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0
Tech Talk - MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS!
Aug 06 2013 05:50 AM |
Scud
in Android: Netrunner
Android: Netrunner Tech Talk Scud
Creation and Control is out and Tech Talk Central Processing is thrumming with excitement. So many awesome Runner cards! Self-Modifying Code (Creation and Control)! Escher (Creation and Control)! Daily Casts (Creation and Control)! Clone Chip (Creation and Control)! Monolith (Creation and Control)!*sound-of-the-needle-scratching-across-the-record-because-Tech-Talk-still-plays-vinyl-(it's-the-crackle-and-hiss-of-analog-that-we-love)*
"Monolith?" The question drips with the condescension of the Netrunner-elite. But, yeah, Monolith. Three extra MU, three cheap/free installs, and moderate Net/Brain damage prevention. That's a pretty good card right there.
In the right deck, that is.
So, what is "the right deck" for Monolith. Well, it's one that can take advantage of the Console's three benefits, so it's a deck that packs a lot of Programs. It is also a deck that can somehow cheat out the 18-credit behemoth without destroying it's tempo/position.
It is, in short, a The Professor: Keeper of Knowledge (Creation and Control) deck. Our good man in glasses can and, more importantly, wants to run the sheer volume of Programs to make best use of Monolith and he lives in the faction that is best suited to getting it into play.
Let's handle the "getting it into play" part first. Personal Workshop (Cyber Exodus) is going to be our Plan A, letting the beast simmer until we can get a decent discount. We'll go ahead and spend our single point of Influence on a Stimhack (Core) in order to allow for even further discounting tricks (remember kids – the Brain damage from Stimhack cannot be prevented, so you can't install Monolith off Personal Workshop then discard a Program from hand to save some gray matter). Our Plan B for installing Monolith will be that old standby, Magnum Opus (Core). Now, Mr. Opus's popularity has been waning a bit, recently. But a combo of cards old and new has breathed life back into his career: Test Run (Cyber Exodus) and Scavenge (Creation and Control). Players have been using Test Run to get their Opuses into play for a while now and, truth be told, that was just a bad idea. Not a terrible idea, but a pretty bad one. Pay three and a click to get six, then another click to redraw and five to install. Bleh. If you were hurting for cash, it was a play you could make to stop the bleeding, but overall, you lost so much getting it going that the Corp loved to see it happen. Enter Scavenge. Well, enter the fact that the card you trash to pay the additional cost on Scavenge goes to the Heap before you choose which Program from the Heap to install and the ruling that once a card is trashed, it is considered a completely different copy of the card. So, you can Test Run Magnum Opus and then Scavenge it, getting it into play for two clicks and three credits (minus, of course, the clicks to find Test Run and Scavenge in the first place). Once it's out, Magnum Opus takes nine clicks to get you what you need to drop Monolith from hand. That's two full turns plus one click, so make sure it's worth it.
Speaking of money, let's look at our other sources of economy. Daily Casts (Creation and Control) is a great drip economy source and it's a Neutral, so in it goes. Sure Gamble (Core) is still a solid burst card, even after almost a year of releases, so we'll grab it, too. Since we'll be installing a lot of Programs, we'll plan to pack a couple copies of Aesop's Pawnshop (Core) in order to make some money back if/when we need to make some room due to MU. Aesop's combos well with Daily Casts, too, letting you take the second to last packet of 2 credits off the card and then immediately trashing it for an additional 3, giving you a +5 boost without a single additional click.
Now we're going to talk about the Programs were going to stuff this deck full of. People are taking about 24-30 Program decks and maybe, one day, that'll be The Professor deck you'll want to build. For right now, our best bet is to pick the best Programs, ones that compliment or fill in holes for each other, and try to get AT LEAST 15 Influence worth (20+ would be much better) so that we are getting some real benefit from The Professor's ability. We already know we'll need Magnum Opus, since it is our Monolith-installation Plan B. As far as 'breakers go, we'll plan on the core Shaper rig of Corroder (Core), Gordian Blade (Core), and Ninja (Core) to which we'll add Femme Fatale (Core) and Faerie (Core). Those two will hopefully mean that we don't have to actually use Ninja very often. We'll also load up an Atman (Creation and Control) to deal with any tricksy Trap ICE (or to act as an emergency "silver bullet" for some particularly nasty surprise ICE). Atman means we definitely want Datasucker (Core) (although we'd take one regardless, since it's so very useful AND great Aesop's fodder). We'll fill out the list with other great utility Programs: Medium (Core) to apply R&D pressure; Sneakdoor Beta (Core) and Nerve Agent (Cyber Exodus) to make HQ a headache; Crescentus (A Study in Static) to give us a derezzing option; and Imp (What Lies Ahead) because, honestly, it's one of the best programs available, helping to add pressure to Medium or Nerve Agent and make economic Assets require protection.
The trick with this Program suite is that we're going to pack 1-ofs on all of them. That means we'll want ways to tutor them up from the Stack and/or call them back into service from the Heap. We'll round out the Programs with two copies of Self-Modifying Code (Creation and Control) to help us get what we need when we need it. We already know we want to run Test Run and Scavenge, since that combo is the best way to get Magnum Opus into play short of drawing into it. We'll add a couple of the brand-new Clone Chip (Creation and Control) for mid-run installation of the right tool at the right time.
Speaking of Hardware, we're going to run into MU issues while Monolith is baking in our Personal Workshop, so we'll take three copies of Akamatsu Mem Chip (Core) because it is cheap and reselling it to Aesop is a good deal.
We'd like to take a second here to comment on the awesome flexibility of having both Magnum Opus and Professional Contacts out at the same time. Do I want two credits for this click? How about a card and a credit? Diesel and Quality Time get you lots of cards RIGHT NOW and there will be times that is exactly what you want. Other times, you'll have a few good things in hand but want something else, and having the option to dig and get paid is not to be underestimated.
If we're going to be drawing and drawing and drawing, it is very likely that we'll blow through a good chunk of our deck quickly. On top of that, we're only holding 1 or 2 copies of some of our best cards, so maybe we should take some insurance against bad draws or damage. And that insurance is one copy of Levy AR Lab Access (Creation and Control). If we blow through both Test Runs or Scavenges or Clone Chips early, we can put 'em back within reach. Not to mention reusing Daily Casts and Sure Gambles.
So, here is the first draft of our Professor/Monolith deck that we just HAD to call...
MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS!
Identity:
The Professor: Keeper of Knowledge (Creation and Control)
Total Cards: 45
Event (12)
Diesel (Core) x2
Quality Time (Humanity's Shadow) x2
Levy AR Lab Access (Creation and Control) x1
Test Run (Cyber Exodus) x2
Scavenge (Creation and Control) x2
Sure Gamble (Core) x2
Stimhack (Core) x1 (1 Influence)
Hardware (7)
Monolith (Creation and Control) x2
Akamatsu Mem Chip (Core) x3
Clone Chip (Creation and Control) x2
Program (15)
Self-modifying Code (Creation and Control) x2
Magnum Opus (Core) x1
Corroder (Core) x1
Gordian Blade (Core) x1
Ninja (Core) x1
Faerie (Future Proof) x1
Femme Fatale (Core) x1
Atman (Creation and Control) x1
Datasucker (Core) x1
Crescentus (A Study In Static) x1
Medium (Core) x1
Nerve Agent (Cyber Exodus) x1
Sneakdoor Beta (Core) x1
Imp (What Lies Ahead) x1
Resource (11)
Professional Contacts (Creation and Control) x2
Public Sympathy (Cyber Exodus) x2
Daily Casts (Creation and Control) x3
Personal Workshop (Cyber Exodus) x2
Aesop's Pawnshop (Core) x2
The name of the game with this deck is flexibility. Not just that the deck itself is flexible but that you have to be flexible as a Runner to use it. Play the cards you're dealt. The combos are nice, but the deck is capable of a lot without them. Make the best out of the hand you have, keep the Corp guessing. Blowing a Clone Chip on an already used Crescentus after using Faerie to break an Archer or Janus is one of our favorite moves. Turning an early Self-Modifying Code into a Medium/Nerve Agent when you find porous ICE on R&D/HQ on a click one run is pretty great, too.
As always, this deck is a work in progress, so please, go out and PLAY THE DECK, then come on back and tell us how it went and what you see as the strengths and weaknesses. Let's work together to take this concept to the next level!
Next week is the North American Championship Tournament at GenCon and Tech Talk will be there. Our next article will most probably have something to do with what was (and, of course, wasn't) played at the tournament and, if you're all good boys and girls, maybe we'll even work out a Cerebral Imaging: Infinite Frontiers (Creation and Control) deck for you...
- Midian, Eldil, Zaidkw and 10 others like this
40 Comments
When would you actually want to hold onto 3 programs until the late game? If you do get maximum savings, that's 12 credits saved and 3 clicks; leaving you with a net cost of 6 credits that you paid (somehow) for the net benefit of 3 MU and protection from brain/net damage.
If you look at toolbox, you get for 9 credits 2 MU, 2 Link and 2 recurring credits. In a few runs you theoretically make back your investment from the recurring credits.
For the price and what you get, considering there are no recurring credits of Link on it, I would expect to get a discount from the long wait, not pay a premium. So say 18 credits for 3 programs installed "100% for free", or at least 8 credits off each; yes you win a click, but I'll be damned if I can keep 3 cards in my hand, plus Monolith, for just the right moment to play all 4 in one turn. A better price for only 4 discount on 3 programs would have been a console that cost between 8 and 10. That would have been more of a mid-game card and let you get out a big rig in a nice burst set-up.
As it stands I'm left with the question of: when would you actually want to use the monolith and how can you justify waiting until the late game to do so? There aren't even a lot of high-cost programs around, aside from Femme, that you can always get the 4-credit discount.
Even if you wanted the monolith ability, it also requires you to have a deck full of disposable Programs. So it would have to be a deck where you are also getting some synergy with excess programs, perhaps from Freelance Coding Contracts?
A better protection right now against brain damage might just be instead running Dues X and Faerie, both of which combined can counter all of the scary HB2.0 Ice we see (Heimdal 2.0 is AP - Dues X, Janus 1.0 is AP - Dues X, Ichi 2.0 is countered by Faerie).
The only other major risk of "brain/net" damage is Cerebral Overwriter, but for that problem Infiltration might be making a resurgence.
Upgrades like Corporate Troubleshooters, Awakening Center and Tyr's hand remain problematic, but they would be anyways.
The real advantage of the Monolith is in plowing through brain and net damage cards. When you see Brain Damage subroutines, you just ignore them and toss a cheap program instead. So this would imply using E3 to break subroutine and to ignore the brain damage ones. If you also combine with Sacrificial Construct you can ignore Ichi trashing and plow even more aggressively. Still doesn't let you past Victor 2.0 if you don't pay to break, but that is just one card among others.
You still need to watch for tags and meat damage, and the net damage protection is very expensive -- so more of an insurance than a reliable shield.
The real trick though is getting 3 programs in your hand, when you play monolith, and not needing them sooner... that part I just can't see in my mind as a sort of "strategy". Maybe when more programs come out, one of them will have some kind of cool "on install" ability like Femme but not cost more above/under than 4 credits to combo well with Monolith. For example: a program that would cost 4 and would place a counter on a peice of ice, making it also be a Code Gate, in addition to its other types. (good combo for Kit but for any Shaper really since you have such great Code Gate breakers to pick from).
Such a card could then even be dropped 3x in one turn, selecting different pieces of ice to "zap" with the code-gate-type counter.
Otherwise If Shapers had some cards like Stimhack that did self-brain damage that you --could-- prevent using Monolith, that would create internal synergy (rather than a reactive counter) and be fundamentally more viable.
(for example hardware that would do 1 brain damage to you at the start of the turn (preventable) and let you draw 3 cards).
But until some cards are designed that synergize directly with Monolith... it remains an overpriced anomaly.
You are wrong. First of all, there is no "moribund" state in this game, so don't try to apply Game of Thrones timing rules to a game that operates differently. Second, Lukas has confirmed that you can use Scavenge to re-install the same program, and that doing so negates Test Run's lingering effect, as you effectively install a different program when using Scavenge (the quotes from Lukas's e-mail can be found somewhere on Board Game Geek).
Edit: found it
But I learned something about TestRun / Scavenge I really liked.
Diesel and QT and Test Run anti synergize with professional contacts.
Are you going to tutor forwards or backwards? The professor can go through his deck pretty fast. The SMCs become useless once your deck is in your discard pile. Vice versa with the chips.
Since the chips allow you to reuse programs that get trashed multiple times, like crescentus and parasite, you should probably opt for the trashchips.
Running 2 copies of workshop is inconsistent. It is already inconsistent enough in a 40 card chaos theory deck.
If you're going to pawn your programs, you should AT LEAST install sahara or whatever that card is so that you can come out ahead. Right now there's basically no programs that you want to install temporarily, and uninstall later *regardless of whether you install another program*. If you're going to install on top of your programs just run 3x scavenge and 2-3x SoT.
By the way, run SoT so you can throw away Levy Access if you draw it early and it doesn't become an accumulating card in your hand.
But Aesops is really crappy economy in the context of installing programs. Since it's an action to draw ,action to install, and then in YOUR deck you're paying the install cost. So at best it's 3 creds for 2 actions, which sucks when you have magnum opus in your deck. But more likely it sucks even more because you don't have any free drip economy (monolith is going to be bogarting your workshop) to help you with the installs.
Monolith and the professor suck right now because the benefits of having a hyoog 8 program rig are marginal compared to the benefit of having a specialized rig. The fact that shapers get all these tutors really allows any shaper to just take a bunch of OOF programs and do a mini-professor deck, albeit without sucking.
I've been surprised by how they don't really screw each other up. If you have a little money and want a few cards, Diesel. If you have a lot of money and want a lot of cards, Quality Time. If you have little to no money and want a few cards, Professional Contacts. Try it, you might also be surprised at the flexibility it gives you.
You do both or, more precisely, whichever is needed at the moment. This deck is all about unpredictability. You have to be very flexible as a player to pilot it well because it will give you all sorts of options all the time. I have used both SMC and Clone Chips in the same game multiple times. It helps that Crescentus and Faerie trash themselves after use, making them good Clone Chip targets. When I put down SMC, you pause drawing cards to focus on running, trying to exploit any weaknesses You can find. And once your deck is in your discard pile, you Levy, you Aesop's any remaining Clone Chips and Levy.
I'd stick with a little of both.
With the number of cards this deck draws, you'll be able to both Workshops in play plenty of times, if you want.
Well, actually, Imp. And, you know, Sneakdoor Beta (once Archives gets sufficiently protected, 2 MU is a lot). So you're wrong on your blanket statement that there are "basically no programs that you want to install temporarily, and uninstall later *regardless of whether you install another program*."
I tested Sahasrara in the deck a bunch and I almost never wanted to install it. This deck doesn't sit around and build up, regardless of what it seems. You want to be running, poking at servers while Monolith cooks. Sahasrara is great in some decks, but not so much this one since money isn't usually a problem.
That is a good idea. Same Old Thing was in this deck for a while but got cut to make room for other things. Figuring out how to put even one back in might be worth it.
Aesop's is about boosts when you need it. It eats Daily Casts, it eats Akamatsu Mem Chips, it eats Atman so you can reinstall it at a different Strength.
Here's a challenge - build a Professor/Monolith deck, test it few times, tweak it, and post here in the comments. Let's see what you come up with so we can, you know, work together to find a decent build for the players that want to play this type of deck.
I think this is something that some people are missing. Even Scud is acknowledging that this is a "test deck" and not competitive. So many people are focued on wining, and the easiest way to win is to use the power cards that are easiest to play.
Still some deck builders like to experiment, and play around, get creative. They are usually MUCH better players and when they do go to build a cut throat comp deck, they are also MUCH better.
Experimentation and playful "for fun" deck building is at the core of card games. I think this is one of the most promising articles I have read on ANR form Tech Talk.
If people spent 1/2 the energy in trying to force it to work instead of saying why it wouldn't the entire community would be better off and who knows, a few packs from now this could end up a power deck.. if not.. hey you have thought outside the box and seen combos and card interactions you may not have considerd.
I think we'd all be better off if we just occasionally threw what we 'know' about the metagame out the window.
Personally, I really like people who are creative and who try to get some new ideas working, instead of just copying a deck from the web in order to win a tournament.
Just to add another card which I think is even more underrated then Monolith: Notoriety. I think the time for Notoriety might not be right now, but there is not too much missing from getting an event heavy shaper deck with notoriety and overnighter to work. It is almost not an issue of not having enough of the ingredients. Instead there are too many ingredients, and it is not sure how they taste together
BTW I thought professor wasn't that strong on paper, but yesterday one of our best players in the group (has won a regional) came with a giant professor deck (25 influence and 59 cards!!) and it was a monster... he had tons of money and any program he wanted for any situation. He clone chipped faerie 3 times to break ichi 2.0's, dues x'd my janus and then re-cursed crecentus to derez it...
and yes, he did run both tutor forward, back, draw and professional contacts. it works great.
The game was close, he did at first big R&D digs with medium, then it was "next agenda scored wins" but I drew an Agenda when I needed an upgrade or trap to waist his katie jones credits. Sadly I drew an agenda and the next card was one too, he then stim hacked into my server (his single influence card), broke heimdal 2.0, ichi 2.0, eli and my awakening center's victor 2.0 and took the agenda for the win. Very fun game.
Professor is actually a great ID from what I'm seeing, his flexibility and adaptability are huge, and will only get better.
Monolith: ~maybe~ later, if the dev creates some synergy-cards for it; or yet more pervasive brain damage threats...
I think Monolith is more underrated than Notoriety. I've never heard people call Notoriety a bad card except for when it was first released and then it was theorycrafting. I've used Notoriety myself and it's a good card, but often it has to be cut for Indexing and Maker's Eye. As a result it has been on the back burner for a while. But it's still worth playing on its own merits.
Well Sieben started out with some good comments then well you guys can read the above. Although I agree with Sieben that Professional Contacts just looks out of place which is funny since it has professor's picture in it. I'm definitely gonna try the deck out with and without it and see what happens. From what I can see, that 5 credit investment seems like it goes against the strategy to save up for a monolith. But I gotta try it out first. In a non-monolith deck, professional contacts is very good imo since it saves card slot space for more programs. Less card slots are taken by card draw/credit. It's one card that does two things efficiently.
I like the idea of the deck but I'm thinking more viruses and expensive anarch breakers. Parasite Djinn etc comes to mind.You already have personal workshop, datasucker and Atman. SMC, clone chip and test run actually makes a pretty good combo to pull out that virus you need.
I honestly feel like the professor is getting the same treatment as Stronger Together. Give the identity couple of extra packs. It will be worth making a deck out of it. When Stronger Together first came out, people were going 'oh it sucks'. Well with C&C out, it's definitely viable to make a Stronger Together deck with crap load of bioroid ice.
Netrunner is definitely hitting that stage where there are spike/timmy/johnny players. We all know who Sieben is. We also know which one Scud is too. But I think the game is big enough for all the players.
Yeah I think the professor is the first identity where the runner doesnt feel like he's bound by that maximum 45 cards for effectiveness. 59 cards seems BIG but it could definitely work with the assortment of icebreakers available to us now. Is he gonna be sweeping the regionals? Probably not. But it gives players a fun time building a new type of deck. I honestly sick of playing replicator/rnd or workshop/noise or account siphon/criminal or darwin/personal touch
Guys at FFG made a very good runner imo. Professor broke our conventional thinking that the deck has to be small and super efficient with a single strategy to be viable. Now we have a runner that has an answer to everything in his disposal. He's a runner that just gets better as other factions get more programs. How ingenious is that from a designer's point of view? Kudos to Scud for always trying to make new type of decks for us to tinker with.
These definitions were intentionally designed to fit MtG as a form to justify bad cards in the TCG distribution model. I don't think it is fair to use them for Android: Netrunner. There's no such thing as "the guy who enjoys using inneficient icebreakers to show how rich he is!".
fair enough. I just wanted to say that there are similarities.
One of the guys in our local league played it, to moderate success. It's actually really good vs. slower decks, it only had issues vs. blitzy stuff that managed to score seven before he got set up. I'm suspecting Chakana might help with that a lot.
Also, what I feel this deck is missing is Morningstar. That breaker shuts down most barriers SO HARD it's not even funny. Of course, you're running neither Personal Touches nor Dino, so it becomes less useful (can't get through Heimdall without Datasucker). Still, for 3 credits + 2 cards it's an insanely great breaker.