Circus Chip Hayley -variation (11th at the Nordics)

AxWill 386

[Tl;dr: Great deck, change Cyber-Cypher into Gordian Blade, mull for ProCo and figure out which tech cards suit your own playstyle.]

This list represents my variation of the Aesops Hayley archetype and has characteristics from @crithitd20s Aesops Hayley (2nd at Worlds 2017) and Aesops chip Hayley plus @TugtetguTs Circus Hayley.

I have been playing Netrunner for only 3-4 months so there were some clear piloting errors and likely some more that I didn't even recognize, clearest one panicking against Weyland and running too early in fear of Atlas-train. Still this deck did amazing job and had it's shaper-moments, my favorite being on a side event against Mwekundu glacier where through combination of Brahman, Clone Chips and Compile I managed to beat Code Replicated Fairchild 3.0 with same D4v1d at least three times and steal agenda.

Notes from the tournament and side event. As I'm not too experienced in Netrunner, take these with a grain of salt:

  • Professional Contacts is the lifeblood of this deck and you should almost always mull for it. Since you will mostly draw through the deck manually, it makes 20 credits difference between having it in your starting hand and getting first copy halfway through. The games this deck dropped were the ones I did not get ProCo or went on time since this deck usually has a slow start.

  • Early Scarcity is such a poison against this deck. Interdiction gives you some chance of purging it and then mass-installing resources for the rest of the turn. Just be prepared to get hit by another Scarcity next turn... Interdiction also provided window for some surprise attacks and chances to clear NGO front. If I'm being honest, this deck doesn't have a perfect slot for it but it still helps a great deal. No good answer which way one should go.

  • I had one Astrolabe and no Net-Ready Eyes or Dedicated Processor. That worked out kinda ok, but net-ready eyes or adjustment for breaker suite would have been good decisions. Many times I had to use expensive Brahman as decoder. As for Astrolabe I really can't say if one or two is the right choice.

  • Resource list is quite fixed in this deck. Artist Colony is a borderline case and 46th card but I have unexplainable feeling it did pull its weight.

  • I also decided to skip Femme in favor of Hunting Grounds +Na'Not'K. Na'Not'K felt better than Femme in most cases. Hunting grounds didn't do much on my matchups, but I still don't think that was bad idea.

  • Cyber-Cypher is the only card I really would have changed in favor of the Gordian Blade. Actually I did that for side event and it felt so good to be able to run without Brahman shenanigans to change Cyber-Cypher targeting. It takes a run, draw and reinstall to do that and most of the time the extra cost of Gordian blade is in the same neighborhood and threatens the board more efficiently.

  • I decided to take Clot over Imp and that one single-handedly won me my matchup against Titan and would have helped in other matchups, had I remember to threaten with it. I didn't feel like missing Imp so Clot is probably the way to go until meta stabilizes a bit.

  • As @crithitd20 wrote: "I don't know how that deck got away without Stimhack but I'm not going to find out." Having played both with and without Stimhack, I strongly recommend it. It of course helps running, but my favorite play was Stimhack for installing purposes (SMC already on the table, Stimhack and tutor something, maybe Dhegdheer, from the deck and then use Hayley-trigger to install something from hand).

I had 46 cards and 1 spare influence. Still this deck did fantastic things on both Swiss and side event. Bigger factor was my inexperience with the game and few beginners mistakes I did (mainly when not finding the ProCo against The Outfit or Argus and thus panicking and running too early cost me both of the games).

Altogether Nordics were great event and I'm really glad I participated. All the best to the folk going to the Worlds and I hope my observations will provide something useful for people tinkering with their Aesops Hayley build.

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