The Anarch Cookbook: Chapter One

All decks should love Express Delivery. Still surprised that everyone doesn’t play it

Just one comment - change those SMCs into Atmen and watch how utterly badass it’ll become.

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Or pay 2 more credits and draw 5 instead of just 1.

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Here’s the thing, though - sometimes those 2 credits delay the card by a whole turn. To have a meaningful follow-up to a QT, you need to sit on a bit of a bank (cca 8 credits or so, depending on what exactly is still in your deck). Remember how Liberated Account is bad for Anarch because of needing to sit on a bank? Similar situation here.

For instance, in a Wyldside deck I’d much rather run Express Delivery - when I don’t have Wyldside, I don’t need to draw 5 cards (so I won’t be willing to pay 3 for that), but I’ll gladly pay 1 to either grab it from the top 4, or to get another chance to have it available in the next 4 draws.

(also, there’s the argument against overdrawing when you don’t yet a whole lot of stuff you can discard easily)

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I need a card like Brainstorm to be honest. Works wonders with SMC and test run…

…and Oracle May :stuck_out_tongue:

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Sounds good except that then I’m even more vulnerable to destroyers. How do you avoid getting blown out by Rototurret / Archer / Grim? Is it just understood that if they have those cards then at some point you’re going to faceplant into one one of them and your plan is to win regardless?

You have recursion. If you have a supply of datasucker tokens you can use Mimic. You can move Knight onto unrezed ICE that you think are likely to be destroyers. But, ultimately, destroyers suck for Anarchs until D4v1D comes out, at which point we get to laugh at them and at every other bit of ICE that corps thought was good :smile: .

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[quote=“Crunchums, post:43, topic:1496”]
Inspired by this article (and by a burning love for Security Testing), I made this deck:
[/quote]Interesting! Very similar to the Whizzard deck I’ve been running. I’m a bit hesitant about SMC over something like Desperado, which helps fund your cheap runs. Seeing another Anarch deck taking on Security Testing and Express Delivery is exciting, and I’m glad to hear it’s doing well. (Honestly, I don’t know why people worry so much about being knock-off Andy. Andy is good. Different for difference’s sake is not.)

[quote=“Crunchums, post:50, topic:1496”]
How do you avoid getting blown out by Rototurret / Archer / Grim?
[/quote]Pay attention to Corp resources and card placement, run redundancies, etc.

My current preferred Anarch breaker suite is:
3x Mimic
2x Corroder
1x Yog
3x Knight

Because you need Mimic the most to deal with destroyers, Corroder for Wraparound and other barriers, and Yog for ultimately very little that Knight doesn’t bypass equally well. S’long as you draw/ED plenty, you’ll hit what you need eventually.

I just need to find a way to slot in Morning Star (in place of one Corroder, perhaps? The MU cost is the concern) and a D4V1D or two, for Archer, Grim, Taurus, etc. Of course, Scrubbed will also help some (as will the eventual Incubator), I imagine, as does Ice Carver.

Honestly, lots of Corps aren’t totally ready to deal with that many breakers, in my experience. It’s not ideal, but it saves the influence for other things – Atman or Desperado or even Clone Chip.

Speaking of Anarchs - Reina vs Whizzard?

Reina is good against any deck, but against some decks, Whizzard will be absolutely balls good.

Against most NBNs, you’ll save at least 9 credits (3 trashes), against any horizontal deck you’ll probably win because of Whizzards ability (or at least hamper their play style), and against any HB you have a nice advantage for all of the economy assets.

I think that even against decks where corp doesn’t rely heavily on assets, Whizzard will be at least 9 credits. Most everyone plays at least Jacksons or Ash.

How many creds does Reina “earn” in the end? Is her ability more than just “1 cr per ice”? Is the implied tempo hit for corp worth more?

Your thoughts?

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Yes and no - if they have enough money that the 6 extra credits or so that you make them spend won’t matter, she isn’t really good. Her value lies in the number of ICE they can’t rez because of her ability. In other words…

…these are exactly the right questions to be asking.

There are two arguments to be made for Reina:

  • Rook - If you’re going to go really heavy into the denial side of things, she makes sense. It’s a deck that either works great, or leaves you wishing you were playing Tic-Tac-Toe.
  • Link - sometimes good enough on its own, sometimes used to make Spinal Modem sexier. Still, a useful feature.

I can tell you that I wouldn’t play Reina over Whizzard unless I was running Rooks at the very least, probably also a couple Vamps and/or Siphons. Her ability alone just isn’t enough economic pressure. Lamprey probably won’t help, because you need to get into HQ first. (and the money, cards and MU you’re spending on Lamprey you’re not spending on getting in)

That being said, I’ve always been a Whizzard fan - he’s been my goto Anarch identity since WLA. Every time I play anyone else but him, I end up wishing I was Whiz instead :smile: In the last tournament I’ve played Whiz, I saved a ridiculous amount of money over the tourney - something like 80ish credits?

(yes, I played vs. 5 NBNs :D)

“Against any horizontal deck you’ll probably win” is a statement that doesn’t really hold, with all the new toys RP has gotten. What he does is force them to approach the assets differently, though - they can’t just spam them, they have to be protected by stuff like Pups, which further dilutes ICE on centrals. So, still useful!

Thinking hard about whether a discussion of the Anarch identities merits its own chapter, due to how quickly that info tends to get outdated. All it takes to completely invalidate something is one card, really (see: Noise).

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Also, the thing that I like about Whizzard is that when he’s good, he’s REALLY good. Sickeningly good. I’ve skimmed through last 10 winner decklists on stimhack and against every single one of them it would be good, with 9+ targets worth trashing.

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Yeah, Whiz’s lack of Link can sting, but overall I’d take him. There’re only a handful of decks that are entirely unaffected by him, and FFG is pushing asset economy more and more. Reina doesn’t put enough pressure on the corp by herself with only affecting one Ice per turn, whereas Whizzard can at least force, say, Red Coats to gain its money more slowly and clear something out of HQ/R&D to make another run pull up something different.

This is why I went with Whizzard/Desperado/Security Testing, mostly (I’ll post the list after one last run of playtesting tonight – I held off for a while because it uses Lamprey, but that’ll apparently be legit soooon). Left a remote server open? I’ll bounce off for 3 credits, then run again for a 4th and a (cheap/free) asset trash. Your SanSan bait means next to nothing to me. Your PAD Campaign is a liability more than an asset (which is why MHC is so great).

There are a few decks that Whizzard’s not AS good against (CI and Assetless Supermodernism come to mind), but they’re both punished pretty hard by both the other factions at the moment. Even then, in other games his power MORE than makes up for it.

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I think im in the same boat as @PeekaySK. ive been a master gamer since he came out, and every dam time i swap to another runner i miss the 3 credit crutch that he gives, along with the flexibility of not really being pigeoned holed into one sorta build that the other 2 Anarch runners give you.

Currently im heavily playing renia, what I’ve learned from doing this is. her ability means you have to play a more criminal aggression type of deck that focuses on early game and keeping them there. so you can make the most of free runs (or cheap) where they cant rez things (looking forward to cyber threat).

once i finnish with renia or the new ID (if its interesting), i cant wait to play a wizard duggers retrieval deck.

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Whizzard is great in proportion to how many assets you see. I think we’re at a point were we consistently see enough assets to make him always at least a decent choice and sometimes a superlative one :).

It will be interesting to see how the new ID does, but I think I mostly want to see Inject and a couple ways of making my Anarch tricks a little more reliable and resilient :).

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I’m not sure about this. Assuming you’re using it blind, with 30 programs you have a 2/3 chance of success with Oracle May. So the expectation value is:

3 clicks = 2 cards, 4 credits and a trashed card (plus the information communicated to the Corp from the reveal).

The rate of return isn’t great, you can’t use it when you’d necessarily like to and when you end up trashing a card it will be something you would have preferred to keep about half the time. I think I’d prefer to play Security Testing and John Masanori.

Yeah look, I’m a pretty crap Netrunner player so I like high variance ideas mostly. If it comes off it kicks ass, if it doesn’t, oh well. It’s not like I was winning with Noise super regularly anyway! I’ve since taken out 1 Hostage for an Aesops, and moved the armitage to a second daily casts, which I think are improvements. As the cycle moves on I can hopefully sub out more non-program cards for the new virus’ that have been previewed. I’ve also subsequently found out that Scheherazade doesn’t contribute memory, so Aesop’s for installing over things made sense.

You’re right though, I’m finding Oracle fun and winning when you get her right 3 or 4 times in a row. I played a game where I had to trash Aesops, Daily Casts, Daily Casts then promptly lost hehe.

So far Sahasrara is an MVP. Having 2 out and buying Crypsis for 1 with a virus already on him and milling your opponent. Priceless.

Thanks for the feedback though, I’ll definitely try your suggestions out. If you have any ideas about getting Motivation in with influence I would love to hear em.

Hey guys, first post on here, and what better topic? I ran AoA styled noise at regionals and did pretty good, but I always felt like a 1 trick pony. I believe that AoA only works if the draws come right and you don’t get shut out. I was enthralled at first, and now I’ve run cold on it. I crave that old style of anarch. For an entire cycle now I’ve said what PK said in the article, anarch is about finding a way to hit you, and when they hit you, they hit you VERY hard.

Anyone who has seen my creations on Netrunnerdb might notice that multiaccess is my thing with anarch. Also, running cheap and efficiently is an anarchs game. Additionally running reckless, rig sacraficially aggressive, and unpredictbaly is what makes anarch so fantastic.

I put together this Reina build as a strong denial type build, based around Keyhole into oblivion. It still uses siphon, but it is denial. It also strays from the trap of parasite → sucker → djinn-> etc I run strictly caissa. This deck would probably be every bit as good or better as whizzard.

chess reina

Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter (Mala Tempora)

Event (15)
2x Account Siphon (Core Set) ••••• •••
2x Diesel (Core Set) ••••
3x Dirty Laundry (Creation and Control)
2x Déjà Vu (Core Set)
3x Lawyer Up (True Colors) •••
3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)

Hardware (5)
3x Deep Red (Mala Tempora)
2x Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead)

Resource (5)
3x Liberated Account (Trace Amount)
2x Same Old Thing (Creation and Control)

Icebreaker (10)
2x Corroder (Core Set)
3x Mimic (Core Set)
3x Overmind (Honor and Profit)
2x Yog.0 (Core Set)

Program (10)
3x Bishop (Second Thoughts)
2x Keyhole (True Colors)
2x Pawn (Opening Moves)
3x Rook (Opening Moves)

15 influence spent (max 15)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Honor and Profit

Deck built on http://netrunnerdb.com.

It has lots of draw to find you the parts, while synergizing against tags, and for finding more caissa. It is a blast to play if you like to see cards, and stay aggressive. The corp WILL trash lots of cards to eliminate your caissa. Deja Vu can be used to get back vital caissa, siphons, etc. I believe heap recursion is a big part of being an anarch, and I’d think retrun would be a great add.

Before this I ran similar program suites in this build:
Whizzard: Master Gamer (What Lies Ahead)

Event (14)
3x Demolition Run (Core Set)
3x Diesel (Core Set) ••••• •
3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
2x Retrieval Run (Future Proof)
3x Dirty Laundry (Creation and Control)

Hardware (7)
2x HQ Interface (Humanity’s Shadow) ••••
2x R&D Interface (Future Proof) ••••
3x Deep Red (Mala Tempora)

Resource (8)
2x Ice Carver (Core Set)
3x Liberated Account (Trace Amount)
3x Kati Jones (Humanity’s Shadow)

Icebreaker (10)
3x Mimic (Core Set)
2x Yog.0 (Core Set)
2x Morning Star (What Lies Ahead)
3x Knight (Mala Tempora)

Program (6)
3x Pawn (Opening Moves)
3x Bishop (Second Thoughts)

Though, archer was always a something I was afraid of because getting Ice carver, bishop and mimic all in place can take a while :smile:

Anyway, I thought I’d offer to weigh in my experience here, I have a lot of traditional style Anarch builds with various levels of success.

Crypsis is basically a Red card in my mind, particularly out of noise. Plenty of noise decks can be run on just Crypsis for breakers. If you do that heavy parasite recursion is key, as well as multiple mediums and nerve agents. A djinn full of mediums is enough value to use just crypsis to get in, if you keep the ice count down with parasite.

Anarch is all about altering the board state. Be it actively changing the ice layout/strength, or forcing the corp to build ice a certain way in response to a threat. You have to think long term about what your attacks are going to be, and force the corp to blow it’s resources defending the way you aren’t planning to attack. Play 1 medium and heavy attack R&D while assembling the means to get a full suite of Nerve and Vamp, optionally pheromones, and then hit HQ hard and break the corp’s back. Or attack HQ with Nerve agent, then mass install mediums with grimoire out and run hard at R&D. Hit R&D hard and get chakana built up right on the turn the corp installs an agenda. It’s all about directing the corps actions and cards.

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What does “AoA” stand for?

TeamCovenant’s Anatomy of Anarchy post.