk)
1x D4v1d (The Spaces Between)
15 influence spent (maximum 15)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Valley
ETF is a major pain in the ass, still trying to figure something more consistent and agressive, wanna switch to traditionnal breakers but i can’t find something consistent enough. Can’t trash those assets if you can’t access cards …
i played some more matches and proxied 2x Hactivist Meetings, and wow was that good. you would think it wouldn’t synergize with Vigil, but i found that some corps would not rez or play their asset econ, and click to gain credits instead, keeping more cards in hand. i almost want to to play 3x, just because some will fast advance or score a Breaking News quick to get rid of the Current. it seems so strong against HB, RP, and NBN, and punishes against them taking advantage of one of this deck’s biggest foes, asset econ.
i messed around too much with the econ and draw in the deck, though (3 sure gambles, 3 daily casts, 3 symmetrical visages, 2 kati jones, 2 liberated accounts, and 2 earthrise hotels), and found myself really behind against a Turtlebacks Scorch deck. i might ditch the baby bucks to add 1x each of kati, liberated, and hotel.
Nice ! Since this current has been spoiled i’ve been hoping it is bonkers, can’t wait to sleeve this up !
Took my version of the deck to a small GNK on the weekend where it went 3-0.
One poor guy with PE didn’t have a chance, I derezzed his HQ ICE and forced him to purge Lamprey 5 times and then whenever he’d try to Mushin something I’d Vamp him to zero and check it.
Other two were against standard RP Glacier and the deck was still able to headlock despite many, many Celebrity Gifts. I love the way you can cut through Psi bullshit by virtue of them having $0.
My thoughts on card choices so far:
I was happy to not have Visage, I find Kati is quite enough of “must use one per turn for maximum value”. A lot of headlock turns were “install Lamprey, run HQ twice, click Kati” or “run HQ 3 times, click Kati” and there’s just no room for Visage in that sequence.
I cut the Employees so I could play Lucky Find. Employee is just too slow for my tastes and the 2nd and 3rd copies are relatively weak. Lucky gives money right away which means I can install Liberated, or keep piling money on Kati for higher efficiency instead of being forced to take it. Every copy of Lucky Find is amazing.
Inject was great every time. Dumping a Crescentus is sad but more than compensated by on average drawing 2 economy cards and a useful hardware like Vigil or Clone Chip. I was tempted to play a 3rd Vigil but I think 2 Vigil is enough with 2 Inject. I did eventually burn through 100% of my recursion in both RP games so I think 3 Inject is too many.
In Breaker Bay I’ll be interested to test Career Fair as an economy option. Liberated, Casts, Earthrise, and Xanadu give enough targets that I don’t expect it to ever be dead, making it about as good as additional Sure Gambles at 1 influence each.
###[Reina Headlock - Inject][1] (45 cards)
Event (10)
Hardware (5)
Resource (14)
Icebreaker (5)
Program (11)
Built with [http://netrunner.meteor.com/][22]
[1]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/decks/2fvEeRwfEBtnybbMf
[2]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/reina-roja-freedom-fighter-mala-tempora
[3]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/inject-up-and-over
[4]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/lucky-find-double-time
[5]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/sure-gamble-core
[6]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/vamp-trace-amount
[7]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/clone-chip-creation-and-control
[8]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/vigil-order-and-chaos
[9]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/daily-casts-creation-and-control
[10]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/earthrise-hotel-the-source
[11]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/kati-jones-humanitys-shadow
[12]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/liberated-account-trace-amount
[13]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/scrubber-a-study-in-static
[14]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/xanadu-humanitys-shadow
[15]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/eater-order-and-chaos
[16]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/knight-mala-tempora
[17]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/crescentus-a-study-in-static
[18]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/d4v1d-the-spaces-between
[19]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/keyhole-true-colors
[20]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/lamprey-upstalk
[21]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/parasite-core
[22]: http://netrunner.meteor.com/decks/2fvEeRwfEBtnybbMf
Awesome to see those results – as I mentioned above, I agree that Visage might not be the best in this. And the Compromised Employees are pretty strong in some matches if you can get them down early, but they’re dreadful to install when you’re playing from behind and low on cash.
Why play Inject instead of I’ve Had Worse? Sure, it’s one less card and no chance to gain credits, but you won’t dump your Crescentus, and it’s nice to have against Scorch / RP-net damage.
1 extra card is huge. I would prefer to have 2 deja though to get more lampreys, thats typically my limiting factor.
I’ve not had a ton of tests with comp emp. but it seems like with ash being everything, and both decks running low on econ, the pseudo link is super important, and being able to blank the second sub on caduceus seems pretty good (among other things). Also it amps up your blue sun match up quite a bit. I’m surprised to see people needing LF with casts, lib, kati, and SG.