Root Cause - My First Report

Root Cause is a series of bi-weekly Android: Netrunner articles about deck building, strategy and tactical decision, for new and mid-level Anarch players. It was named in honor of Sam "Root" Groves, the character from CBS' best show ever: Person of Interest.

Let me start this article stating that I do know that it was a very stupid idea of mine to post a report a couple of days before the World Championship Weekend. You guys will read douzens of reports next week, so I won't blame you if you skip this one. When I said in my last article that I would post a report, I didn't remember that it would be so close to the WCW. Sorry about that. If you can survive another report, here it goes.

A few weeks ago (more like a month ago), we ran a small tournament in Porto Alegre, Brazil - where I live and do my best to promote Android: Netrunner. For a matter of schedule, we decided to run 3 rounds, with no single elimination bracket.

I played my usual Wyld/Shop deck with Sahasrara and tons of virus program cards, and a Weyland deck that doesn't matter. I'll only report my runner matches. This is a Runner article, after all.

Round 1: vs NBN, The World is Yours

This match is a very short one because, when we ended my Corp match, there were like 5~10 minutes left. I start with a Medium in my opening hand, so I decide to dive into R&D as fast as I can, hoping to have more agenda points than my opponent when the time runs up. In his first turns, my opponent installs a Pop-up Window protecting his R&D, 2 copies of Marked Accounts, and an unrezzed card protected by three pieces of ICE.

He starts to advance that card, and between taking the risk of running into a Project Junebug, drawing until an Infiltration shows up, and keep pushing with Medium, the third option seems to be the best for me. Time is out, he scores a 4 point Project Beale, and I steal 2 agenda cards in my final run, totalizing 5 agenda points in my score area.

I remember when Team Covenant asked Justin Kopinsky what advice he would give to other players, and he laughes and says: "run Infiltration! I used to think it isn't really good, but it is good!". Information doesn't seem important in this game until you face a situation where knowing a little more will make a difference between the prize and the loss.

If you want to be competitive in this game, find a way to gather information. Forced Activation Orders is one of my favorite cards in Anarch because of this: we are the worst faction in the game when it comes to "face-check" servers. If you have extra influence, try it. If you don't, at least Infiltration is influence free.

Round 2: vs Weyland, Building a Better World

This match is tough. I get hit by a Janus 1.0 in the second turn after a Hedge Fund -> Beanstalk Royalties -> Hedge Fund with a Wyldside installed. Do you have idea of how hard it is to play with 2 brain damages and a Wyldside? I do!

After that, I keep pushing his remote servers to delay him until I build my rig. After 5~6 turns, I manage to use Freelance Coding Contract to put my Femme Fatale in my heap, and then I use Scavenge to bring Femme Fatale to the board. The next turn, Medium shows how godlike it can be, and the match ends a 10-3 for me.

I won't say for the third time that David Mauro's rig is insanelly strong, but it is. Currently, Femme Fatale is an auto include for me, and every game I play makes me more convinced about that. Moving on...

I feel that a lot of Anarch players are not giving enough attention to Freelance Coding Contract. It costs a single influence point and it produces credits faster than both Sahasrara and Personal Workshop. While I do agree that we need more in-faction options rather than Retrieval Run for it to shine, I still think that more people should spend their time studying what could be our first alternative to Aesop's Pawnshop when it comes to Wyldside synergies.

Round 3: vs Haas-Bioroid, Engineering the Future

Guess what? I start this game with Medium pressure! I get my initial 3 agendas points from the R&D, then my opponent finally scores an Accelerated Beta Test and puts a Heimdall 1.0 and an Archer protecting his deck, keeping me out of it.

A couple of turns after that, he tries to bluff installing two unrezzed cards in his remote server. He has only two credits, so even if it is a Melange Mining Corp, he won't be able to rez it if I run there and force him to activate his Ash 2X3ZB9CY. I would need to spend all my credits to beat its trace, so I decide to lose it, not trash his upgrade, and expose the other card with Infiltration. Knowing it is an agenda, I run again and take it.

The match ends when my Parasite reaches the third virus token and leaves his Archer in the range of the Mimic I have hidden in my hand. I click through Heimdall 1.0 subroutines and find the last agenda I needed in his R&D.

I'm glad to know that all that shenanigan that I had to do to dribble his bluff will have a more simple solution next year. Singularity, unlike Frame Job, is a very cool double event and another solution to one of our biggest problems: face-checks.

What about Noise's ability?

If you're wondering why I never mentioned the Archives, you're right: none of my matches were long enough for the Core Set identity's ability to trigger enough times to be worth to make a run on the Archives. Not just that, but both the first and the third round would have been a lot easier if I had the recurring credits to trash cards like Marked Accounts, Ash 2X3ZB9CY, etc., that Whizzard: Master Gamer has.

While a lot of people is arguing that you should not play Noise: Hacker Extraordinaire because of Jackson Howard, what actually beats it is not the ability to reshuffle trashed cards into your deck, but the speed of modern Corp decks. They are designed to be fast to deal with Andromeda: Dispossessed Ristie, and happen to not give us enough time to trash as much cards as we would want. On the other hand, I won two matches before the match point, so part of this little use of Noise: Hacker Extraordinaire's ability is due to how fast Medium can beat a Corp. So, if I were in a "everybody plays Weyland" meta, I'd stick with the Core Set identity.

You won, right?

I ended the tournament as the only undefeated Runner player, but my Corp deck didn't go well, so I lost the tiebreak, ending in the second place. This was a little unexpected to me because, when I started playing Android: Netrunner, I used to see myself as a "Corp player", and - as far as I remember -, my Corp winning rate was way higher than my Runner one in 2012. So... what happened? Root Cause happened.

I have been studying Runner strategies a lot more since I started to write articles, and a huge part of this is all the feedback I get from you guys. Thanks to your support, I was the best Runner in my city that day.

Now, it's time to fix my neglicence towards my Corp deck. Maybe I should start writing a column about Weyland Consortium...? I don't know how I'd find more time to write, but if enough people wants it, I might do it. Feel free to share your opinion, and enjoy your World Championship Weekend. See'ya.

PS: while it is not an Android: Netrunner article, there is a lot of important fundamentals about testing a deck in this article from Nate (link here). You should read it.

João “Hraklea” Almeida is a brazilian amateur card game player who talks about Bioshock Infinite every single day. Not even his mother is safe. What a game!

Michel “AeroLula” Cortez is the champion of our first Android: Netrunner tournament and the most active player in our league. He is one of my best friends and has been my training partner since I started playing card games. Unlike me, he still plays Magic: the Gathering.