SSO Industries - Making counters count

Decklists
1

I haven’t seen an SSO thread so I figured I would start one. This is my first pass and I don’t know if SSO will be competitive but it sure is fun. I piled in all the token manipulation I could along with a full suite of ice that gets an advantage with tokens. This plays rush-y to start with a glacier feel late game. The money is crazy and in my plays I had tokens everywhere.

Public Couriers

SSO Industries: Fueling Innovation (The Devil and the Dragon)

Agenda (8)
3x City Works Project (The Devil and the Dragon)
3x Oaktown Renovation (Chrome City)
2x SSL Endorsement (Down the White Nile)

Asset (5)
2x GRNDL Refinery (Revised Core Set)
3x NGO Front (Down the White Nile)

Upgrade (2)
2x Prisec (Blood Money)

Operation (21)
1x Archived Memories (Revised Core Set) [color=#8A2BE2]●●[/color]
3x Dedication Ceremony (Kala Ghoda)
3x Hedge Fund (Revised Core Set)
2x Mass Commercialization (Blood and Water)
2x Mushin No Shin (Honor and Profit) [color=#DC143C]●●●●[/color]
3x Priority Construction (Crimson Dust)
2x Punitive Counterstrike (Revised Core Set)
2x Red Planet Couriers (Earth’s Scion)
3x Trick of Light (Revised Core Set) [color=#DC143C]●●●●● ●●●●[/color]

Barrier (5)
2x Asteroid Belt (Order and Chaos)
1x Fire Wall (Order and Chaos)
2x Ice Wall (Revised Core Set)

Code Gate (6)
2x Hortum (Terminal Directive)
1x Mausolus (Martial Law)
2x Oduduwa (The Devil and the Dragon)
1x Wormhole (Order and Chaos)

Sentry (2)
1x Colossus (Terminal Directive)
1x Nebula (Order and Chaos)
15 influence spent (max 15, available 0)
21 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Devil and the Dragon

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

I think I want more ice, and I’m uncertain on the right number for Trick of Light and Red Planet Couriers. Two TOL can fast advance an Oaktown, and RPC can score a winning agenda after never advancing it the previous turn.

Anyway, I’d like to hear from others who have tried SSO and if you are enjoying it as much as I have been.

4 Likes
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I’ve been playing mainly SSO (which is admittedly not that many games but a decent amount). I am interested in your use of GRNDL and NGO as I played with one of the SSO decks on Netrunnerdb (from the Subway tournament or whatever), and found it to be fun and did pretty well with it, but I was constantly poor and clicked for credits. I tried to solve this by throwing in 2 Bryan Stinsons to recycle hedge funds and mass commercializations and to bring back Paywall Implementations (which is more of a defense against annoying runner currents (though I have yet to go against a Employee Strike which is one of my bigger fears with this deck). It worked pretty well (even just one +9 credit hedge fund (-2 overall for his rez cost) was a huge help), but runners don’t seem to run that frequently against SSO so they frequently have too much money for me to use him :frowning:

Some assorted other thoughts based on my experiences (and I’d definitely like to hear from you as your deck is significantly different from mine and I’m still pretty new to Netrunner):

  • My biggest concern with your deck is probably Oaktown Renovation. I really like some of the abilities on non-3/5 Public ice (including Oaktown), but don’t use them because so many of the advanceable ice get a big benefit from having 3 advancement tokens on it (whether upgrading the subroutines or rezzing for free). As I sad before, I am frequently poor in this deck so even having to pay 3 for a 2 advanced asteroid belt could be too much, though obviously advancing Oaktown twice would make up the difference but I’m not sure I’d prefer that over Hollywood Renovation which lets me advance my ice further (especially things like Ice Wall that I would like to boost further than the 3 I got from SSO).
  • SSL Endorsement is an interesting choice and helps with the lack of funds, but I think that being able to score a 2/1 Hostile Takeover is crucial to winning these games. So far most of my games end with me scoring a Hostile Takeover for that 7th point.
  • I would strongly recommend Biotic Labor as they have been involved in me winning several of my games. Mainly they have let me: Biotic, Fast Track a Hostile Takeover, install, and then advance twice and score for 7th point. And in my last game I was at 5 points (I had scored a 3/5 and both my 2/1 hostiles takeovers (the bad pub wasn’t a big deal for this particular runner and the +5 credits was very helpful to destitute me)), and with 9 credits and 1 turn I was able to Biotic, install a 3/5 agenda, red planet couriers and win.
  • I tried Priority Construction and liked it a lot, saving 2 or 3 (or more!) credits on the install and getting 3 advancement tokens on ice was very helpful (especially during an agenda drought) and you can rez it if the runner runs before your next turn (plus it’s in faction). It doesn’t work on Agendas, but you can’t score that turn anyway (though it could definitely see Mushin being useful for getting a 5 damage City Works Project on the board that can pretty much defend itself).

Have you used Oduduwa? I definitely want to use it, but never seem to have enough money to spend the 7 credits on it, but am constantly adding it back to my decks before taking it out again. I have a dream of a Masvingo with 10+ end the run subroutines (and a nightmare of all that work getting wasted because of a Laamb like my beautiful Ice Wall that got Femme’d).

Ah man this got way too long!

1 Like
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The money is this deck is crazy. NGO is my new favorite Corp card, I have been putting at least two in every deck. GRNDL works well, too, and can give crazy payouts.

I like Oaktown primarily for the tempo. I have not found the difference of two counters versus three off the ID trigger to be that significant.

However, Hollywood ends up being five counters instead of two, and with the money this deck makes, that might be worth it. I may have to play with two of those to replace the three Oaktowns. That would also increase Punitive threat while reducing the agenda density.

I have seriously considered Biotic Labor in order to fast advance with RPC. I may drop 2-3 TOL to pack Biotic for closing the game.

I want to avoid bad pub because I need to tax the Runner to slow them down and create scoring windows. NGO and GRNDL are great to do that.

I haven’t used Oduduwa a lot, but it’s fantastic with at least two counters before rez, and felt like it paid for itself (this deck has the money for it). Stacking this on R&D with something like Ice or Fire Wall can make for a brutal tax on repeated runs.

Let us know how your further experimenting goes.

4

https://netrunnerdb.com/en/deck/view/1120682

My build is very different from anyone’s I’ve seen, but I believe in it very strongly. I’m about 30 games deep and it’s has a respectable ~60% win rate, playing in competitive whenever I can. The only things it consistently struggles with so far are Apoc decks (Steve or Anarch), because you really don’t want to ICE HQ in this deck (unless vs. Turtle). I imagine Omar/Alice would give it trouble too, although the deck routinely plays with an empty HQ after the mid-game, so Alice would lose some efficacy.

The build is still changing slightly every week. Jinja made too much sense to me with SSO to not try. Basically this is a mid-range tempo deck. Both Jinja and SSO are tempo cards IMO, allowing you to build strong servers in fewer clicks. For awhile I struggled to find a home for the last 3 INF. I was on a Death and Taxes as my fourth current–you have to clear EStrike immediately–when I looked through my options and saw Clones. This deck routinely does strange scoring rhythms, things like install 5/3, Dedicate. In many games you have a spare click when scoring your 5/3, because you score them over 2 or even 3 turns. I’ve been happy with the Clones slot so far, and the deck is a blast to play. My biggest piece of advice for playing SSO is: don’t be afraid to install and ice a 5/3 turn 1. Mausolus and Asteroid Belt are pretty tough to crack turn 1, and even if the Runner does steal, they should be set back massively. Obviously, cards like DDOS, Inside Job, and Logic Bomb are this deck’s worst enemies.

The first iteration was on 2x UVC, but it wasn’t doing enough work, plus I realized I needed a way to at least try to score through Stimhack abuse. I added the 2x Ash and haven’t looked back so far.

As a casual player, I find SSO one of the more interesting and satisfying IDs of late. It can be built a number of ways and I think can compete at the tier2 level currently.

2 Likes
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I’m going under the popular Jam-An-Agenda-ASAP plan, and usually have an agenda behind 1-2 ICE on turn 1-2, depending on what I’m playing against. This will probably become harder once NuSiphon comes out and makes me care about HQ again, but for now it feels great. I’ll leave it there as I set up my board and make money, and usually score it turn 3-5, money and board state depending. Things are still a little experimental about where I’m using my influence (beyond 2x Biotic, which I love), so take it with a grain of salt. Here’s where I’m at.

It’s Like BoN, But With 3 Different Letters And 5 More Cards

SSO Industries: Fueling Innovation (The Devil and the Dragon)

Agenda (8)

Asset (2)

Upgrade (3)

Operation (20)

Barrier (6)

Code Gate (7)

Sentry (2)

Multi (1)

  • 1x Orion (Order and Chaos)

15 influence spent (max 15, available 0)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Devil and the Dragon

Jinja is the big experiment this time around; last build it was Ash, which worked what felt like half the time. I found that once I set up, I end up throwing away a lot of ICE, but still want enough ICE that I can see it consistently in the early game. Jinja gives me an answer to that, and SSO gives me ICE that I can rez at a discount or has massive facecheck penalties. Actually, I think it may have been @moistloaf’s SSO that gave me the idea for it, and so far it’s seemed good.

I’m also back and forth on IPOs vs something like Dedication Ceremony and the Anonymous tip vs almost every useful 1-influence card out there. I thought the draw might be nice with the Jinjas, so I went there for now.

Anyhow, this ID is way, WAY better than what I reviewed it for. I legitimately really like it.

2 Likes
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I agree, but I’m okay with it being underestimated.

It feels like a glacier ID that has serious tempo advantage. Honestly, having advanceable ice finally come into its own is very cool - whether it ultimately is competitive or not.

4 Likes
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I have been playing a lot of SSO, love this deck. I’m going to talk through how I build my versions, dunno if this ends with a decklist or just a lot of talk. I think of it more as mentioning useful stuff to make components other people can stick in their decks.

1: Econ engine, Operations
3 x Hedge Fund
3 x IPO
3 x Mass Commercialization
3 x Economic Warfare
2 x Bryan Stinson

I usually set aside ~3 of the deck to be money, and 14 ‘operations’ is good. Econs fire stinson vs. careful runners, etc. This seems to work out for the most part.

2: Ice
2 x Fire Wall
2 x Masvingo
3 x Asteroid Belt
2 x Mausolus
1 x Oduduwa
2 x Wormhole
1 x Hortum
1 x Sapper

Not much to say here. It is our boy, advanceable weyland ice. This can be swapped around with pretty much any other advanceable ice without changing too much. The big question is how much constellation vs. how much ordinary ice. I like about a third constellation.

Agendas:
3 x City Works Project
3 x Hollywood Renovation
2 x Hostile Takeover

I’m going with the 3 point public suite. Easy to drop 2 hollywoods for 3 oaktowns, but when I do that I often end up trying to score 8 points. I dunno, Hollywood at least least you pull out the hostile in the same turn as it scores out a lot.

Ok, so that is 14 ice, 14 econ and 8 agendas. I’ve spent 36 of my 49 cards, and zero influence at this point. This is my usual starting point for SSO.

Stuff I consider for the remaining cards:

HHN/Boom suite:
3 x Hard Hitting News
3 x Boom!

With SSO they typically spend a lot breaking our ice, while we spend less rezzing it, meaning traces are an interesting option.

FA Suite:
3 x Dedication Ceremony
3 x Mumbad Construction Company

This is my most common module, basically never leave it out. DC does so much with SSO, from buffing Masvingo/Fire wall to making them have to draw extra to steal a city works to FA out a 5/3 with the help of the MCC.

MCC gives you, basically, 3 more public agendas that they can’t steal, just slap it in your scoring remote and let it tick up. If they break their back going in, and stealing it, follow it up with a public agenda. If they don’t, FA a public agenda.

Steal Punish Suite:
3 x Punitive
3 x Ben Musashi

The point of this is that they die when they steal a CWP. They take 4 snagging it and 2 from the Musashi, so they have now taken 6. If they started with 5 and drew 3 times they had 8, leaving them on 2. Your turn is ideally , Transaction Transaction Punitive.

No Score Suite:
3 x Ash
3 x Red Herrings

Just some upgrades to make scoring more expensive. They go really well with our cheap strong ice. Works good with any of the tracing packages.

More Money Suite:
3 x Beanstalk Royalties
3 x Rashida Jaheem

I’m not convinced about her yet in SSO, she often just feels like a way to take runner clicks, but I guess they have to treat her like a face down MCC in the scoring server, which is something. I need to test her more.

Trash Breakers Suite:
3 x Hunter Killer
3 x Ark Lockdown

Few people see it coming, but it works fine out of SSO. There’s a Hortum in here usually, so if we hit the 2 fracters we are generally safe from the AI backup once the midgame hits.

I don’t have a definitive version. My ‘trust me on the sunscreen’ line is probably just Mumbad Construction Company. That card is absolute amazing, and with SSO it achieves its full potential.

5 Likes
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I imagine that the upcoming Diversion of Funds is going to really hurt SSO since I rarely protect HQ early, especially since I really want to protect double ice my remote turn 1 against Criminal in case of an Inside Job or similar shenanigans. At least its 5 influence so I doubt we’ll get hit with it out of Criminal.

Criminal has been a really hard faction for me in SSO. Inside Jobs and Spear Phishing let them skip over ice turn 1 (hence the need to double ice, but then HQ and R&D are completely exposed). I also played against Leela Patel on Jinteki and had a very hard time with her since I pretty much always have unrezzed (and probably advanced) ice on the board. I think that the only reason I didn’t lose was because my opponent ran into 2 different triple advanced Mausolus naked and lost her Mongoose due to net damage and then disconnected when I rezzed a Colossus. At that point it was 6-0 in her favor so I imagine that the lost mongoose was her only one.

2 Likes
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Famous last words before having your funds diverted on turn 1 by Anarch/Shaper.

Seriously though, I expect it will be nearly as popular as Account Siphon and will likely see play in effectively all factions to various levels of success.

1 Like
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I’m of the opinion the best Diversion of Funds deck right out of the box will probably be in Anarch, running something like 2x Diversion, 1x Planned Assault, and some other 3 influence mix of Aumakuas/Career Fairs, and probably running Mining Accidents as well. And yeah, it’s going to slow down SSO, although I’ve found any deck with good early pressure slows it down a good deal.

3 Likes
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I’ve yet to build an SSO deck so take this with a grain of salt. But I would imagine you would want at least 2 currents (probably 3) to get rid of Employee Strike. That card ruins Corp decks that are build around their IDs.

1 Like
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My worst game as SSO was probably against Edward Kim who kept trashing my econ operations. That game really encouraged me to add Bryan Stinson to my deck.

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I’d say 3 because my last game was with a deck that only had 2 and I just didn’t draw into my current so an Employee Strike was out for almost the entire game (before the Runner disconnected). Cards like Priority Construction, Dedication Ceremony and even Hollywood Renovation do help when you are Employee Striked, but it still hurts a lot.

And I know I keep bringing it up, but Bryan Stinson can help a lot by bringing back Paywall Implementations that have gotten trashed. Of course, my reliance on Stinson has also led me to add Economic Warfare (at least for now) as too many Runners stay at 6 or above credits because of him which made me make other cuts.

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I just don’t feel that threatened by Employee Strike. My deck is built around scoring three agendas. That means I reasonably only expect my ID to fire twice per game.

Sure, you can leave a public agenda down and abuse the heck out of it, but that’s a very situational high risk play I think falls under “win more.” Point is, expecting to abuse the ID that way is unreasonable.

So back to two triggers of the ID. These triggers are akin to two great cards in your deck that synergise well with everything else. Like any great card, it’s awesome getting to play them, but your game can’t fall apart simply because you don’t find them.

I realize that is a weird perspective for an ID, and perhaps it’s fair to discuss whether an ID that has a fair expectation of only triggering two to three times per game is worthwhile. However, I feel like those triggers are significant enough that it makes for a unique style of deck, and it’s valuable design space to explore.

TL:DR - I would be bummed to see Employee Strike, but it won’t ruin me and I will just play around it.

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It’s so easy to just slot 3 Paywall to blast away E. Strike for free that I can’t imagine why anyone playing SSO wouldn’t slot it. Between the 3 Paywall and 2 Hostile Takeover, Strike tends to not last very long. I agree that you could play around it, but why would you when it’s so easy to just directly counter this way and still get value from your ID?

As for abusing the ID and getting multiple triggers off one face-up agenda, I’d say go for it. If you manage to assemble two decent gear checks in front of a City Works Project, it’s usually safe to slow roll it over 3 or 4 turns, slinging out upwards of a dozen counters while the runner just looks on in disappointment knowing they can’t realistically get in. On the off chance they do manage to find a decoder, a fracter, and a dozen or so credits, come and get it! It’s all backed up by the threat of Punitive anyways so it might just kill them.

4 Likes
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I don’t believe all these comments about putting in paywalls, much less three. Where are folks getting these extra slots?

More seriously, decks that slot Emp Strikes are skipping out on the rest of the restricted list. I worry about them a LOT less than I do the others. Like, it can be grim when you are sweltering away under emp strike, but it is Much More Grim when they are up 1-2 scores and have the Gang Signs in place.

1 Like
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Is it? I can think of lots of cards I would choose over Paywall - especially because my deck is already swimming in money.

The great thing about SSO is the tempo the ID can give you. Sure, Employee Strike removes that tempo advantage. However, taking the time to find and play your counter card (that in my deck would have a meaningless effect otherwise) is also a tempo hit - meaning Employee Strike did its job, regardless.

That said, Clones might be a good addition to find room for. Clearing a Strike so I can win on two agendas would be golden.

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That doesn’t really work for clearing E. Strike because you want to play Clones the turn you score the agenda and it costs 3 credits. Obviously Clones is good for winning if you can dedicate the agenda first or score it over 3 turns instead of two, but it’s not helping with the current war.

It’s not really about the money. Paywall may as well be a 0 cost event that says “E. Strike is turned off, oh and here’s a credit or two for the trouble.” Your single click of lost value to turn off an E. Strike can easily equate to 6 clicks of value with just one I.D. trigger (i.e. 3 clicks worth of credits, 3 clicks worth of advancing). If you aren’t keen on abusing that as much as possible, then it isn’t really worth being SSO over something like Titan with Priority Constructions.

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I would clear the Strike either the turn ahead of playing the agenda, or same turn after advancing with Dedication.

It doesn’t matter that Clones is broadcast because your ID trigger is intended to keep the Runner out. If those three counters weren’t going to stop the Runner from scoring, then the Strike was academic, anyway - right?

I agree you want to maximize the advantage of your ID, but slotting three sub-optimal cards on the off chance you face Strike isn’t my idea of efficient deck choices.

I might consider currents, but I’m going to want more universally useful cards.

20

i was thinking that NGO was p bad in SSO because with so many public agendas, they just think ‘oh, it’s just NGO’

but with maybe Project Atlas or GRNDL Refinery, you can get some decent bluff plays and hope that they just think it’s an NGO. the risk/reward seems good here if you can value NGO as just an economy card

1 Like