The Black Knight - Blue Sun Grail/Shutdown/Blacklist

Congrats Vapo, still messing with my inferior list with Curtain Wall and OAI. What did you R&D ice typically look like in the final turns?

It is pretty bad, but if it makes sense anywhere it’s in a deck using blacklist and program destruction - after all, any program that it trashes is one that you don’t need to clear up later.

You have to imagine cards from underway renovation are coming from the bottom of the runners stack. It means you can’t SMC/special order them, and yes, there’s synergy with Blacklist, but I genuinely think that you need to build a whole jank fest around Underway Renovation, that has it’s sight set on milling the Runner. It’s basically a terrible plan. @Vapo’s deck is good, let’s keep bad cards out of it.

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That may be true for the act of milling itself, but outside of Anarch tutoring is a thing, so it really doesn’t matter where a program comes from for that.

You’re probably right about the power level, but I just want to make the renovation work, and this seems like it may be worth trying at least.

Eh, if you include underway renovation in your deck, if you use the root to advance it, and you can keep it going for a little while, losing 4 to 6 cards a turn starts to make it worse than them being at the bottom of the deck, especially if you hit things like economy and resources / hardware that are difficult to recur. It’s a 1 point agenda that sends a very crazy message to the runner, they could be midseasoned, or maybe just have to spend a bunch of resources on a “terrible” card. If recursion is a problem, make them have to recur everything. Here come the Levy arguments.

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I really do think it’s just the numbers on Underway keeping it out, not the effect itself. It was actually the spoiler for that which first made me think of Blacklist in Weyland, and i’d have found some way of fitting them in if it was 2 cards milled up to 3 advancements and 4 after, because then you can trash faster than even a shaper can easily draw so they’re losing more than they can see. Sadly the version that actually got released doesn’t go quick enough, probably has to get quite lucky to have much impact, and isn’t worth replacing any of the current agendas which all do a lot of work already.

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As a one of in a deck with fast track and many 3 pointers, there is totally room, but I see your point.

Unless you’ve got a plan to hugely overadvance Underway Renovation, I think it’s probably worse than Vulcan Coverup. It’s a 1 point agenda you need a plan for. The 5/3 might have a place (but probably not a public 5/3 is a big liability). Man Oaktown Renovation is good!

just tried the deck. Loved it.

I switched swordman for lotus field, and subliminal + patch for 2 cyberdex virus suit. So mean to purge while they run for their precious sucker tokens only to face a grim…

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I don’t know, I value oaktown renovation, but it’s not vastly superior underway, though it’s easier to just toss in a deck. I’d say off the grid wants to play at least one underway, not to mention that there’s just so much potential to screw criminal with the mills. If your plan is over advancing it, I say it’s not the worst plan. If you have the ability to advance it enough times to mill half the runners deck (easier while they’re still setting up) that’s crippling no matter what faction you play as. I play with government takeover, fast track and oaktown/underway and off the grid. Underway is damn near a win condition for the deck if I have the right opportunity.

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I see no use for Swordsman in this deck. I can’t think of a single instance where that would you win a game.

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Atman 4 or 6 is a legitimate play against this deck. Merlin, Changeling, and Archer are all the bosses of lockout, and one Swordsman can be the final nail in the coffin. Though Wraparound would be just as good Swordsman is hella cool.

Gave it a spin yesterday against a Faust deck. Swordsman would have been the death blow if I had remembered that I was playing Blue Sun - it killed one Faust, but then I just left it out there until he could Parasucker it. Sigh.

I love this archetype, but I’m sooo bad at playing it :pensive:

That depends on what you’ve managed to trash :stuck_out_tongue: Ideally by then you’ve got a Blacklist out and something they simply can’t break on R&D + Remote, but obviously that doesn’t happen every game.

Usually you want Grim + something that ends the run (or just an Archer, if they’re ignoring your remote entirely) vs Crim and Shaper as they have a hard time getting through big sentries repeatedly, and against Anarch you really have to base it on what they’ve managed to get into play or are likely to be packing.

I’m considering going down to 1 Blacklist 2 EBC as @cmcadvanced suggested above so it can fit a 2nd Swordsman, AI matchups are probably the hardest thing to handle, they’re gonna get increasingly common with Faust out now and it’s an amazingly strong counter. Crims are the only people not running some sort of AI these days, and they’re your easiest matchup by some distance so I can live with another dead card against them. The only problem is what to cut… I really want to try out Interns as well, so along with Patch the final Subliminal might have to go :frowning:

I had Lotus Field in that slot previously, but I didn’t feel like it was pulling it’s weight. You’re pretty good at keeping suckers off the field so Merlin fills the strength 4 Code Gate slot pretty well, and with Changeling being one of your main late game scoring ice you don’t want to encourage an early Atman 4 install any more than Merlin already does.

Have you played against Faust? I tried The Black Knight against @king_mob the other day and it turns out Faust isn’t great for breaking Grail, Grim or Archer. It needs a lot of cards. Faust + e3 might give you issues, but that’s a pretty specialised beast that I think you just have to play smart against.

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I haven’t yet, so that’s good to know :smile: Worth remembering that e3 can be shut down if they don’t have anything smaller out!

Eater is definitely a pain though, so far I’ve only beaten @Xenasis’s Eater/Siphon MaxX when he helpfully Queen’s Gambitted my Atlas so I could fetch up a Crisium and a Blacklist nice and early.

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Love this deck - I see this type of deck as the future of weyland, it’s really a unique space that the other corps can’t really go for.

I was testing a Batty deck with similar intentions, and I’ve made a few adjustments based on the skeleton of your deck:

(49 cards)
Blue Sun: Powering the Future
– Agenda (11 cards)
3 Geothermal Fracking
2 Hostile Takeover
3 Oaktown Renovation
3 Project Atlas
– Asset (8 cards)
2 Blacklist**
2 Executive Boot Camp
3 Jackson Howard***
1 Private Contracts
– ICE (16 cards)
2 Archer
2 Grim
3 Hive
2 Meru Mati
3 Spiderweb
1 Swordsman*
3 Wendigo
– Operation (9 cards)
3 Hedge Fund
3 Power Shutdown
3 Restructure
– Upgrade (5 cards)
2 Crisium Grid
3 Markus Batty*********

Given that batty eats up all the grail influence, I went for more of an “uncorrodable” ICE setup (an old weyland archetype that focused on blowing up fracters). wendigo is brilliant as a super cheap code-gate gear check that turns into another barrier the second yog+NRE hits the table.

I’ve had pretty good results so far - the deck has great chops against green runners packing lady - spiderweb+hive drains counters fast and there are never enough parasites and datasucker tokens to go around versus blue sun. surprisingly, the deck also does well against morningstar, if only because batty breaking it over and over again ends up costing them a fortune…

Overall, I suspect this version is a bit more “newb stompy” (and perhaps less “actually good”) than your original grail list; games hinge almost entirely on winning the batty game at the exact right moment, as unlike caprice you really need to capitalize immediately when he goes off. Mostly I just love it cause it kicks PPvP kate right in the nuts. my last 2 games against her have ended with Kate having 60+ credits, no deck, and no way into any server but HQ. :smiley:

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Other surprising uses for Wendigo:

a) Runner coming in with Imp to trash your stuff? Wendigo!
b) Runner trying use Medium on R&D? Wendigo! (Doesn’t stop the counters building…)
c) Runner trying to use Lamprey to drain you of money? Wendigo! (Except it doesn’t! See below!)

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That looks like a really good list for a Marcus Batty version, I agree that without Grails you’re better off focusing on Fracter hate. I always forget Wendigo can turn into a barrier, that’s really neat here! It looks like it could certainly be stronger against Kate, but I’d be slightly worried about Anarchs as you only have 2 Grim and 2 Archer to take out their Corroder, and whichever server you set up destroyer + Marcus on they can potentially just ignore in favour of hitting others. Maybe lose one of the Wendigos for a 3rd Grim to spread the threat wider? 3x is a lot for an (almost - barring @Dragar’s fun tricks) entirely positional ice, although at least in Blue Sun you can shift it around later on.

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If Medium gains counters through Wendigo (which I think you’re right in saying it does). Lamprey probably drains 1 credit. We really need a rules reference document like Conquest and new Thrones has for netrunner. Defining the word ‘use’ in this case would be really handy.