The nightmare was real for me in Round 4 - @bblum’s Bootcamp Glacier, giant remote, and TWO copies of Ash in there. Was really wishing I had Quest Complete there 
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I was just going over this deck and was hoping for a write up, thanks for the break down…it looks like a lot of fun.
Did you find big sentries to be an issue? What was your strategy against Blue sun, given you didn’t have d4v1d?
I didn’t deal with any big sentries all day, except for the ichi1.0 that almost destroyed me. My strategy against the one Blue Sun I played yesterday was to get three bad pub, Blackmail in to steal the Government Takeover, and get killed by a Punitive Counterstrike 
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Blue Sun seems like a hard matchup. This deck is not terribly positioned against bootcamp glacier because the only sentry is Caduceus and Gordian deals with stacked Lotus/Tollbooths as well as one could hope for. Also, that deck likes to score NAPD’s I think. Also with a couple bad pub you can facecheck any ICE in bootcamp glacier with next to zero consequences.
In other Blue Sun decks big sentries can be a problem. The one saving grace is that decks playing Archer get them rezzed using Hostiles, which mean even more bad pub. When you have 4-5 bad pub it’s pretty tough for them to lock you out of all centrals with 4+ str sentries.
I’d really like to have a Utopia Shard in here to help deal with the Scorch/Punitive problem, so removing a Sec Testing would leave 2 inf to play with. Tallie might be OK against a Weyland scorch deck since you’ll have 4-5 BP maybe which would grab you a lot cards in an emergency. The hemo version had the goal of working continually on the hand which makes it diffiicult to hold onto all the scorch pieces.
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The way to beat that Government Takeover deck with Val is simple: Mulligan for Kati, draw til you have a blackmail and do nothing else but take credits. The only time you run is when they drop an OAI curtain wall which you blackmail (if they’ve been sensible and put another ice in front) and kill with D4v1d. Then Jack the fuck out so they can’t SEA source if you haven’t overtaken on credits yet. If they push a high risk investment through when you’re too far behind on cash to risk the double punitive, you lose. Once you’re ahead on credits though, you just win. Blackmail, Kati and D4v1d are literally your entire deck in that matchup, and if you see all 3 early you can’t really lose.
checks your list No D4v1d? Oh. Oh dear. Yeah that’s a problem right there. Also the traditional version of that BS deck (Iain made a few changes but a lot of UK guys have run similar things) has research stations, making the Shard play a lot less reliable. You really do need a credit lead or double Plascrete to be safe against that monster.
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I was really proud of getting that double ash set up several turns in advance. Never traced anyone for $17 before.
Did you find the video of the game btw?
You could potentially drop the Symmetrical Visage (AKA “Baby”) for Davids and/or some more Deja Vus. I haven’t played the deck against too much Blue Sun so I’d like to see how it goes. The deck can potentially do OK without it in my mind at least–due to the ease with which Val should be able to be hitting other servers while Blue Sun is trying to set up. I’m hesitant to change it just for one matchup but will see after more games.
I’m looking forward to trying some Desperado Val this week, so completely different to Hivemind Val that it’ll be like starting from scratch with her again 
I agree you probably don’t need to bother teching against hardcore kill decks most of the time, but it’s worth thinking about your plan at least. The Same basic idea should work with Corroder you just need more money, or to play a bit loose and hope they don’t yet have the kill combo in hand when you score your first agenda.Sitting on a big pile of cash is definitely the best response to those decks though, no matter what else you do. They only have 6 agendas, they ain’t gonna be scoring out that quickly.
Nice piloting on the deck, I was really rooting for you during the tournament.
Had you considered playing Same Old Thing to get additional Blackmails or did you find that you were ok with just the 3 in the deck?
Thanks for the rooting!
The focus of this deck is not Blackmail, but rather to be able to continuously run with the bad publicity credits. Thus 3 seems like a good number. There is a Deja Vu in the deck that can be used to recur one if you wish.
Mostly I have found most players don’t try to rush you behind unrezzed ICE as they are hyper-aware of the Blackmail. They try to get tricky and bait out the Blackmails with a never advance game. Thus, just the thought of Blackmails slows them down (fun to see something go in the server, sit a turn or two, then get overwritten), but usually does not score you points. I have another version that doesn’t even have Blackmails in it, and it’s not terrible. The Blackmail in Valencia is like the Scorch in Weyland. Even if you don’t have it in the deck, the opponent needs to anticipate it.
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Hey all,
Been tinkering more with the list. Some possible cards to discuss for inclusion:
Quest Complete: discussed this one already. It has won me one game I would have lost, inadvertently won me one game by getting me to recklessly hit all centrals, and finally won me one game that I would have won anyway (style points ).
Progenitor: With a datasucker on a Progenitor, it’s much more difficult for the corp to lock you out of the centrals with a combination of Changeling, Ichi1.0, Cortex Lock, Hunter, Data Raven, etc. Put a Medium on it and you’ve got an R&D interface even after the purge. Helps with the memory issues this deck can have. Free!
Tallie Perault: I dropped a couple of these in there after getting Punitive Counterstriked FTW about 3 games in a row. With a couple of BP Tallie could grab couple cards after your discard phase on one of those turns when you “accidentally” score six agenda points. If it’s just a 3-point grab turn, then can wait 'til after the first PC, get a bad pub from her ability (if you dare to take a tag) then trash for the cards. It hasn’t helped me with the meat damage problem yet (relatively new inclusion) but it did make me feel a little better about Kati with a bunch of credits on it versus a bootcamp glacier deck that probably was running Snatch and Grab. Turns off Subliminal.
Study Guide: This seems like it would go so well with bad pub. Any turn that you are running an open server mostly for Desperado credit/sucker token/Dirty Laundry, or the corp just bails on rezzing ICE, you could spend the otherwise wasted BP bumping up the strength of your Study Guide. Tough initial outlay though. Two more inf for two of these over two Gordians. On the bright side, if you sack one Desperado for the influence, that leaves you one influence to play with.
What to remove? Mostly I’m thinking the flex slots are 1 Desperado and the Symmetrical Visages.
Thoughts?
Does anyone know if Joey posts here? He took 2nd at London regionals with Val (8-1) on the day. His deck is really cool. Paige - Opus - Eater - Keyhole - Vamp. Losers’ bracket final vs @iReidBooks was special.
His decklist is up on netrunnerdb here: Paige Me Red and Call Me Valencia - London Regional 2nd · NetrunnerDB
I think the 3xVamp and 3xWanton are a great call, and are necessary for the HQ pressure Keyhole decks are often missing.
You can play special order to save influence. Which is what I would do if I went that route . It seems slow though, I think people could abuse you with scoring windows if they know what’s up. Running is so cheap already once your set up idk if this is warranted.
I have been playing the crap out of Valencia lately and have had a ton of success. The ID is just stupid good at punishing both less than stellar players AND lack of tech against its best tricks. The LEAST of which is Blackmail, by the way.
I’m pretty sure she’s short of just a few cards that would make her Tier 1, like maybe a Raymond Flint style card for R&D, but she’s so damn close to there that you really don’t notice in a weak or low teched field.
Is she Worlds ready? Oh, hell no! Game night or local tournies? Bet your ass; she’s fantastic!
Here’s my take on her, with a match-up write-up pending: Good Night, and Good Luck · NetrunnerDB
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I was very pleased with Paige Piper in my “Steve Houston” Valencia in the first game. It helped having her in the opening hand. Knowing I wasn’t facing program destruction, I milled 2 Corroder, 1 Medium, 2 Mimic, 2 Datasucker, 2 Paige, 2 Kati, 1 Desperado and 2 Babies. 14 cards! I love having 2+ bad pub and Desperado vs asset economy – with 2 up, PAD gets trashed for 1 net credit.
One drawback – the deck thinning is so good that I didn’t want to install more than one card a turn (since Paige wouldn’t trigger the second time). I had a turn or two in the very early going when I didn’t want to run (key cards in hand, net damage deck in play) and I didn’t want to install…
It was a good matchup however (low str sentry heavy IG that took time to set up). I’d be very worried about big sentries so I’m trying to make space for D4v1d. Anything I change will hurt the consistency. I think probably a baby would be my first cut, but a 1-of in a 50 card deck doesn’t seem great.
-1 Baby, -1 Earthrise ? Maybe I’m only thinking that because I didn’t see a single earthrise.
Nice! You can call the deck Val’s Pals. Even though there are only like three pals in the deck (Kati, Paige, Baby. Maybe Smoke from Daily Casts can count?) Dan named it pretty well enough on the Stimhack Invitational stream.
I’ve been playing it a lot, and it’s been holding up. But it can be pretty bad if you don’t find Paige.
Another drawback is pitching extra copies of crucial cards (breakers abd Kati). I don’t know if you’ve noticed but sometimes the Corp snipes your cards. With barely any recursion you have to be careful guys!!!
If the deck is up and firing I haven’t had much trouble with big ice, and Blue Sun isn’t always a bad matchup so I haven’t felt the need to change things yet. I’m intrigued very much by Career Fair and think it’s a great econ card in any deck playing 3 Daily Casts and 3 Earthrise. But I don’t know if I want to mess with anything.
I like the idea of Progenitor. It’s not always definitely a card you want to pitch all the remaining copies of though, which is sort is the deck’s thing.
I played a couple games with it last night using 2 Progenitors. I was able to put a Medium on one, which helped a lot because the corp had an expensive R&D.
I know what you mean about conflicting with the “pitch copies” strategy. It not only makes you worry about pitching another Progenitor, but it also makes you have to think about pitching extra Datasuckers and Mediums. It seems a little funny though to be worried about adding value to cards. It’s kinda like that joke: a guy is walking by an outhouse and sees this guy pulling his wallet out, cursing, and tossing a $20 bill down the pit. Walking-by guy, asks him why he’s throwing his money down in the pit of sewage, and cursing guy replies, “I’m not going down there for a goddamn quarter!”. But just kinda.
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Just wanted to pop in here to reaffirm my love of Val. Here’s the Breaker Bay updated Val list–Career Fair is just fantastic. I miss the Dirty Laundries a bit, but Liberated Accounts for $3 is a deal.
And I’m also in love with my singleton MemStrips. Some games go long and you just need to be able to install some Parasites or your second Medium without any hassles.
Popping an early Investigative Journalism just always is a good deal. Last night I think I made about $40 off of bad pub in a long drawn-out RP slog.
This deck has a very favorable RP matchup as well! I’m waffling between this deck and RegMaxX for Regionals. We’ll see after I get some Net Ready Eyes testing in what I’ll be bringing.
Val’s Pals 2.0
Valencia Estevez: The Angel of Cayambe (Order and Chaos)
Event (13)
3x Blackmail (Fear and Loathing)
3x Career Fair (Breaker Bay) [color=#4169E1]•••[/color]
1x Déjà Vu (Core Set)
3x I’ve Had Worse (Order and Chaos)
3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
Hardware (3)
2x Desperado (Core Set) [color=#4169E1]••••• •[/color]
1x MemStrips (Order and Chaos)
Resource (18)
3x Daily Casts (Creation and Control)
3x Earthrise Hotel (The Source)
2x Investigative Journalism (Order and Chaos)
3x Kati Jones (Humanity’s Shadow)
2x Liberated Account (Trace Amount)
3x Paige Piper (The Valley)
2x Symmetrical Visage (The Valley)
Icebreaker (8)
3x Corroder (Core Set)
2x Gordian Blade (Core Set) [color=#32CD32]••••• •[/color]
3x Mimic (Core Set)
Program (8)
3x Datasucker (Core Set)
2x Medium (Core Set)
3x Parasite (Core Set)
15 influence spent (max 15)
50 cards (min 50)
Cards up to Breaker Bay
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I’ve been playing a “Netready Career” Val deck that is similar to yours. It splashes 3x Career Fair, 2x Clone Chip, 2x Personal Touch (soon to be Netready), a Legwork and a Special Order.
I really like 3x Inject, especially with Career Fairs, so I can’t get away from the Clone Chips. I am gonna try your Desperado out though. I don’t run Paige or Investigative, and am wary of their slowness. Will give them the college try too.