CTZ_UNDEFEATED

nobo 1847

This deck went 8-0 at the Games of Berkeley Store Championship on 2/20/16, getting both first seed and first place overall. There were 50 players total.

Credit to Andrew Cortez (who the deck is named after) for coming up with the combo. I was able to put together Dedication Ceremony/Reversed Accounts 10 times throughout the day.

I'm going to skip the "how to play the deck" section because there will be videos up of it soon. Thanks!

70 comments
21 Feb 2016 Saan

This is bonkers, Noah. I love it.

21 Feb 2016 Simone Suka

omg. This is beautifull...Thank you man for share this. I never click the like but this time i can't resist :O

21 Feb 2016 whirrun

Congratz! You actually made me boot up Chrome so I could comment! Really interesting deck that I would love to see more discussion of as well as videos. 9 inf on dedication ceremony primarily for a combo with 3 inf of Revesed Accounts, does beg the question of why NBN rather than Weyland? (I know it sounds odd :) ).

21 Feb 2016 spags

Nice!

How'd it handle Fumbledork?

21 Feb 2016 nobo

@spags Wes and I tested the match up a few times and right now we're 50-50, but that also includes the few iterations of the deck before it was tuned. Only played one whizzard in the tournament and won. This deck can start threatening to score very quickly, so I think the idea in that match up is to just keep putting down threats, because the whizz deck is fairly click intensive between liberated and setting up the pieces. Liberated is good protection against reversed, but they can get in a situation where they don't have the clicks to take off liberated, steal out of the scoring server, and clear all the tags in one turn.

21 Feb 2016 LazerDoofus

Next stop Regionals?

21 Feb 2016 Benjen

yaaaaaaasssssss!!! I am so sad that it's sunday morning and I can't just go somewhere and play this right now. This is awesome. Did you Dedicated for overscored beales? Ever double dedicate and triple advance next turn for a 5 pointer?

21 Feb 2016 ctz

@Nobo715 CTZWENTFACE

21 Feb 2016 nobo

@LazerDoofus I'm probably gonna end up playing ETF at regionals, to be honest. I'm really glad this deck works as well as it does, but it also has a very very bad noise match up, which worries me. We'll see though, maybe I can get it tuned well enough and catch people off guard.

@thesenorcortez I thought about not going face once, but then, just like, eh.

21 Feb 2016 podoboyz99

I am probably missing something, but how do you score if they don't go tag me? Is Keegan-Raven your gameplan to protect the card you just Dedicated? You only have one "hard" etr, so I assume they can just run through most everything even if you trash thier breaker. I'm not questioning if it's good or not, because obviously it is, but I just don't understand how you protect the card you just spent Dedication Ceramony on.

21 Feb 2016 nobo

@podoboyz99 You just put stuff in the scoring server and make them run through it to check. Sometimes it's qpm or news team, sometimes an agenda. Same principle as 3/2's in ETF; let them go broke on centrals (or in this case, with dedication/reversed or clearing tags) and then wait for windows. You only use casting call/dedication on napd normally, unless it makes sense to use it on Beale or Astro if the runner is low on creds and you have tag punishment. Normally save dedication for reversed. Don't worry if it's not clear how to play just by looking at the list; I recorded all my top 8 games so that will help clear things up.

21 Feb 2016 nobo

Also, Keegan isn't really part of the core plan. He's just there for anarchs that start floating, thinking they are just going to use Faust to run through everything without money. Faust was used to break pop up window many many times yesterday.

21 Feb 2016 turkishvancat

Congrats on the ultimate finish! :)

I really enjoyed playing against this last night; it's super creative and I'm definitely going to give it a whirl. I'm still beating myself up though for not taking the news team tags on that last turn R&D run; I don't know what I was thinking!

22 Feb 2016 nobo

@turkishvancat Thanks man! I think you need to have at least one extremely lucky game to win a big tournament, and our game was definitely that one for me. Don't sweat the news team, you should have won that game like 5 accesses before that :(

22 Feb 2016 Letsaros

@Nobo715

I have tried the same combo in Sol News. Really liked it but the deck i made at that time was crappy. Have you thought about reclamation order? I was uing it to recurve more Dedication Ceremony from the bin in difficult match ups. Also Imp can happen.

22 Feb 2016 nobo

@letsaros I tried this concept in NEH and I used the two influence on archived memories, so yeah that's a route you can take. I think the extra credit to clear tags is invaluable though, and I don't know if you want to be making a bunch of remotes in this meta anyways.

22 Feb 2016 Saan

Is there any point in making this a 44 card deck to make use of that aspect of the SYNC ID, or do you think that just weakens it overall?

22 Feb 2016 nobo

@Saan I tried 44 but couldn't make it work. netrunnerdb.com

22 Feb 2016 lolpaca

Interesting, I assumed you'd be using the Dedication Ceremonies to overadvance Beales. Is it more a case that you do that if it'll win game point, but otherwise keep em for your Reversed Accounts?

22 Feb 2016 afishisborn

This deck looks fantastic. I can't believe I never considered Dedicated Reversed Accounts.

How does this deck do against a runner who goes full tag-me? Is the mere threat of NBN scorch enough to keep runners on their toes? Or does Resistor get so ridiculously strong that it keeps runners out unassisted?

Anyway, I imagine any pancakes-based deck hates this, which makes me happy. Congrats!

22 Feb 2016 nobo

@lolpaca I never used dedication to score anything at the tournament. It's just better for reversed. If you casting call something it's more efficient to just score rather than waste a dedication, unless maybe you're sitting on multiples. It kind of comes down to pilot discretion, like many things in this deck.

@afishisborn I played against a few DLR leelas and the deck still worked. Pop-up becomes really good when they don't have any money, and yes, if they start taking news team tags and josh b. then resistor gets big. I tried a two wraparound, two resistor split for faust hate, but resistor is just too good for this very reason so I kept it at three.

22 Feb 2016 juliandark

Met any siphon reccursion runners?

22 Feb 2016 lolpaca

Can confirm, have taken News Team tags before so I could break Resistor with D4v1d on the next click :)

The only other thing I was wondering is why 2 Psychographics - is it to find it quicker in case they go tag-me early on?

22 Feb 2016 nobo

@juliandark yeah I played against four leelas at the tournament. Just put the pop-ups on hq, drain with reversed/closed, and click for credits. They're only netting four off siphon.

22 Feb 2016 nobo

@lolpaca yeah the original split was two closed, two psycho, two reversed, but it became apparent that reversed was the best tool in the deck so one closed went there, and psycho is more essential to winning the game than closed because once they go tag me your scoring server doesn't do anything (unless you managed to set up some sick triple resistor deal, but that doesn't seem likely).

22 Feb 2016 juliandark

ok what about someone with artist colony and/or film critic? I feel that would be a hard match, news teams actually help the runner, film critic allows them to skip a lot of bad stuff (NAPD, casting call, predictive).

22 Feb 2016 nobo

@juliandark yeah film critic is tough to beat. At the tournament I beat a leela with data dealer, a vamp-kit with artist colony, and a kate with film critic. I don't know what to tell ya, every game is different and every deck has counters. You just pilot as best as you can and play to your outs.

If your opponent has a counter than all they have managed to do is level the playing field. It certainly doesn't mean they will win.

23 Feb 2016 tzeentchling

I guess I'll see when the videos are posted, but do you have the Reversed Accounts down already, then activate on your turn? Or is it one turn, install-Dedicate-pop? I suppose 1 turn and 2 cards is worth the runner losing 12 credits, but it seems like an inefficient Closed Accounts.

Any Hunting Grounds in your meta scene? They're so niche but surprisingly useful.

23 Feb 2016 westonodom

@tzeentchling - As far as I know (from playing him and the games I watched), he usually does it all at once.

23 Feb 2016 nobo

@tzeentchling it's all at once unless I know they can't trash reversed. Closed accounts requires a tag, making the runner lose 12 unconditionally is different.

23 Feb 2016 triorph

is dedication ceremony here entirely for reversed accounts, or are you trying to use it on a casting called beale too?

23 Feb 2016 nobo

@triorph dude, cmon now. Read the comments.

23 Feb 2016 triorph

Whoops, I obviously skimmed too hard. Yeah dedication is mostly just reversed accounts. Interesting idea!

23 Feb 2016 moistloaf

Maybe I missed it in write up but how many film critics were installed against you? The day this idea was discussed on slack I took your list to Jnet and kept getting hosed by film critic. I think in a competitive meta like a SC the critic is much less common right now than in the no rules Jnet meta. Super glad you won with this badass deck

23 Feb 2016 nobo

@moistloaf One film critic at the tournament, in addition to one data dealer and one artist colony.

Film critic isn't that big a deal. Artist colony is much more difficult. Against film critic you just drain and tax them (reversed and baiting them into the scoring server) until you make a window. If they are careful not to let film critic get trashed you just don't use casting call; just play the attrition/reversed accounts/having to check everything in the server game. Also if you manage to draw both castings you can play them both with two different agendas and make them choose, but I've yet to have that come up.

At the tournament, the film critic/kate game was tough. I was slow advancing a casting call NAPD over the course of a few turns to bait him, and on the third turn he drew film critic, stole the NAPD, and cleared tags.

It ended up being a complicated game involving a keegan vs. faust cat and mouse type situation, but long story short I was able to drain him with reversed, bait what would be a game winning agenda (for him) into the scoring server with raven so I could trash faust with keegan and give him a news team, and then sort of just attrition'ed him out. He levy'ed and we basically did it all again. The film critic wasn't really relevant because I was playing fast advance at that point and he was just trying to levy and get faust again.

It was definitely my luckiest game of the day, despite the film critic (I just got lucky on accesses). After than first NAPD snag it wasn't relevant.

23 Feb 2016 gandrasch

Biggest problem I see is all that tracer ice. With Gingerbread and Nexus Runner around, they break this ice so cheaply, they still can remove tags afterward.

23 Feb 2016 sruman

Congrats Noah on the success. I'm sure the videos will reveal the answer but I'm impatient -- given only 6 money cards (and 3 pop-ups but those are unreliable), how often were you clicking for credits. The ice isn't that costly but still going to add up with the 12+ credits you need just for advancing agendas to win the game.

23 Feb 2016 Saan

@gandrasch I'd disagree both on the points that Gingerbread is a card that gets played in serious decks (even with Panchatantra it kinda sucks) and on the point that Gingerbread breaks ICE cheaply. It's going through Guttenberg for 5 credits, Data Raven for 3 (plus, who the hell cares about the Data Raven sub; it's the encounter effect that gives it play), Archangel for 5 credits... Resistor gets broken for 1 credit, but that's the same with any other breaker. As soon as you have 3 tags, it's 3 bucks, which is still worse than Corroder or Lady. Turnpike is 3 bucks... it's just not very good. I'd probably be pretty happy if someone installed it vs me while playing this deck. It basically means you win.

23 Feb 2016 nobo

@sruman You click for credits a lot. At least two out of every three turns should be "do something and take two."

23 Feb 2016 steveklabnik

I played this deck but had a really tough time. My opponent was Jes, and once she got a Corroder out, it was very rough. Only barriers end the run, and there wasn't enough of a tax to lock her out, due to MO. It was just one game, though...

23 Feb 2016 ctz

@Nobo715 Have you thought about playing Haas Bioroid: Engineering the Future? Seems like you could easily import reversed accounts and dedication ceremony. It would really optimize your do something, take two strategy.

23 Feb 2016 nobo

@thesenorcortez Uh oh, might have to go back to the drawing board.

24 Feb 2016 benticurus

I just opened NetrunnerDB to look for ideas for a Dedicated Ceremony/Casting Call deck, and this jewel has just been posted: destiny calls :D

24 Feb 2016 ANRguybrush

Something that bothers me: Wouldn't it be really easy to land a midseason with this deck? Why did you decide not to play Midseasons?

24 Feb 2016 steevo15

I'm curious what your thoughts are with porting this over to Spark Agency dropping tag punishment, more asset econ, and some more "glaciery" ice? I feel like asset spam can help to tax the runner just as much as clearing tags...could be interesting

24 Feb 2016 Saan

@steevo15 Or, how about dropping the tag punishment, less asset econ, drop ice all together, add in a little net damage, and throw the whole thing over into GRNDL: Power Unleashed! I think we're on to something here, you and I.

24 Feb 2016 steevo15

@Saan I don't quite think I follow where you're going with that

25 Feb 2016 phette23

@steevo15 I think @Saan's point was you have suggested so many drastic changes that it's an entirely different deck. He was being sarcastic.

What if you didn't change any of the cards and played the list? What would that be like? Sometimes the greatest change is none at all. Chew your mind on that.

25 Feb 2016 bullet218

where will the videos be?

27 Feb 2016 Pushover

@mcpba I think that the issue would be the low econ of this deck. MSR relies on having more credits than the runner, this seems less than likely (other than after a reversed accounts).

28 Feb 2016 BountyHunterSAx

www.youtube.com

Was this a different game? Because it looks like SYNC losing to Leela DLR in the Games of Berkeley 2016 Store Championship #1 - Sync vs Leela Posted on 2/24/2016.

-AHMAD

28 Feb 2016 BountyHunterSAx

@BountyHunterSAx Yes it was - my bad! Different player, same tourney apparently.

28 Feb 2016 Unlinked

This looks really fun to play. I've recently been testing out a NEH deck that uses Raven-Keegan + Blacklist to open a scoring window by denying them their breakers to get through the ETR ice (rather than denying them the credits to run).

Also packs Snare! and Shattered Remains but no tag punishment apart from Keegan.

I have 4 more ice in my deck. Looking at yours, I think i may have rebalance that a bit. I've found myself clicking for credits a lot too (even with PAD on top of what you have for econ). I'm probably rezzing too much ice when i could be doing something more useful.

Congrats on your great result. I'm glad you posted your deck. It's giving me ideas.

28 Feb 2016 Parzival

You're the man. Awesome deck.

28 Feb 2016 travisrchance

I have played the crap out of this deck--36 games since it posted--and I just cannot stick a win. I rank myself a better than average player, for whatever that is worth, but I end up in the same game state no matter how I try playing. The deck is just so porous if they choose to not play tag me. And if they do play tag me, you are left with little in the way of punishment.

I would be interested in seeing your play vids to see what I am missing. I wanna make this work, but it just keeps falling flat, primarily with awk openers/porous ice. Is there a link I missed to the vids?

3 Mar 2016 fetish

Imagine this deck once Zealous Judge becomes a thing.

4 Mar 2016 petebikes

@Nobo715 Where are you going to post the videos? This looks like a pretty cool deck.

8 Mar 2016 bcavalier

At 49 Cards, is there a more powerful NBN ID you could be using? Just thinking maybe, Haarp? Does the extra cred for bouncing tags really help you hold the runner down more than perhaps Haarp?

10 Mar 2016 CrowCity

Have been playing your deck since it was posted with great results. Swapped the News Teams for 2 Blacklists and 1 CVS to counter shapers. Thanks for the deck Nobo. Why is it called CTZ?

10 Mar 2016 Unlinked

@Craig Bednar "Credit to Andrew Cortez" -> Cortez -> CTZ

26 Mar 2016 5N00P1

As a lot of people have asked for it, you can find the video here: www.youtube.com

23 May 2016 binarydogs

So I've been playing this deck for the last couple of days and really enjoying it. One problem I have run into is Turntable making News Team a problem.

Thinking about dropping them and 1 x NAPD and swapping in 2 x Breaking News and 2 x Exchange of Information.

I'm wary of the effect changing the agenda suite might cause, any thoughts?

23 May 2016 triorph

Turntable doesn't trigger on news team.

23 May 2016 binarydogs

Oh man really? Didn't realise this at all!

23 May 2016 triorph

You have to steal an agenda to trigger turntable, while news team is just adding it to the runner's scoring area.

23 May 2016 binarydogs

Ah awesome. Assuming they can still be used with Artist Colony though?

24 May 2016 5N00P1

Yes it can be used with Artist Colony. Loving it when people play News Team or Shi.Kyū. That's why I have dropped the News Team.

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