Weyland's IDs from Order and Chaos

I LOL’d IRL.

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hmm, a 17 influence corp who’s ability supports the then dominant strategy. What is the worst that could happen?

The word supermodernism fell a couple of times here, and while Blue Sun plays like Blue Sun, supermodernism is what I see as the weyland strategy to go to. Don’t know what other people think about that.

Key cards would be atlas, grim and archer, key principles speed and gaining money off the agendas you score to keep you in the race with the runner and extend your portion of the game where you can blow up the runners appartment.

Titan does a lot of things you want. It’s faster (because you don’t actually need to overadvance atlas) at the cost of a lower initial income. Geothermal fracking is another card that becomes better for you and that’s a card you already wanted to play. On top of that you get two extra influence to play with! Gone are the days of grndl’s cramped influence (and consequentely limited draw).

I’m sure one could go in curious directions with titan, but seems like it’d be worth it to revisit supermodernism, a tempo deck with bad publicity.

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So I’ve been thinking about what a PE-style Argus deck could look like for the past few days, and here is what I’ve been thinking. I’m not really familiar with playing PE so I anticipate that this deck is quite horrible, but it’s just a thought/start.

Argus Security

Agenda, 14 cards (Version 1)
3x Cleaners
3x Posted Bounty
3x Hostile Takeover
3x Firmware Updates
2x Veterans Program

Assets, 6
3x The Board
3x Jackson Howard (3 influence total)

Operations, 15
3x Midseasons Replacements (12 influence total)
3x Scorched Earth
3x Beanstalk Royalties
3x Hedge Fund
3x Restructure

ICE, 14 total
Barrier, 5
3x Ice Wall
2x Asteroid Belt

Sentry, 5
3x Archer
2x Nebula

Code Gate, 4
2x Wormhole
2x Enigma

Keypoints:

  1. Bunch of 1 pointers works well with Midseason Replacements, low risk (one point), high reward (Scorched Earth) and Archer, low cost (one point), high reward (Archer).
  2. Posted Bounty, Hostile Takeover, and Firmware Update are solid just for their effect. (Firmware can be considered 3 clicks and 3 credits or 9 credits, depending on how you evaluate it).
  3. The Board in play means that the opponent has to score 4 out of 6 cards in order to win the game through Agenda points. That’s better than Harmony Medtech. (Maybe, I assume, I didn’t do the math). Don’t forget that it is a costly 7 credits to steal.
  4. You are porous early, but Argus + their 1 pointers lowers the risk for you to get blown out and the cost for them to be aggressive.
  5. Constellation Ice works nice as the other half of that strategy, basically it becomes extremely costly to be passive as a runner, as each advance is basically click for 2 credits.

Basic Strategy, score out your Firmware Updates and Hostile Takeovers, try to avoid ever rezzing your Constellation Ice for credits, look for Mid-Seasons/Posted Bounty into Scorched, and remember that Board only scores if it’s being trashed while accessed which (correct me if I’m wrong) means that it can’t be scored from Archives.

I don’t think Cleaners is really important, it’s nice, but the lost of Atlas is real. This is another Agenda spread I’m thinking about.

Agenda, 14 (Version 2)
3x Glenn Station
3x Project Atlas
3x Hostile Takeover
3x Posted Bounty
2x Veterans Program

Glenn Station does through it’s ability what Cleaners did by being a 3 pointer, i.e. reduce accessible agendas. Basically, just click a 2 pointer onto it, and let the runner have fun fishing for 1 pointers. If you can keep the board in play, they have to at least score 5 cards out of 9 or at worst 7 cards out of 9.

Trading a Mid-Seasons for a Biotic Labor might not be a bad call, particularly in an Atlas build since you can search, so you can Mid-Seasons and 3x Scorched on a single turn.

Plus Data Raven could be a great splash in here. Look to give the runner tags unexpected tags Never Advance style (throwback alert).

It may synergize with all the new weird toys Weyland is getting: Checkpoint for instance.

Here’s what I’ve got right now:

Michael Bay

Argus Security: Protection Guaranteed (Order and Chaos)

Agenda (12)

Asset (7)

Upgrade (2)

Operation (13)

Barrier (5)

Code Gate (5)

Sentry (5)

15 influence spent (max 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Order and Chaos

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

This is just a first draft, which I haven’t played with at all, and I dislike a lot of things about it - for one thing, it almost certainly needs more money.

The idea is that it’s a Supermodernism-ish deck, where the goal is to spread the runner too thin to deal with all your threats. In this case, you have basically 5 threats: barriers, code gates, sentries, meat damage, and net damage (from Snare and Self-Destruct). Accounting further stretches the runner - they’ll want install a barrier breaker, a code gate breaker, a sentry breaker (maybe multiple), Plascrete, and Deus X, but that’s going to be really taxing on them with Accounting. Unless they just snipe an agenda from you…that could be a problem.

I think Midseasons is wrong for Argus, one because you’ll probably be broke, and two because if the runner is perma-tagged, your ID becomes effectively blank. Maybe it’s worth it anyway to set up the DRT combo, but at that point, wouldn’t you rather be playing Gagarin?

The Board might be the best CEO in the game. 7 trash cost! And it basically prevents the runner from winning! Awesome. I wonder how the timing works if you bait a run on the Board and then Self-Destruct it? Can the runner win before getting flatlined?

I really like the idea of using space ICE, especially when Argus loves 1-pointers already. Maybe I’ll try to work that in for a more reliable scoring server.

You only run 3 economy cards. I run more. Has nothing to do with the ID. Also, the constellation ice basically cost 3 credits so things don’t cost that much.

As far as becoming blank, Argus is always going blank once they get Plascrete Carapiece in play (basically). The point is what best takes advantage of your window. For me, I like Mid-Seasons more because I can play it now and play the Scorches later. Perma-tagging early is also nice so you can trash any Resource econ that they might play. And to be honest, I’d rather have a card that I can play right then and there, rather than something I’m just going to hold onto.

But sure, SEA Source is fine. I think it’s better in a typical Supermodernism deck where you have a stronger rush element, which is not the case for me.

I don’t understand why some people like Checkpoint. It looks awful to me. Also, I’m not sure all the tracer ice is all that good if you are handing out BP like you are.

You can rez and use it before they access (at any time), so there’s not really even any timing question.

It absolutely does have to do with the ID. If you’re playing BABW, GRNDL, Blue Sun, or Titan, you’ll have more money.

You may be right about Argus going blank anyway…I’ll have to think about that more. Those are some good points in the favor of Midseasons.

I’m not sure about Checkpoint, either, but it seems like something you could score behind early. It’s a hard piece of ICE to break, and if they can’t break it or the trace, they have to take 5 (!) meat damage to steal your agenda. That sounds pretty decent to me.

What I’m wondering about is the case where you have the Board rezzed, and they have 7 points scored but haven’t won because of the Board. They run the Board with 2 cards in hand and no net damage prevention, and you Self-Destruct the server. Who wins? I’d guess the runner does, but it doesn’t seem obvious to me.

The Board (and all the other CEOs) reads ‘If [CEO name] is trashed while being accessed’. So you just fire the self-destruct before the Runner gets to access the Board and you’d be fine. Cool idea actually, would be pretty fun to pull that off.

I think that the trashing of The Board happens before the net damage. If this would result in the runner having 7 AP the runner wins instantly. As far as I can tell if one player has 7 points at any instant the game is over and the player with 7 points wins. This seems consistent with the ruling that you can steal the final agenda from PE with an empty hand.

I am looking forward to trying Executive Boot Camp + Director + Self Destruct decks when the next pack comes out - Breaker Bay also seems like a good fit for this sort of nonsense, though we’re starting to get a bit silly with number of upgrades in the same server. Not sure where on the jank scale from garbage but good for a giggle to fun and surprisingly playable this will lie.

I can only cosign this idea if the art looks like this:

Yeah, that’s my guess too considering the PE ruling, but a man can dream!

I think the question will be how playable Self-Destruct is without a combo piece, and…maybe kinda? If you get it installed, it’s like a shitty Snare that might be cheaper, might be more expensive, and trashes anything installed in front of it. It might let you bully out agendas in PE or Argus. Actually, now that I think about it, why not in Industrial Genomics? You’re going to be protecting Archives there anyway, so an agenda that gets blown up is less likely to be immediately scored.

Right, I mean, it’s semantics about what’s causing what. There are plenty of IDs that don’t create money; I just don’t attribute a decks general economy to the ID. I’m guessing you are used to GRNDL.

Regarding Checkpoint, it’s only 5 if they elect to take the 2 meat. They could always just go tag-me or shake the tag. If it was 5 (or no BP), I’d like it. But to me its just odd to give BP on a Tracer. Grim works because the effect mitigates the BP, here the BP weakens the effect of the card.

It could be a decent surprise card, but it’s no Tsurugi and I’m not even sure it’s a Neural Katana.

I’ll be surprised if we don’t see some BP mitigation played after O&C. I think Valencia bad pub & protestors will be at least worth trying. It’s one of the handful of ways to get past Blackmail trains. If you’re removing BP you might be able to get more mileage out of illicit ICE. Maybe?

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Yeah, I think Weyland can get away with running BP mitigation, since Hostile Takeover is so good, but honestly if Blackmail is the issue, I’d rather run Executive Boot Camp.

And honestly, most of the illicit ice wouldn’t be that great even if they weren’t illicit. I mean, they’re no Eli or Architect.

Man that gave me an idea for a Weyland ID.
[Name]
45/15
You may include cards in excess of your influence limit.

At the start of the game, gain 1 Bad Publicity for each influence point in your deck in excess of 15.

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I disagree. Grim would be dumb if it wasn’t illicit. Muckraker and Shinobi would both be fairly common. Fenris would be all over the place. If you add 3 to the cost of those ice to make them non-illicit they’re still playable. Bad pub is really bad at the moment though. It also scales horribly. You really don’t want more than 1. Kind of the opposite of tags which are almost always a binary thing.

I dunno, Muckracker/Shinobi aren’t that great against anyone with a link (i.e. Andy/Kate) since it’s only 3 to match. Muckracker would be interesting, but once you go tag-me (and any deck running it you’ll end up that way whether you want to or not, in all likelihood), it’s only 1 to break with Mimic. Shinobi would compete with Tsurugi, to me I like Tsurugi since it can end the run if I need to, and Shinobi they can pay out of without a breaker if they need to.

So I think, I think both would be good (playable), but not great (dominant). Grim, I think, works around the BP so well that its almost negligible. I already think you can random splash one into most decks. Removing the BP, I think the same decks run it for the same reasons.

Fenris would be great though. Hadn’t thought of it. Definitely would be Eli/Architect level.

Shinobi is a strength 5 3 sub sentry that you need a money shield to avoid dying to. If you have to pay 3 or 6 every time you run through it, but you can’t run through unless you can match the Corp financially. It would be played a lot if it weren’t Illicit. It’s in the Deus X, Faerie, Garrotte required list of ICE. Swarm is also an interesting Illicit ICE.

Right, but if the Corp is going to try to out money you for the kill, he can already do that even with a single BP. I mean, it’s just one credit. You need a pretty massive advantage to go for it. So as far as one-shot kills go, the BP isn’t that big an issue. (Just like giving a BP from Grim is irrelevant if you trash a breaker they needed).

And 3 to 6 to get past it without a breaker on a 7 cost Ice is fair, imo. Wall of Thorns is 8 to rez and costs 5 and needs a Corroder. Tollbooth costs 5 and a Torch (more if it’s a more common Decoder).

At three influence, I don’t think anything splashes it. In a Andy/Kate dominated runner meta where they need three to match, I don’t think it’s a better option than the current alternatives.

Sure, it avoids common solutions like Parasite and Mimic, but it also doesn’t require a solution like Parasite or Mimic. There are metas where it could be the right call (if it had no BP), but i don’t think that statement makes it great, as opposed to just good.

It costs 6 to break with Garrotte (assuming you break everything), which is the same as a 0 link runner needs to match a trace.

And sure, you can Deus X/Faerie it, but I don’t think that automatically makes a piece of Ice great. The decks that run those cards, already run those cards.

NBN used to, before Architect. It was horrible for Anarch, who would be running like crazy to try and stop the Astro-train then suddenly hit a Shinobi and die. I tried it in CI for a bit for the same reason. But Shaper and Criminal have Fairie and Deus X so don’t care.

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this is the reason Shinobi would see play without the BP. Unbroken, it can single-handedly kill a full-hand runner, a distinction i believe no other ICE can boast. There are a ton of scenarios where this could happen (runners run poor all the time), and a ton of other scenarios where it would at least be a significant tax. Taxes don’t work so well though when you’re giving them free money just by rezzing it.

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