Ari's last heist (3rd @ CBI)

I'm writing most of this before the CBI top cut has been played. After Sunday, I must rapidly switch gears back to grad school and as such won't be able to devote much time to netrunner for the next few months. I'll answer any comments here eventually but it might take a while so don't comment anything substantive.

Luckily, the two weeks before CBI were my winter break, and I was able to test for it with more rigor than I've ever tested before. In two weeks, I played more than 200 games. Most of those weren't on the decks I played, I don't have enough concentration for that, but all the practice helped, giving me a better idea of the meta and sharpening my play.

For the fact that so many of those games were high quality I have TAI Breakers to thank- I'm humbled by the fact that I was able to practice with most of y'all in this period. It made a huge difference. I'm disappointed in myself, after all your support and after being the recipient of so much luck, that I wasn't able to pass the facet Ob test and get to the final, but such is netrunner and the living and learning thing. We'll get 'em next time. Also, shoutouts to NotAgain, whom I tested some top cut matchups with. It was an honor to have some great battles with you across this season as well as ID with you in the last round of swiss.

I want to talk some/a lot about DooF Ari, seeing as it did well and is about to rotate. Nobody plays this deck, and that won't change with this result. But ever since that night in Barcelona, when I stayed up late stressing about not having a runner for the next day, heard a rumor about a deck koga played to 6-1 at Crown of Servers and then graciously shared with me, the archetype has given me so much joy. It's only right that I attempt to explain how it works here. For the skeptics, I recommend reading koga's original write-up. For the DooF Ari hopefuls...

First, let us get one thing straight: this deck is for hipsters. This Ari, she is not like other girls. If you want to a pure shaper exodia control engine, exit stage left. If you want to play a bastardized crim because your faction is bad, exit stage right and enjoy your hermes access lottery gameplay. If you want to play easy games, this deck isn't for you, although it is extremely good at punishing bad draws so sometimes you get easy games but DONT COUNT ON THAT!!!

The most important thing is their credit total. Watch it like a hawk. It may seem irrelevant. 1 in 100 times, that is the case, but only when the corp is unable to stop repeated Conduit runs and the threat they are posing to you is less likely to hurt you than you are to win by seeing the cards you are on RnD. But most of the time, it is relevant, or at least it has to be for DooF Ari to win. Doof Ari doesn't win by setting up the doomrig. We do play turbine, but the rig isn't efficient enough nor do we set it up fast enough for it to win by itself.

No, DooF Ari wins by making 8-12 credits with Kyuban on unrezzed ice after the corp has to click for 3. The biggest advantage of DooF in shaper, aside from the effect itself, is that it is HQ pressure that can't simply be ignored. That forces the corp to ice RnD, HQ, and their remote. If pressure is applied in the right places, even a credit total in the mid-twenties may not be enough to protect all of that while still keeping up the credits to rez all the outermost pieces of ice.

Cards/Strategy

Namesake- Sometimes, the corp doesn't play around this and they lose. Sometimes, they play around it by putting one ice on HQ, but that isn't enough to avoid the DooF and allow a good run on the remote where they can no longer rez all their ice. DooF run + remote run is the sauce, Pichacao is good for executing that sequence more often. If HQ is adequately protected, sometimes you just have to accept that DooFing would hurt you more than them and don't do it. Let it sit in your hand and remind you of the kind of game you want to be playing.

Emphasis: DONT LET THE DOOF WOLF INSIDE OF YOU WIN WHEN IT SHOULDN'T. One of the lessons I struggle to fully learn in netrunner is that there is no such thing as your hand telling you what to do. In this game we are blessed with the basic action of click to draw. If your hand is a doof, a physarum, and 3 useless cards, and you don't have UAV, money, or what you need to crack the remote yet, don't play a tame doof, just draw.

UAV- Very important, lets you accrue more value if the corp slows down to respect all the threats you are posing to them. Find a time to put this down early, and it will pay out, although how you install your trojans is matchup-dependent: against ice heavy decks, try to commit trojans you want to bounce only to rezzed ice or ice on multi-ice servers so its a higher cost for the corp to overwrite them. Against Ob, they have extract/excavator and want to trash rezzed ice anyway for ID value, so putting on unrezzed ice instead of a bad rezzed ice is probably better if you aren't making runs on said ice at the moment. Against ice-lite decks, installing trojans on any ice is fine.

LilyPAD- Great alongside UAV. Is good soft tech for punitive.

Breaker suite- Is a mix of programs that let you get in for cheap early (Propeller, Euler, Entangler) and late game inevitability (Cleaver Echelon Turbine). I like this set a lot. Propeller was added since worlds and is immense, making the not-drawing-SMC scenario less bad as well as the on-tempo breaks of Bran and Sandstone that everyone knows about by this point. I thought about cutting Entangler because 3 inf is precious, but kept it in to survive the usual no SMC draw losscon. The mavirus meta is a rough place for entangler, but it is better than the alternatives and at least there are 3x simulchip for instant reinstalls.

The only breaker I'm not a huge fan of is Euler. It was added to make runs on early Gatekeepers/ MICs easier, but it has a lot of downsides. The numbers outside of install turns are poor, which is bad because a lot of Corp players play against this deck by baiting runs and hoping we overcommit and run out of gas, and we want to use Simulchip for other things. Returning to Unity sounds good, and is better now because the deck plays 5 breakers so having another installed early is likely.

Ika- think of it less as a breaker and more as UAV value that isn't vulnerable to getting trashed/the corp having no ice

Simulchip- Good for faster rig assembly with SMC, but the best use is reinstalling a trojan the corp overwrites and getting a LilyPAD draw. Makes you smile and feel like a filthy prison player.

Conduit- The R&D pivot, the wincon, and the hardest card to play. Unlike other multiaccess like Deep Dive, Stargate, or Twinning, you need to make a lot of R&D runs with this before seeing critical numbers of cards, so pivots must be timed perfectly. Good times are: when the corp is pushing something you can't challenge, if you don't think they have agendas in hand and are counting on their deck, if you are desperate, and most times against Outfit, PE, and kill NEH. Bad times are: you are poor and you still have time to build up econ, the remote/hq defense are weak and you can still threaten them, or the corp is about to fire a rashida and your time would be better spent building up for the next remote challenge. Sometimes, if you can afford to, it might be better to set up a turn to install conduit with chip or SMC mid-run on the first click rather than hard install so you get 4 uncontested R&D runs instead of 3. Kyuban and pichacao both increase the conduit value.

Kyuban- How you install this is more important than you think. Pretty much never install it unless you are getting immediate value in the form of UAV, LilyPAD, or passing the hosted ice. If you have LilyPAD but not UAV, try to put on ice you plan on running past soon. Getting one overwritten is fine, getting all of them overwritten can cause you to lose long grindy games. Only install multiple on a single cheap or unrezzed ice if you are making bank on that server that turn because the corp will kill those immediately.

Nuka- Has always felt better than usual in this deck. Often free with UAV. Also, overdrawing is usually good in this deck because there are programs that aren't needed in certain situations and run events + Ari installs allow you to get 2 cards out of hand in one click.

The least important cards are probably DZMZ and Pichacao. These could potentially be cut to get to minimum deck size, but also have a lot of applications so its hard to say goodbye to them completely. If Hush comes back in at any point, DZMZ definitely stays to allow the mem and make Hush a bouncy UAV card.

Matchup notes

Azmari- One of the main reasons to play ari/shaper. The sales pitch of Azmari is that the runner gets 16 clicks to crack the remote. 16 clicks is almost always enough for Ari to get through any remote, given all the winning combinations she has access to and being able to install a card from hand during that last run. You have to survive the punitive and you should avoid careless central accesses while lacking credit differential, but the checklist is short. If all matchups revolved around stealing an advanced card behind 2 or 3 ice one time, Ari would be tier 0.

Asa- Tricky, but generally favored. Respecting doof slows them down. If you read the first agenda push correctly, it is hard to keep you out. Try to play kyuban on expensive rezzed ice for uav value, they have enough ice to overwrite unrezzed ones usually. Later once they have asset remotes and you can challenge, putting kyuban on their asset ice is nice and can create farming opportunities. Avoid tutoring non-permanent breakers. Turbine is only good in the super late game once breaking brans with cleaver is a must, so discarding and maybe chipping back later is solid

Asa also is the least consistent tier 1 deck, so sometimes they just draw bad.

Kill NEH- Doof Good. Run their remotes early, they're too poor to do anything about it. Close with conduit, make sure you have enough installed cards to steal Degree Mill.

Facet Ob- Very hard matchup. Usually, Eminent score with Powers to reinstall rashida is GG, so contesting remotes early is super important... but the Ob player knows that you know that so they can keep baiting you. Figuring out when to let the remote go is hard- in theory if you trash powers it is okay and ika/physarum/big echelon can handle a 1 archer board, but this deck isn't rich enough to trash most assets which makes denying powers hard in several different ways. Propeller makes the first remote runs cheap, later you want turbine and cleaver for sandstone. Other breakers are less important. Finding a conduit window in this matchup is good, agendas gather in R&D naturally for Ob and their ice before archer is bad against sustained pressure. Find a slot for Paricia???

End

I could format this better and make it prettier and more informative but I don't have time and just want to get it out. Hopefully this is enough hipster fuel. Congrats to Kikai for winning CBI, and thanks everyone involved in putting it on. Catch some of you all at districts.