I think it’s safe to assume that NEH is “the deck to beat” recently. Stimhack OCTGN league heavily confirms this, a very big amount of people there play some kind of NBN (I think 90% of my corp opponents were NBN)
What I’d like to hear from better players than myself is - how to beat the fucker?
I haven’t played a lot (or at all) with NBN, so I can’t judge for myself, but others can, I’m quite sure. What do you hate to see on the other side when wielding NBN (either FA, NA, or Psychobeale)? What card(s) or strategies are crucial in trying to win against NBN?
I am not asking for magic silver bullets, but general strategies and thoughts from seasoned NBN players?
I’m going to be practicing with tag-me parasite recursion Whizzard. Seems like these NEH decks are (rightfully) not running any kind of tag punishment–so, Whizzard power to trash the assets and San Sans, and Josh B and DLR and Fall Guy to add extra pressure to their bank. Need to test it more, but I’ve had some wins v NEH.
Interesting, I play PPVP-Kate a lot, too. However, I don’t have that much trouble against RP and when I play RP myself, I don’t like seeing Kate as Runner.
Overall, I think due to the agenda density in NBN (usually 11 out of 45/49 cards) Noise can be pretty harsh. You have to defend all three centrals and cannot use your Jacksons in a normal fashion.
El-ad (Canadian champ) and I spent a week tuning the list that he played, and trying to beat it. We thought we were on to something with “The Whiz”. He started off 2-1, but when we were done, the final tally was 4-8 before we gave up. If NEH gives up maximizing their ability and stops spamming remotes, but rather just plays behind a single piece of ice, the whiz ran out of steam fairly quickly. (A turn that consists of run -> click -> click through eli -> trash sansan for 2, do something else) is not a good turn. Even using a popup window to make the remote taxing is fine. Whiz still has to run them because they MIGHT be an astro!
The SanSan’s in the build are really just for taxing the runner. that obviously doesn’t work vs. Whiz. Basically, vs. him instead of drawing 6-10 cards / game, you might draw 4-7 (jackson’s are still played naked, biotics from hand draw a card, and you create at least 1 iced remote)
We dropped it because while it did the best out of our testing, we figured it had no shot vs. other decks.
In 12 games with my RP at US Nationals, my only two losses were PPVP Kate. Granted, I played 5 of them. I like to take my time with my RP, grinding the opponent down with damage, while keeping the shields up and moving Agendas around between HQ, Remotes, Archives, and back into R&D. My losses were due to Parasite spam, and multi-access cards after that.
It’s very hard for the Runner right now, having to deal with the two extremes of NEH and RP/H-B Glacier. I’m not really sure what the answer is.
Well - if he went 3-2 vs. PPVP Kate - that doesn’t really make PPVP Kate the answer - it just speaks to its prevalence in the meta. Corps are going to lose 10-20% of their games due to bad mulligans alone.
Is it worth it to consider how does NBN usually play?
Have sansan behind 1-2 ice, score first astro in first 2-3 turns before runner can get in.
How can you counter this? Lucky access in HQ? Legwork? Who runs so many legworks that you can count on having it early? How do you get through those HQ ice (parasite doesn’t work against Wraparround)
(semi)bluff out the first astro behind one or two ice, counting opponent will think it’s sansan.
What to do once first astro is scored? Focus fully on RnD, ignore HQ and remotes? You have to keep checking the remote every time for sansan.
I am guessing trying to fully focus on RnD the whole game is probably the best bet? Still doesn’t work vs psycho beale for 5 or even 7 points.
My “secret tech” is imp, which is good for getting rid of sansans and even psycho and/or fast track from hq, but again, lots and lots of clicks and money running into there.
Quite often the game goes down to both players being on matchpoint, and then question being who gets to that agenda first. With fast track that is usually the corp
Luck
But I guess you need credits to trash SanSan and econ, RD multi-access and HQ multi-access for when they sneak cards past RD lock.
All that doesn’t help if they have the aforementioned luck and sneak cards (=Astro/Beale) past RD lock AND past HQ multi-access.
I wasn’t entirely serious. I myself have huge problems with fighting RP using PPVP Kate, though I always blamed my mediocre running skills for this. In theory PPVP should work though, as it can be fast and toolboxy against NEH and it also is capable of generating massive amounts of $ which should help fighting asset econ monsters.
I was 2-4 v. 5 NEH and 1 MN at U.S. Nationals with my Andy build (my only losses were to NBN). Every game, I got to match point, but just couldn’t finish it off with my slot machine pulls. I’m not sure what else to do with the build, or what I was doing wrong. I saw at least 12-15+ cards on accesses, usually many more, and yet still had trouble sealing the deal.
Gabe may be an answer, as he forces ICE on all 3 Centrals early, and has little econ lulls during that time. However, he’s not so hot v. the Glaciers.
If it’s still hard with KatePad vs NBNs, then I’ll just run my Big Rig Kate that can equally pull off a lucky win vs NBN, but has much easier time vs Glaciers.
I was under impression that KatePad has a steady good score vs some decks, but it seems like it is not the case? She’s struggling against Glaciers, and also needs a lucky win vs NBN?
I think this is kinda the essence of the runner meta atm, you need entirely different cards to beat NBN and RP and if you go hard against one of them you get a pretty good matchup but the other falters.
I really like Andy with Indexing against NBN, you don’t really need parasites in this match-up and since you start with nine cards you pretty much always have Indexing or Planned Assault in your starting hand.
I got some result with a Reina Despe/Security testing, the credit you tax on each Ice + Lamprey, often delay the first Biotic/Astro and give you the time to put your rig in place and launch the medium. But I don’t have a lot of test against other deck.
Agreed, @spags and @Ilza . If you also see other random stuff like Net Damage Jinteki and Poor Old Meat-Threatenin’ Weyland like me you still want to have to have cards to help play around those too.
NEH cannot yet be reliably beat; Whizzard/Noise seem promising—imo you have to apply or threaten severe RnD and HQ pressure; if you can do this from Criminal/Team Red you’re doing the best you can. We’ve been extensively testing board control (The Source / Fall Guy) => Keyhole criminal builds that we’d hoped to unleash at Nationals. I also have a Leeeeeroy Jenkins Whizzard build that seemed counter-meta, but eh. You’re going to lose some games. Because the corp meta is strong and multi-threat and we keep getting specific silver bullets instead of multipurpose utility :). Keep Calm and Embrace Biotic Labor and NBN’s 6 3/2 agendas.
Were people playing Astrobiotics Bananas or Scorched Bananas? We’ve been partial to Scorched Bananas with Psychic Fields seeded amongst the remotes/protecting SanSan for maximum trolling.
Every single banana I saw at nationals was running Astrobiotics, whether NEH (3 of my games) or MN (2 of my games). Didn’t run a single Plascrete in my PPVP, didn’t miss it all day.
I’ve had moderate luck with my Whizzard/Desperado/Security Testing deck. Being able to benefit from their assets/sideways installs some, forcing pressure on all their servers, trashing SanSans at low cost, bypassing all Ice they run but Tollbooth pretty easily (this was pre-D4V1D), and 3x Imp with which to trash their SanSans (on multi-access when I’m using Whiz Creds to get a Jackson, say), or Fast Tracks, or Biotic Labours.
Medium in general is good against NEH – a single RDI doesn’t necessarily cover quite enough, even without Jackson they can avoid the lock easily enough without wasting their whole turn.
Imp is definitely an all-star, though. Killing Fast Track and Biotics is absolutely essential.
All that said, I need to play more against NEH and keep trying, see if this is just 4-5 lucky games (5-2 right now) or an actual trend (or if the people I’ve tested against are just bad at NEH or something). But that’s been my initial result, and I think it’s one Reina (or even Noise for the occasional bonus trash) might be able to replicate somewhat, though possibly less so.
EDIT: Worth noting I’ve had my teeth kicked in against Making News two of the three times I played against it, due to failing to trash all their scorches/get a plascrete/attempting to rush rather than spend two turns clearing tags. Seems like player error, but worth noting all the same.
7 credits over 2 clicks is in fact very good (equivalent to a Lucky Find with one PPVP in play, and requires less setup/startup), especially since Desperado can makes it 8 credits over 2 clicks instead.
The problem with Bank Job (much like Whizzard) is that it’s completely dead against some other decks, most notably CI. I think the card is a meta call, but if your meta is all NEH all the time I think it may be quite worth including.
Bank Job also becomes amazingly better if you run Aesop’s Pawnshop, both because you can take 7 credits instead of 8 and then sell the Bank Job and because you can play it to sell if you’re in a bad matchup.
My meta has gone heavy lately on asset economy. Lots of jinteki RP and NEH. Kind of a poor showing of Cerebral Imaging, which I think is the only real match up where the card is a completely dead draw. NBN astro train is dependent on cash to get that first astro out and fending off your digs into their hand and deck.
Thanks for the feedback Kingsley. I haven’t played much NEH astrotrain.
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