Security Testing in Anarch is boss.
1 Like
Is Express Delivery enough to make NoiseShop more consistent and playable?
Together with 2 Workshops and 3 Wyldsides, it makes for easier mulligans and better blowout opening hands.
The only part of that chain that is actually a trap is Djinn. Heâs not an auto-include when you run Parasites, and you can actually reasonably run Parasites without Datasuckers - Pup, Komainu, Pop-Up Window, Tsurugi and Hive are all good Parasite targets, with or without acceleration.
Iâm convinced that dropping Parasites is a mistake, especially now in the era of taxing ICE. Do you really intend to pay 2 each time you run through a Pup?
Why in the name of the Lord would you run three Deep Reds and no Knights? Especially in a no-parasite situation? And with a deck that wants to repeatedly access one server? With no source of recurring credits and no stable long-term economy (like, a Kati at least), I really donât see it happening. The Kati absence in particular strikes me as a serious oversight, seeing how youâre investing card slots and influence into Lawyer Up.
I have a Reina Chess list that works really well for me, and will put it up later tonight (it only exists in meatspace, currently). The concept as such can work, but I donât think your list is the way to go.
Thanks for the feedback PK! Also thanks for the great write up, Iâm looking forward to the rest of the articles 
As with most of the things youâve highlighted, it is simply meta (and timing). In my meta right now no one runs pup, as there are almost no RP players, and pup wasnât out when that was constructed. I can easily replace anything for parasite, but usually itâs pawn, since I almost never use pawn. The key takeaway is that you donât necessarily have to use parasite to be successful. Most of the time if theyâre dedicating only a pup to R&D, yes I can normally afford to take some combo of 1c or 1 card in order to keyhole until I win, which with keyhole, is super fast.
As for the knight/deep red, the answer there, they go where overmind is. This deck was assembled when my knights were in my gabe deck, and during testing with the MU boost from Deep Red. Again, this just shows that you can be mildly flexible in choosing which AI type to bring to the table in constructing a deck like this. It works, but knight is probably the better choice, and youâre certainly able to swap it in. The key is the caissa framework with breakers, using Bishop, a wonderful card that when recurred a lot, actually works very well.
The lack of Kati Jones is a personal choice, I do not like Kati in almost any of my decks, especially since here I can take some turns floating tags without her. That is because spending the clicks to line up the caissa to make the siphon happen can stick you without clicks to remove the tags. The deck has never had econ problems because of how cheap the runs are, and how rapidly it wins. There isnât really a need to have long term econ. Finally, there are players locally that run midseasons in Weyland and NBN for tag-advance and tag and bag. I would be left high and dry if I ran Kati any more than I already do (see the whizzard deck).
These are decks that work, they simply require experience and the right play style. They are certainly not tuned 100% for regional level play, but they have been tested working very well against most decks. But they work very well to demonstrate and practice working with the caissa mechanics and movements I would recommend at least giving them at try before wholesale panning them.
Iâm pretty excited to see your caissa based build, Iâm typically a fan of your constructs, looking forward to it.
tested it a lot in prep for regionals, itâs decent, but not on par with old noiseshop
Thatâs a pretty big ask, to my understanding, is it not?
(Serious question, as I wasnât playing back then, and have heard varyingly that Noise was âoppresively powerfulâ and just âquite goodâ and donât have the first-hand experience to judge more.)
I wasnât around for it either, but in my imagination itâs âhost zillions of virus programs on PW, run archives once and winâ (movie guy voice: âIN A WORLD, WITH NO JACKSON HOWARDâŚâ)
Noise wasnât actually that amazing when it comes to winrate-- he was I think on par with Gabe, the other best Runner at that time (Shaper more or less wasnât viable at all pre-C&C). However, he was much more frustrating to play against because games against him were quite frequently decided by the outcome of random mills and he wasnât particularly interactive.
âLoad tons of viruses on PW and then stimhack Archives and winâ Noise was worse than Noise builds that actually played the game normally (while also getting random mills), but was kind of the epitome of a certain uninteractive playstyle that many people found frustrating to come up against.
3 Likes
When considering making a deck with Whizzard as opposed to Reina, the key question is âin which matchups is this bad?â. And honestly, against deck I regularly see, there arenât that many. NBN virtually always runs SanSan, and with the possible exception of Astrobiotics, also Jackson Howard. He does suffer slightly from 0 link, but I think this is far outweighed by the benefits.
I think his worst matchups is likely Weyland, particularly the variants of Supermodernism who pack no Jacksons, but I personally rarely see those. All in all I think the current meta suits Whizzard pretty well. I think thereâs definitely something to be said for Reina, but it has to be more than âher ability is at least certain to do somethingâ.
old noiseshop was tier 1 and on par with criminals, which, in terms of regionals prep, is where you want a deck to be. Itâs still probably the strongest anarch deck right now, but extremely skill intensive and not nearly as consistent as kate and andy.
2 Likes
Much obliged. That makes⌠well, a whooole lot of things make more sense to me, now.
My friend Aaron, who topped 4âd at Worlds, went 14-2 with NoiseAtman over 2 tourneys at Gencon last year. As good as NoiseShop was, using a build that could actually run, destroying cards with Imp along the way, was more potent. Its main power was a bit of a surprise factor. People, especially in the last hurrah before Howard rose again on the third day, had expectations when sitting down across from Noise that they were on a clock, but they had time. Oh, how they were shocked when they had Agendas stolen out of Remotes and hand, as well.
TL; DR - playing surprises/counters to the meta can have surprisingly strong results (no duh, spags!)
2 Likes
Just for the record here.
The original version of NoiseShop was actually best played by running aggressively. The version that I initially played against @Alexfrog with @asroybal (and led to Alex writing about it) most definitely did not just make a single run. People did play it that way and often still won, but that was far from the optimum.
7 Likes
No doubt. Another misconception. I believe there were a myriad of builds of it. Most people I saw played him passively, and even PW took time. The Atman build was a deck built to run every turn, yet milled along the way. Pre-Howard, it was still good for 2-4 points per game. Howard was a necessary evil, but he was far too efficient a card. Quite the overreaction. If he were designed now, he would def. be two separate cards, IMHO.
3 Likes
I think Jackson is great (power-level / design wise). He stops agenda floods from being auto-losses and also keeps Noise in check. Iâm not sure how you are envisioning splitting JH into two separate cards, but I think it would be really dumb to have the anti-Noise card be necessary to avoid losing to Noise but useless everywhere else. I already hate having to run Plascrete Carapace; I definitely wouldnât want corps being put in that same position.
2 Likes
Plascrete has no INF cost, works against 15% of the field, and costs money. Howard has 1 INF cost, zero money cost, and is always useful.
Great comparison.
The original version of NoiseShop was actually best played by running aggressively. The version that I initially played against @Alexfrog with @asroybal (and led to Alex writing about it) most definitely did not just make a single run. People did play it that way and often still won, but that was far from the optimum.
Just want to say, that I learned how to play netrunner by watching you and Anthony Roybal play pw noise. I think that deck is still viable today in the current metagame if piloted competently.
4 Likes
I think there might be some confusion: Did you mean Howard would pull only two cards, or that he should BE two cards?
The point I saw them making was more that the âshuffle three cards into r&dâ card, by itself, wouldnât be nearly as good except to counter noise. Whether or not thatâs true, it makes the comparison better, I think.
GreedyGuts is on this already, but
Iâm saying that I prefer Jacksonâs situation (always useful) to Plascrete Carapaceâs (essential against 15% of the field, useless otherwise). Thus I would not have liked if Jackson had been split into two cards (as you suggested) such that one of them was essential against Noise, but not great otherwise. Granted,
- If you were to split Jackson into two cards then the Noise hoser card would be more useful to corps against non-Noise runners than Plascrete is to runners against non-meat damage corps
- I could definitely get on board with âit would have been better if Jackson were not as good as he isâ (e.g. maybe increasing his rez cost and/or decreasing his trash cost)
edit: mostly this was just another opportunity for me to whine about how much I hate having to include Plascrete Carapace in runner decks 
Playing around a bit with this (Pepper Mill), a few things strike me:
Surge looks like it might have a home here. Otherwise it is very predictable where you can get in and where you canât. Being able to Surge up the Whale or a Parasite keeps the pressure on remotes in particular.
If you see Pawnshop, great. But if not the economy makes it crawl along, even with the Scheherazade/Cyberfeeder engine. Would Kati be better than Daily Casts to provide a longer term economic backup?
On the âit looks like a pile, but might not be so badâ front, how about Eden Shard? Having it on the table threatens a win two turns earlier (and before they can get their last-ditch Jackson away). And it allows extra deep digs with Nerve Agent/Medium.
Bottom line is, I think this has a future. Glacier really hates it and you will always have the Noise thing of just randomly winning games. But I think it needs Cache and D4V1D before it will be fast enough to threaten FA decks. Astrobiotics droping a Tollbooth on R&D and a Wraparound on HQ pretty much wrecks you unless you get very lucky trashing cards off the top.
2 Likes