My First Attempt at Deckbuilding
By Spazz– February 9, 2013
Having recently got into Android: Netrunner, I have been spending a bit of time looking over the cards, and trying to not only make sense of them, but look at the bigger picture of how these can work together to being a competitive deck.
Here is what I came up with for the Big W:
Faction: |
Weyland Consortium |
||||||||||
Agendas: |
Operation: |
Assets: |
Ice: |
Upgrades: |
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| 3x Hostile Takeover (3) | 2x Aggressive Negotiations | 1x Security Subcontract | 2x Archer(S) | 2x Research Station | |||||||
| 2x Posted Bounty (2) | 3x Beanstalk Royalties | 2x Melange Mining Corp | 2x Hadrian’s Wall (B) | ||||||||
| 3 x Priority Requisition (9) | 2x Scorched Earth | 2 x Pad Campaign | 3x Ice Wall (B) | ||||||||
| 3x Private Security Force (6) | 2x Shipment from Kayuga | 2x Project Junebug (2) | 2x Shadow (CG) | ||||||||
| 3x Hedge Fund | 2x Snare (4) | 2 x Enigma (CG) | |||||||||
| 2x Aggressive Secretary (4) | 2 x Wall of Static (B) | ||||||||||
| 2x Neural Katana (4)(S) | |||||||||||
| Agenda Points: (20) | |||||||||||
| Total: | 11 | Total: | 12 | Total: | 9 | Total: | 15 | Total: | 2 | ||
| Grand Total: | 49 | ||||||||||
Weyland offers a lot of great base on which to build. I like the idea of making the running on agendas more dangerous for the runner, and to this end I splashed some Ambush cards. A couple of Project Junebugs, and Snares from Jinteki and a couple of Aggressive Secretaries from Haas Bioroid, will really make trying to run against my remote servers very dangerous! I also noted that the only Sentry that Weyland has available is Archer, so I also threw in a couple of Neural Katanas from Jinteki to diversify my defenses.
Speaking of defenses, I am including a healthy amount of ice. And to ensure that the ice can be rezzed I am including a number of cred-producing cards.
So basically, the idea is to build a pile of credits as I lay down the ice, ready to be rezzed. I will then prepare a couple of remote servers with some ice and put down traps an agendas (preferably traps first, to make the runner player clear that I do have them!) And as the saying goes, “once bitten, twice shy”. Then I will score agendas as quickly as possible while keeping the runner at bay.
As I said, I appreciate any feedback on this!
Well, straight off, you need more ICE. 20 is generally a good amount, with a few more for HB and a few less for Jinteki / NBN. Otherwise you’re just not going to be able to draw reliable protection.
Sticking with the core set, I’d say throw in another Enigma, Shadow and Wall of Static, and if you can find the influence Tollbooths are always good.
Also, Research Station and SfK are generally not great except in specific situations.
Agreed. Bump your ICE to at least 19. 20 or 21 would be better.
I rather like Research Station 1x but the second copy is usually a dead draw.
Thing is, hand size just isn’t as important for Corp, with NBN being an occasional exception (Anonymous Tip). Add that to the fact that Research Station can be trashed, resulting in a suddenly too-big HQ, and I really don’t feel it’s worth a deck slot yet.
…I think the thread below this one got a bit derailed.
Yes, yes it did. I didn’t realize thinking a third Scorched Earth should have been in the starter would be so divisive. Never can tell what people will defend.
I would look at things this way. You will need to defend 4+ servers, and 3 of them (HQ, R&D, Archives) you must defend almost right away. The first ICE you place, where does it go? What about the second? What ICE do you wan to place there as the game first starts to buy yourself time?
I’d up your Scorched Earth count to x3. It becomes fatal if you can get 2 copies in your hand, so everything you can include to make that happen (or land the tag so you can use them) is important not to skimp on. I really like SEA Source and Archived Memories as part of the Weyland kill machine.
If you’re going the Scorched Earth route, 2 or 3 Data Ravens are essential in my opinion.
Particularly against Weyland, I would expect the runner to just remove the tag after the run. Ways to give the runner a tag on the corporation’s turn are best — SEA Source is the easiest way to do that.
Which is why you use the power counter from the trace to give them a second tag on your turn.
I’m certainly not saying Data Raven is useless toward this pursuit, but the thing to do if you can’t beat the trace subroutine is just end the run. I don’t like the idea of rezzing Data Raven with 4 credits, and I don’t like the idea of hoping the Runner won’t get a sentry breaker out before encountering Data Raven. You can’t even use Data Raven to tag unless they encounter it… that’s a much harder thing to arrange than just drawing SEA Source and using it, plus SEA Source is far harder to counter because it gives 2 tags at once.
If I were looking for a card to assist SEA Source tagging, it would be Weyland’s Posted Bounty Agenda.
SEA only gives 1 tag… are you mixing it up with Breaking News?
YES I am. And I’ve also been pondering the merits of Big Brother, which strikes me as an absolute ace of a card if you build the deck right to utilize it.
Well, the only way to up my Scorched Earth count to 3 would be to buy another set of the game, as it only comes with two. I am ot serious enough to be making that kind of investment for a coupe more cards.
this debate will never change anyones mind but if i was running a company i would do it the exact same way as ffg does, i would rather sell a game for a fair price that alot of people could get into rather then making the price double to include more for the competivie players, i dont know for sure but i assume it is like 200 non compitive players to every 1 compitive player, so it would make no sense to sell the game for 90 bucks right out of the gate if the game cost that much for one core i bet i wouldnt have even tried the game.
….my comment was referring to agot but it apples to the others as well.
Concerning the parallel of buying a car, they list everything up front that you get — they don’t hide it because that’s SHADY BUSINESS. With high end goods like cars and houses, companies can’t get away with what they do with low cost products like card/board games.
I would say the parallel is more like the car not coming with the v8 motor you expected, but instead only the v6 motor — only they didn’t TELL you, and now you’ve got a car with a v6 motor. You could now pay more to get the v8 motor put in, or you could suck it up and just have the v6 motor. And because of that YES, I would be more than a little upset.
Have we really gotten to the point as a gaming culture that we expect the gaming companies to hold back information on what we are getting? That we’ve not only resigned to it, it’s become so normal to us that we don’t even see it for what it is anymore?
I challenge the assumption that this behavior by companies is how they manage to stay in the black, that we are somehow helping keep games we love going by OKing the “two starters per person but don’t tell em up front” business model as the norm. It’s ludicrous, particularly since after the starters games like this move toward expansion packs not more “buy 2″ starters.
The cost of +1 Scorched Earth card per starter box was likely less than a penny per box, being conservative concerning the cost of printing 1 extra card per box. Even in the world of absurd overestimates, it would be less than 50 cents. I think we could have afforded that price increase, given that we ended up buying a second starter instead.
The cost of 4 extra dice in an X-wing box was less than 50 cents, which they could have more than saved by having to make 1 less damage deck and half the number of templates/inserts. You can get a d8 at mark-up for 25 cents. I mean seriously.
Plaid Hat Games I like, but even they do it to a small degree. The starters come with a certain deck that has 5 of each common, but 10 of any common is legal for a deck. You end up with an extra summoner and extra copies of the base-deck champions… basically a bench-team deck if you mix it all up, including the copies of events. The reason I’m not up in arms over Summoner Wars is how it came to be that way — they had only base decks, then expanded the rules to 10-of on commons when they decided to add expansion packs to the game.
Bottom line is… while you might initially assume these shorted pieces/cards are a matter of cost cutting, they AREN’T. Not even a tiny bit. It’s all marketing strategy, a deliberate choice to get you bought in and then have you on the hook for more you didn’t realize was part of the deal. It’s Darth Vader-esque. Make the deal with you, then change the deal after you’ve paid. Like an interest rate on your credit card that goes up once you have a debt on it… it’s SHADY.
I’m with Lando on my opinion of it.
What information are the holding back? Are they required somehow to list a full spoiler of every possible card on the side of the box somewhere? That’s going to be pretty freaking crowded for chapter packs. When I bought into netrunner, I knew exactly what I was getting, I knew every single card, and how many copies of each card. I did my due diligence, and I can’t feel the least bit sorry for anyone who didn’t do theirs.
Well Theorist I think your counter analogy regarding the auto industry has it’s holes as well. You say you wanted the V8 in the car, but got the V6. Did you realize that the V6 is the base model and the V8 would cost extra. As far I can tell a car runs just fine as a V6. You can choose to upgrade if you wish, but you aren’t required to. Maybe you want to take you car to a drag strip and race it in a stoxk car class. Nobody is making you do that or to pay for the V8 engine. It’s the same with Netrunner. You don’t need two core sets to play and honestly 1 core set is just fine for playing the game. I’m not even sure I NEEDED 2. It’s nice to have though.
I do encourage anyone looking into any game to “do their homework” concerning what they will actually be getting, precisely because what I say is going to happen with uncomfortable frequency. Don’t buy in on good faith and be disappointed when your good faith finds itself unrewarded. It’s reasonably easy in this day and age to do it. Saves heartache.
That said, generations past mine are a lot more adept when it comes to dodging predatory company behavior. Mothers buying for their children, some older gamers, and even some of the current gamer generation don’t realize they have to do so — they assume that the price on the good is the cost to play the game, not just part of the price. I feel very much for anyone who has ever been stung by shady packaging. It’s not right, and it’s not fair to make people live in a predatory world when things needn’t be that way. It’s unfeeling.
Maybe I’m just an old fashioned sort of capitalist. You offer a good or service, you make it clear what you are selling, and you put it out there at a price that is both profitable to you and fair to the customer. You don’t sell hype, you don’t misrepresent what you sell in any way, and you don’t gouge people for extra money just because you can get away with it.
It’s just not my world anymore.
Nathan!
Of course an analogy will never be perfect — the point is to look at how they are similar, not find where they don’t apply.
In the car motor analogy, the fine print says V6 but is hidden on page 5. The advertisement says V8 and the dealer is careful not to mention the fine print. LEGAL, but just barely — really really shady.
And since this is a comparison to a head-to-head game… YES, this car is fine to get around in as a V6 but not so good to race. Like I said, fine to putter around with at the house by yourself but not so good against opponents at the local shop. Another analogy for you, it’s like a bike with no pedals. You can still walk it around and coast, but you aren’t really getting the experience you should.
The assumption being discretely challenged seems to be that a casual player cares if they are missing that third Scorched Earth. I’m a casual player by nature. I care. Assumption validated as we have found a case where it is true. Do you really say I’m the only one in the world, just because you don’t happen to be part of that group?
Are you the only casual player in the world who is upset that they only got 2x Scorched Earths? No.
Even though you only got 2, does it in any way hamper you from playing the game?
I hear both sides of this argument, and am a little wary to wade into the middle of it, to be honest!
But, as Nathan pointed out, Fantasy Flight has not left us NEEDING anything to play’ they just left out some cards that can make your deck more competitive. But while it is almost certainly the case the they left them out to encourage more sales, let me play devil’s advocate and suggest a couple of alternative possibilities:
1) the beginner decks are all built to a particular size to allow a simple mixing of a faction with the neutral cards to allow quick beginner play. To this end they had to make some decisions as to which cards they could not provide more multiples of. Cutting out some of the more powerful ones, for the casual gamer, would make sense then.
2) when playing, as the casual gamer, to have too many of some very powerful cards might led to frustration, as the newer player does not know how to effectively with these cards and this can lead to a mispercepetion of game imbalance and overall dissatisfaction with the game.
What Fantasy Flight has provided in the box set is an excellent game at a reasonable cost. If you wish to be competitive, then yes, you may look to getting more sets. If there to be a win-win situation, I would suggest Fantasy Flight to with sell singles, or have a “booster pack” of sorts that included the “missing” cards from the main set.
When playing outside your own card pool, not having all the good cards when your opponent does leads to getting repeatedly beaten — THAT is frustrating. Making a couple of runner/corp decks to play around the house against your own decks is easy. You can weaken a deck deliberately to even things up… not something you can ask a player with their own cards to do though.
I sort of like the idea of a missing cards pack, but not as policy. It would be more along the lines of a 1x apology pack. “Sorry we left these out. Here ya go.” But it won’t happen. There’s no incentive and those that wanted to buy in have already bought multiple starters.
Or you could just wait on singles and corp/runner packs from Team Covenant(whenever that will be)
That’s a curious question — what does TC (and sites like it) do with all those cards everyone already has x3 of? Not FFG’s problem, but I am kinda curious what happens to all those unwanted extras. Land of misfit toys perhaps.
It’s a good solution from a personal POV, given that corporate culture isn’t likely to change since boycotting goods isn’t a realistic option on a frivolous product. The cost of an entire Netrunner starter being maybe 20-25$ on Ebay though… how much is just x1 Scorched Earth really worth?
It’s not 1x Scorched Earth. It’s…
1x Account Siphon, 2x Aesop’s Pawnshop, 1x Aggressive Negotiation,1x Aggressive Secretary, 1x Akamatsu Mem Chip, 2x Akitaro Watanabe, 1x Anonymous Tip, 1x Archer, 1x Archived Memories, 1x Autoscript Pilot Program, 1x Aurora, 1x Bank Job, 1x Battering Ram, 1x Breaking News, 1x Cell Portal, 1x Chum, 1x Closed Accounts, 2x Corporate Troubleshooter, 1x Corroder, 1x Crash Space, 2x Data Dealer, 1x Data Mine, 1x Datasucker, 1x Decoy, 1x Deja Vu, 2x Desperado, 1x Djinn,1x Experiential Data, 1x Femme Fatale, 2x Grimiore, 1x Hadrian’s Wall, 1x Heimdall 1.0, 1x Hunter, 2x Ice Carver, 1x Lemuria Codecracker, 1x Magnum Opus, 1x Medium, 1x Melange Mining Corp, 1x Mimic, 1x Modded, 1x Net Shield, 1x Neural EMP, 1x Ninja, 1x Pipeline, 1x Posted Bounty, 1x Precognition, 1x Psychographics, 1x Rabbit Hole, 1x Red Herrings, 1x Research Station, 1x Roboturret, 1x Sacrificial Construct, 2x Sansan City Grid, 1x Scorched Earth, 1x SEA Source, 2x Security Subcontract, 1x Shipment from Kaguya, 1x Shipment from Mirrormorph, 1x Sneakdoor Beta, 1x The Personal Touch, 2x The Toolbox, 1x Viktor 1.0, 1x Wyldside, 1x Wyrm, 1x Yog.0, and 2x Zaibatsu Loyalty.
The short version of that is that, in order to have 3 of every card in the starter, they’d need to add another 77 cards to the box. As a player on a budget, a box that has everything I need to compete at a $40 price point is far more appealing than a complete set that may have a lot of things I don’t need at $60.
The only cards in the starter that I’ve ever said “damn, I wish I had more of these” about were Autoscript and Corporate Troubleshooter.
Thanks Tekkactus! I so wanted to do that but it was way too time consuming. The only cards I wish were 2x or 3x are Precognition, Corporate Troubleshooter, and Aesop’s Pawnshop. You can get away with only the 2x SE.
That’s a reasonable point, Tekk. I appreciate an information based argument being brought to the table here. I counter:
77 cards is still dirt cheap as far as additional cost. The cost of an individual card to produce is negligible — basically the cost of paper and ink, which when purchased in production quantity are very low even with rising production costs. I would actually estimate those 77 missing cards to be an extra $3 or $4 at most (possibly less), not $20.
Which of course misses the point. If they can separate those cards into different boxes, they aren’t making fewer cards. They are making the same number of cards and making more boxes. It’s actually more costly on the production side for them to leave those 77 cards out. They do it so that you will need to buy 2+ boxes. And then they don’t tell you, hoping you won’t know until after you’ve bought the first box.
If it came down to ink and cardboard, you’d be right, 3 or 4 dollars would be sensible. But it’s not. Cards are never that cheap. 3 or 4 dollars get you a booster pack of Magic (15 cards). Data Packs are 60 cards and retail at 14.95. 60 and 15, 15 and 4, 75 more cards for 19 more dollars. That’s a more realistic estimate of what a complete starter would cost you extra.
And all of this sidesteps the notion you have that FFG is apparently trying to hide the contents of the starter from you. I don’t ever recall them actively spreading disinformation, and it’s not shady business advertising “hey, this is missing cards!”; it’s just smart.
I don’t think it’s FFG’s marketing strategy to trick you into buying two starters. They just removed cards they didn’t figure you’d need three of to keep cost down. Maybe they missed on a few of those 77, sure, but I don’t miss my third Lemuria Codecracker or Net Shield in the least.
You are again including the packaging and distribution costs, and you are looking at the store shelf price — those 77 cards would have packaged into the same starter and shipped at pretty much the exact same cost.
There is the strong possibility that the shelf price of the starter would have been exactly the same. That extra $4 would have mainly been just extra profit… something to offset the fact that some players wouldn’t be buying a second starter.
Admire the behavior of such companies if you like. What you call “being smart” means people are being fooled into getting less than they thought they paid for, those companies are deliberately making their products worse, and the after-market price of x1 and x2 cards becomes grossly inflated (especially x1) after a while. I want none of that. I find nothing respectable about it.
I’m shaking my head that you “can’t believe” a company would deliberately entice you to buy multiple starters by making their product worse (at added cost to themselves… just less in cost than they make back in profits). That’s way too common nowadays, hardly something that doesn’t happen. And it’s pretty clear that it happened here.
I’ll agree that with certain cards, you may not really need x3 copies for any single deck. But what if you wanted to build 2 or 3 corporation decks? And just because you don’t want x3 of that card doesn’t mean others won’t — and getting a copy of a x1 card in the after-market is going to be costly.
Let’s start a new thread to debate the morality of FFs marketing strategies. This way people what want to read about that know where to look, and similarly, anyone wanting deckbuilding advice will not have to sift through allof the unrelated arguments.
Sorry for the hijack, Spazz. Feel free to delete it, as everyone interested in the tangent already knows what was said. Pretty sure all points were made.
I may delete it, but first will transpose it into a new thread where it can be found by people who may wish to chime in, or read what all the fuss is about.
Yes please just delete it. No need to rehash everything that’s already been said. Let’s get back to the matter at hand.
How ’bout that Wayland Consortium, eh? Any advice on what other kinds of ice I could add to the deck? Low cost barriers? High cost sentry?
Should I re-allocate splash points to accommodate Toll Booth and Data Raven?
If you are going for using cards like Scorched Earth and Closed Accounts to hurt the runner then yes you want Data Raven in there. And Toll Booth is just a great piece of ICE that should be in basically every deck right now.
This is the Ice I would toss in out of 1x Core….
2x Toll Booth
2x Data Raven
3x Enigma
3x Wall of Static
3x Ice Wall
2x Hadrian’s Wall
3x Shadow
and maybe…
2x Rototurret
or
2x Matrix Analzyer
depending on Influence of course.
My Weyland deck only runs Snare as an out of faction Asset. I don’t bother with Project Junebug or Aggressive Secretary. I only run 2x of Scorched Earth as well(even though I own 4)
I’d agree with Nathan on splashing some Toll Booths in there. Toll Booth is an excellent card, and it’s even better for you since you are playing the mega money making corp so its Rez cost is not a problem. I’d replace the Katanas with 2 Toll Booths. Katanas, while potentially painful, unfortunately cannot stop the runner from making a run due to their lack of an End the Run subroutine. While they work out okay in-faction for Jintenki, I wouldn’t recommend splashing the Katanas since they’re not too hard to bypass and even not being able to break their subroutine will not completely stop a Runner in his tracks. If you want to damage the Runner, you should let your Snares, Scorched Earth, and (if you decide to keep them in) Project Junebugs do the damage dealing and get more protective or versatile ICE in your deck. Nathans recommendation for Data Raven is also excellent, although SEA Source can be a reasonable substitute if you’d rather have different ICE in your deck.
I’ve actually seen some pretty good arguments for splashing Neural Katana. See, against Jinteki people generally won’t run without a sentry breaker because of it unless the absolutely have to.
In other factions though, Early breakerless runs are pretty much guaranteed – Running without programs means that Rototurret and Ichi are nerfed. As a result, an early NK in Weyland or HB can really catch a runner off guard, and potentially hit some important cards in their grip, while giving you some breathing room while they draw back up (and look for a Sentry Breaker).
Theorist, do you need another Scorched Earth? Message me.
Spazz could use a third one.
Spazz, being a spazz, should be allowed a handicap. In which case I nwed 12!