The most notable thing here is zero Blackmail recursion. I went for increased draw instead - I don’t want to spend all my time recurring Blackmails, I’d rather draw into more of them while at the same time getting the pieces for what is my actual endgame: the Chakana lockout.
I’m guessing I’ll lose some of the less critical things, and fit in at least a couple D4V1Ds, to get more speed early game. Other tweaks, we’ll see.
I like the really fast approach, though would love to see a little recursion so you can make more runs. A big fan of using armitage, I’ve had daily casts sit in my hand in close games as I’ve not been sure if there’s time for it to pay off and not create a window. You’ll also have to worry about Lizzie mills and power shutdown at some point which might require some tweaking.
My plan for Lizzie is Diesel + QT + IHW right past my three now dead Blackmails, and to set up The Combo. As for Power Shutdown… yeah, mostly a question of keeping one Progenitor empty so they have to double-shutdown. I can see eventually running two Dejas as emergency Hivemind recovery, though to be honest, if it comes to that, I’ll probably lose anyway.
So, I’m not really sure why. Haven’t got my O&C yet, but why is Eater + Siphon/Keyhole not being used in Valencia? She seems really fit to leveraging it since she can use Blackmail to pressure the remotes
Tried it, and the problem is you’re too slow to set up. It’s much, much better out of MaxX simply because you see more cards earlier (both grip and heap), with Val your problem is that until you get both your combo pieces, you’re not doing anything at all.
I have tried it, and it is really good. Like PK says, it’s slow to set up, but the blackmails allows you to stop any rush shenanigans. Very fast FA decks might be an issue, and of course BP removal or ICE self-rezzing hurts.
My version had 3 desperado, 2 clone and 2 shards, but it might be better with spinal and lucky find instead.
I was doing a slightly funky version - the idea was to use a combination of D4V1D and Grappling Hook with E3 to go through a lot of ICE without having to use Eater. If I were to do it again, I’d say “don’t leave home without 3x SMC”.
(Grappling Hook in particular was my Swordsman-hate card - felt way better than having to install a pre-emptive Mimic)
I played against three Valencias at Store Champs on Saturday – two Blackmail recursion and one once-through Incubator-Progenitor-Hivemind-Darwin-Medium. I took a timed loss on the first and won the other two, and the experience really put me off playing Valencia. The games weren’t very interactive, and unlike Astrobiotics, they also took for-freaking-ever. They weren’t very much fun.
On the plus side, the Hivemind combo player went for his 7-click power turn and was only able to get Darwin up to 9 str versus an OAI’d Curtain Wall outside R&D, so he never even got the dig.
Spags said pretty much the same thing after our match. I’m sure it’s possible to build an interactive Valencia deck, but like with FA, I feel like you’d be doing it wrong.
Valencia is certainly the troll deck if ever there was one in A:NR. I think I’d actually compare it to CI.
The first game might have been more interactive, if I hadn’t had to Duggars through my entire deck looking for a breaker. When all you’ve got is blackmail, you kind of have to use it. ;(
I like the concept of the Chakana Hivemind anarch interaction. It’s very entertaining and maddening to play against.
I’m thinking though: What about a 1-of Deep Thought? The forgotten sister of the mostly forgotten Chakana, but in a different way: It tells you exactly when to blackmail or Darwin/Crypsis through R&D, and can be summoned up via Djinn.
I still think Valencia isn’t very playable. IDK why Ed Kim gets such a bad rap; Val took worst Anarch ID for big box for me. Still haven’t even played her, so maybe that’s why I think she sucks =) I think everyone got drawn to the flashy factor, but I don’t think she can play real Netrunner very effectively.
It’d be good if you could guarantee 3x counters on it. But ultimatley, having other cards in play will be more valuable; and in a 50 card deck your influence decisions matter exponentially more than in a 45 card deck. (It feels like picking influence way back when anarch didn’t have enough tools in faction, honestly)
Flubber! I took it to 4th place in a SC with @spags, @nordrunner, @paranoid, @aandries, and a couple other top worlds players. Its only not playable if you build a bad deck. Its still highly uninteractive, but its one of the best identities in that box. You’re basically starting the game with desperado installed that allows 3x deep inside jobs. If this ID was criminal it’d be busted, out of anarch it’s merely amazing. Skill Tester? Yes, both in deck building and in play; but an unprepared meta simply can’t. FA is the only weakness at the moment that really matters. And supposedly there’s stuff coming down the pipe-line for that issue.
Btw, 2x progenetor. 2x Medium, 1x Virus Breeding Ground, 1x Keyhole has become my multi access package with eater and 2x each silverware. It’s been running better and is far less susceptible to the virus clear than it used to. Being able to on any given turn click virus breeding ground, blackmail R&D and see 3 cards is just good. It’s as good as maker’s eye. And that’s base once you’re up and running. If they ever don’t clear your next turn will probably be looking at 6 cards or so depending on whether the 2nd medium came down. This is something I was sorely missing in my game against @spags.
This gives me legs on an FA deck that doesn’t immediately go off; still will need some response to that eventually.
Different IDs for different folks. If you are playing Valencia only because of Blackmail recursion I can quickly see how she can become dull. Intrinsic focus on Blackmail leads to Timmy-like decks that are extremely binary. I’m not saying the hivemind medium or 12x Blackmails is pure jank, but it just seems to a be a worse way of playing an all-in deck. Why not play dedicated Noise mill if you want a hard win/lose deck.
Been having a lot of success with this list. Runs a lot, sets up a SecTestMasanori engine pretty fast and with Eater+BP, you will end up making money over ice you shouldn’t be. Blackmail serves as a deterrent to early scoring, from then you can start making them pay for the remote ice and focus on HQ accesses while you build up cash and board position.
Keyhole is just there as an easy Eater synergy and late game tool. Don’t even install it half of the games. Most of my wins come from HQ agenda sniping or desperation blackmails.
Valencia Sec Tester
Valencia Estevez: The Angel of Cayambe
Event (23)
3x Blackmail
1x Day Job
3x Dirty Laundry
1x Déjà Vu
3x I’ve Had Worse
2x Knifed
1x Queen’s Gambit
2x Quest Completed
1x Special Order ••
2x Spooned
3x Sure Gamble
1x Wanton Destruction
Hardware (2)
2x Desperado ••••• •
Resource (14)
3x Daily Casts
1x Hades Shard •
3x Investigative Journalism
3x John Masanori
2x Same Old Thing
2x Security Testing ••••• •
I like the deck list; How have you found the speed? It looks very similar to what @aandries was talking about at the I’m Board! SC. He seemed to think it wasn’t fast enough to deal with every deck in the meta. But this looks more balanced than what I think he was talking about
What I like about the deck is that the bad pub isn’t necessary, but it greases your wheels when its around, especially in multiples. The only thing you seem to give up on is being able to break Morphling, which is good but often passed over. Quest Completed + Eater seems solid enough too, and is good for the RP match up.
It seems like you might have trouble though if you get a bad shuffle and desperado/security testing isn’t in the upper half. There’s enough other economy that you should be able to make due, but you’ll be playing less efficiently.
Valencia isn’t dull; but, people who have to play against it who are unprepared certainly don’t have a good time. I haven’t found it to be worse than noise-mill; and I don’t find noise-mill to be as robust as all-in blackmail. Noise-mill is a problem for the corp because there’s very little way to interact, but its not a lock most times the way a 3 deep medium dig is. So I don’t think its right to say its a worse way of playing an all-in deck. In many ways its far more effective. There’s no J-How in the meta and the only blackmail removal I occasionally see is Mills; which is fine, but only out of blue sun.
The Valencia build I’ve liked the most in testing is more in line with the Reg-Ass style deck that Dan put together for MaxX in terms of breaker suite and general build. It had blackmail/etc. It had a standard breaker suite of Mimic/Corroder/Yog (w/ a keymaster backup), datasuckers, mediums. And of course the Security Testing and Desperado combo. My power draw card was Duggars, trickle econ to run while you duggars here or there. Sometimes you need to slam 10 cards to get your final pieces. Pile on the bad pub and get ready for some late game turns where you just non-stop attack and dig. The problem with the deck is FA, I was not and am not happy with that matchup. But that being said, it’s one of the best anti-glacier runner decks available. There truly is no hiding place and no way to stop the Security Testing from being at full value and for likely a sucker token.
I took a Desperado Valencia (normal Anarch breakers+Datasuckers+Medium+Wanton+all the draw cards) to a Store Champ last weekend. I had been doing really well on SHL3 with it. I did terribly with it at the SC. It was fairly different from your list, since it included Parasites and Datasuckers. The biggest problems was getting breakers quickly.
My influence was 3 Desperado, 1 Special Order, 1 Clone Chip, 1 Zu13. I’ve since been trying Desperado with Corroder/Eater/Keyhole, relying on Blackmail for remotes and Keyhole+Parasites for centrals. It has worked okay.
Duggar’s seems okay, but in that case can’t you just scoop to NEH FA?
I brought that Valencia to its first SC last week http://www.acoo.net/anr-tournament/284/tribe-store-champs/ (Reina = Valencia, BWBI = Argus) - scored 6th out of 30, losing in the 4th round of Swiss when I was top 4 to a brilliant Argus Posted Bounty Scorched play. My two previous rounds were 2/4 NEHs in attendance. I’m not going to go full report mode, but I won one pretty handily with just Sec Testing Eater Keyhole Corroder, and lost another to sheer astrotrain and inability to find the 5 Wraparound answers soon enough which can definitely be somewhat attributed to the 50 card deck. Lost another to a weird Blue Sun vegan glacier that also ran Archer. Lost my rig to a greedy run misplay and he scored out from there.
I feel that I need 2x Kati but I am unsure what to cut. 1x Yog is nice too.
2 Keyhole is pretty essential since its my win-con against traditional NEH. Get 2 BP on the board and trash DBS and SanSans, dig for answers. Use Blackmails liberally, sometimes even for 1x accesses, so they get a bit cheeky and try to assume you don’t have more. FA is definitely the worst matchup but since playing many games with this deck it feels almost as fast as it can be. A few more money cards may be in order and Spooned may have to go.
And the 1x Wanton was the compromise for cutting 2x of the Protestors and boy is it much better. As satisfying and effective it is against slow glacier, especially IT decks, it was a dead draw in competitive settings where timing windows are abused liberally. 1x Wanton is almost always a good option in any deck.
I reread my post and I was really unnecessarily uppity. Sorry, you are totally correct. Valencia medium deep dig is a really robust deck, and honestly quite scary.
Footnote Storytime: The Argus game was one I’ll always remember. He had a secure remote in the early-midgame and did IAA, but I had Eater + 2 BP + QC in hand, so I did Archives SecTest, HQ SecTest, and R&D. He didn’t rez, and I accessed an Atlas I had to steal. He had a Scorch in hand, and my hand was 4 at the time of Atlas. So I take the two meat and forfeit the remote. It was a Posted Bounty Double Scorch play that would’ve been QC’d if he wasn’t Argus Security and I hit that Atlas. Truly a netrunner moment of awesomeness.
If you wanted to try a QC in this situation, you should probably have used SecTesting on HQ and R&D and run the archive for access ;).
The Posted Bounty + Double Scorch could have been easily avoided with that
. But get this: He said he pitched a Hostile Takeover (scared of Protestors), and he said he had 2 Snares! in hand.