Thought I’d share my take on Headlock Reina. Got the idea from here and made some changes. Nexus Reina · NetrunnerDB.
Good pressure on HQ with vamps/wanton and keyhole for rnd (the main win condition). Rooks + vamp + nexus assault the remote quite nicely as well. Nexus really brings a lot to the table, especially in combination with rooks. Tracer ice become a non-issue and that enigma they’re going to rez for 6 you will likely bypass for free and then derez at some point later with cresentus. Really puts the corp in a tough spot, especially when you’re keyholing them. Nexus also deals with turing on a central nicely. Lots of money and draw in the deck to aid setup. Street peddler also makes rooks better.
Not too hard to keep corps poor and even if they do manage to accumulate some creds, they usually can’t stop you from keyholing and threaten a score at the same time. Does really well against slower corp decks. NEH is, of course, its toughest matchup but if you can start keyholing early, you usually have a good shot in my experience.
Really fun deck to play and by far the most fun I’ve had with a deck really trying to leverage Reina’s ability.
I like the idea of Nexus Reina Headlock, but… The Kate versions were relatively slow to setup even with Mopus and Kate’s discount. Are Casts/Liberated/Kati giving you the econ to setup in a timely fashion?
Have you tried out Compromised Employee as an economy option? Presumably Kate is not attempting to make the Corp to rez ICE each turn in addition to setting up? It’s absolutely been my favourite Reina card for as long as she’s been around, further tilting the economics of the rez decision and giving you a boost every time the Corp advances their own board state. With Security Nexus it’s even better since you get much more use out of the recurring credits!
This is what my Reina Nexus deck looks like (although not really a “headlock” variety, just uses Vamp as a tactical option):
Or why not run the same wyldcakes shell out of reina and use faust instead of eater and deny even more money by trashing/derezzing ice faster than anyone else.
So this… seems to work? It hammers HQ really really hard, to the point where I’m pretty sure that they can just ICE HQ and be safe.
Whole bunch of singleton Events because I’m trying things out to see what works. Fear the Masses is… Interesting, but I don’t really seem to have the Draw/Money engines to support it? I feel those are my cuts in future versions. Credit Crash is an interesting little number that actually is super useful in this sort of Denial strategy. Paying 1 to trash a Sansan because they can’t rez it is nice, and even if they can afford to rez it once, this forces them to use that money to just keep it from being trashed. Just don’t hit a Jackson or Vanilla with it.
I’m pretty sure this should turn into an Eater/Keyhole sort of deck… Might not need the other breakers at all. I’ve found that the deck doesn’t have an answer for Lotus Field on remote. I think taking out FtM would let me get better econ and let me push the Keyhole strategy a bit harder. Grimoire was the chosen console because it could support all four breakers and a Keyhole, or three breakers and two Datasuckers. It could change to Vigil, probably.
My thought was that if I want to deny their money, Reina would be best if I’m hammering HQ… If they ICE it, Reina keeps them down. If they don’t ICE it, it really doesn’t matter which ID I use since they’ll have no money… Those three do look intriguing. I might put Rebirth in the deck and see if it does anything.
null is better at actually hammering hq just because his parasites kill so much faster, kim is better once you’re in hq since it forces them to draw up more which gives more potential accesses and drains clicks, whizzard is better at keeping them poor due to number of econ assets out right now. All the 0-2 cost ice that was printed lately kinda killed reina.
15 influence spent (max 15, available 0)
46 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Blood Money
I’ve got no idea if there are better options for building your deck, but purely from extensive playing of this deck, a couple of notes I would make are:
Rumour Mill almost seems like it’s designed for Fear The Masses/Keyhole synergy, purely for turning off Jackson. The fact that it hits so many other problem cards is a bonus! (Cheeky Archives Interface means trashing Jackson when Rumour Mill is up/Corp declines to use him can be swiftly made permanent…)
With unseen, random cards being pitched to Archives (FtM/Bhagat) or your choice of cards (Keyhole), Turntable wins games. So many games. If you steal agendas in a normal game, the Corp still has some degree of control over what you steal and when and can try to dodge the worst of Turntable. With a steady trickle of randomness hitting the bin, no scored agenda is ever safe.
Just a couple of ideas you might want to consider.
I agree with @SamRS but I’d throw quetzal in too. Lots of these lists have just token barriers due to paperclip so you could take her and save yourself a card or two.
Don’t call it a necro…Tried this out recently and it’s been doing pretty okay? Anyway, it’s at least a start.
Corp “Grant” costs them something like 8-12 credits a game, easily. The card is stupid. Usually they end up poor enough that you can just go ham an R&D. Exer is fine since you Clone it back, or you spend the turn they should’ve gained credits on lamprey-locking. Anyway, you could also just lean on Turning Wheel counters too and replace that with more money.
Money is a little rough, but don’t forget Ixodidae actually pays you instantly because of Corporate “Grant” as well as on future “Grant” triggers. That’s why it’s there, not for Lamprey combo reasons.
Head “Lock” Reina aka Air Quotes Reina
Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter
Event (11)
3x Corporate “Grant” ●●●●● ●●●●
1x Day Job
3x I’ve Had Worse
1x Stimhack
3x Sure Gamble
Hardware (4)
2x Clone Chip ●●●●
2x Turntable
Resource (17)
3x Daily Casts
3x Earthrise Hotel
3x Liberated Account
3x Same Old Thing
3x Street Peddler
2x The Turning Wheel ●●
Icebreaker (6)
2x Black Orchestra
2x MKUltra
2x Paperclip
Program (7)
1x D4v1d
2x eXer
1x Ixodidae
3x Lamprey
edit: actually I guess my list is 1 Exer and 1 Ice Carver (should be Xanadu?)
I think Xanadu is good, I’ve been playing an agressive Reina with Lamprey as my #1 runner pretty much since rotation hit. 2 of Xanadu has definitely been good, although it might depend a bit on the meta. Your deck looks a bit slower and grindier, so that might change things too.
This is where I’ve been playing from. No console hasn’t been an issue yet, but Turntable is a good card. Rebirthing into Omar is too strong to not include. Maxwell james is a very strong card for challenging remotes. Honestly I haven’t even found Grant to be getting that much value in this build, maybe because it’s fairly aggressive from turn 1.
I have done absolutely no testing to confirm this, but I feel like you want all 3 Mining Accidents if you’re really committing to the Headlock plan. Ideally they’re low enough on credits to take the BP, which fuels runs into HQ to proc Lamprey and make them more poor.
Running 3x Inject makes me think that a lot of the programs might just get tossed, which seems sad, especially in a list without Clone Chip. Also, there’s no real win condition here other than poking your nose in for single accesses, or at least til they purge the 2 Exers. I think there’s got to be a nice hybrid build between yours and @grogboxer’s lists.
Overall, though, I love where these are headed. I was just trying to think through what a modern Headlock deck might look like, now that we’re starting to get potential pieces back from Kitara.
Yeah most games I end up losing both eXers but it hasn’t been an issue, I tend to win off single accesses and 1 or 2 remote snipes, like you said. I do really want to slot Turning Wheel, but I like the Maxwells a lot. I don’t really want to play Anarch without Inject; I think it’s one of the strongest cards in the faction and the game at-large.
@rubyvr00m I actually don’t like Mining Accident as a card; it’s a flex slot. If I have it and have a good chance to use it, it’s useful. I’m not really interested in slotting 3 in this Grant build. 3x makes sense in Val cause even 2 BP is nuts.
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