Doran's Blades (5th Place Arlington Plugged-In)

CrimsonWraith 3638

"I know you all believe me weak, frightened, feeble. Your father knew me better. He was ever the viper. Deadly, dangerous, unpredictable. No man dared tread on him. I was the grass. Pleasant, complaisant, sweet-smelling, swaying with every breeze. Who fears to walk upon the grass? But it is the grass that hides the viper from his enemies and shelters him until he strikes." - Doran Martell, A Dance with Dragons

This is the Cerebral Imaging deck that I finished in 5th place with at the Arlington Plugged-In stop. The goal is to stockpile credits and cards in HQ while turtling ice on the central servers, until you amass an 11-card 13-credit combo that allows you to score 7 agenda points in a single turn. It sounds ridiculous, but I have successfully triggered the one-turn combo in 8 of my last 12 games with this deck, including 2 of 4 rounds during Plugged-In amid the top tables. It's a very fun deck to play that catches people by surprise.

Here's the cards you're looking for in hand to trigger the combo:

  • 2x Biotic Labor (3 in the deck)
  • 3x Shipment from Kaguya
  • 1x Shipment from Mirrormorph (2 in the deck)
  • 2x Trick of Light (2 in the deck)
  • 1x 3/2 agenda (4 in the deck)
  • 1x Priority Requisition (2 in the deck)
  • 1x Efficiency Committee (3 in the deck)

You'll also need at least one Ice Wall installed (3 in the deck) with four advancements.

The combo:

1) Biotic Labor (4 clicks remaining, 4 credits spent)

2) Biotic Labor (5 clicks, 8 credits)

3) Install Shipment from Mirrormorph, putting Priority Req, Efficiency Committee, and a 3/2 agenda in three new remote servers (4 clicks, 9 credits)

4) Advance Efficiency Committee (3 clicks, 10 credits)

5) Advance Efficiency Committee (2 clicks, 11 credits)

6) Trick of Light 2 counters from Ice Wall to Efficiency Committee and score it (1 click, 12 credits)

7) Spend Efficiency Committee's Hosted Agenda Counter (2 clicks, 12 credits)

8) Spend Efficiency Committee's Hosted Agenda Counter (3 clicks, 12 credits)

9) Spend Efficiency Committee's Hosted Agenda Counter (4 clicks, 12 credits)

10) Shipment from Kaguya on Priority Requisition and the 3/2 agenda (3 clicks, 12 credits)

11) Shipment from Kaguya on Priority Requisition and the 3/2 agenda (2 clicks, 12 credits)

12) Shipment from Kaguya on Priority Requisition and the 3/2 agenda (1 click, 12 credits), and score the 3/2 agenda

13) Trick of Light from Ice Wall to Priority Requisition and score the Priority Req (0 clicks remaining, 13 credits spent, 7 agenda points scored)

There's many, many different slight combinations of these cards possible. I haven't seen this particular combo posted anywhere yet, it was developed just by playing the deck and it was the easiest for me to memorize. The easiest variation to it is working a third Biotic Labor and one of your Archived Memories into the mix. The Trick of Lights and Shipment from Kaguyas are typically the last piece of the puzzle that you're rapidly drawing cards to find. In my second round game that I won at Plugged-In, I had a SfK in the last three cards in R&D. In my third round game that I won, that third SfK was in the last ten cards in R&D. In both games, I ended up using a third Biotic Labor and Archived Memories to pull one of the used SfKs back into hand from Archives.. that variation is a 12-card combo that requires 17 credits.

One of my concerns with bringing this type of deck into the tournament environment was time. With 60-minute rounds, not a single one of my four rounds went to time, and only one came close... three of my rounds were complete prior to hitting the 45-minute mark. Private Contracts probably looks like an odd splash, but my winning percentage with the deck has turned around since including it. I typically install it on my final click, in a new remote server unprotected by ice. The runner will almost always run it. If they trash it, then I spent a click and a card to make them lose five credits, no complaints there. If they don't trash it, then I can rez at the start of my turn and pull from it three times... the equivalent of spending three clicks to draw three credits, which happens commonly enough with this deck anyway. At that point, most runners will run and trash it, knowing they can't afford to let it stick around with my deck. Still a net gain in my opinion, as I gained credits and forced them to spend a decent amount. Some runners will let it sit, not content to spend 5 credits to prevent me from gaining the remaining 8. That gives me the option of gaining 6 credits immediately, letting it sit as Account Siphon/Vamp recovery for a later turn, or just take credits off it occasionally as necessary.

Ice is a bit tricky with this deck, and I'm still experimenting with the ice a lot. Since all of your influence is spent on combo cards (yes, Ice Wall is part of that combo in this deck) and Jackson Howard, you're stuck with in-house or neutral ice in this build. My goal is to spend as little money as possible rezzing while taxing the runner as much as possible. With just 9 agendas, quickly drawing most of those agendas into HQ, and then protecting the HQ agendas with sheer numbers, you don't have to worry about the occasional access here and there. My goal is to limit those accesses as cheaply as I can, as I don't have the money or ice to attempt to prevent accesses altogether. Minelayer works beautifully, either getting rid of ice install costs (which adds up quite a lot when you're only icing central servers) or forcing Runners to break it. The NEXT suite of ice will work great in this deck once more of them are available; cheap to rez and an ideal amount of strength in number. In the meantime, the cheaper bioroids are probably your best bet for saving you some money and still forcing them to spend clicks and/or credits. Restructure will obviously fit into this deck quite nicely, once available. I have begun testing new iterations and will publish updates once I'm content with the changes.

15 comments
16 Nov 2013 prozz

what happens if shipment from kaguya is the bottom card in your deck?

16 Nov 2013 HepatitvsJ

Shuffle with Jackson Howard. If it's still the bottom card your sacrifices to the goddess of luck were insufficient. :)

16 Nov 2013 CrimsonWraith

It happens. The third Shipment from Kaguya was in my last three cards in R&D in one round and in my last ten cards in another round at Plugged-In; I won both of those games. If there's a card buried in R&D (generally it'll be that third Shipment or second Trick of Light), it's easiest to just revert to the 12-card/17 credit combo as described above instead of the 11-card/13 credit combo.

25 Nov 2013 Cephiros

This deck is super fun to play. Both times I've played it I lost granted both times I'm attempting the super combo of scoring all 7 points in one turn. 1st time, I was one turn away from pulling off the combo but my opponent got really lucky and was able to pull 2 agendas in a 23 card HQ.

Second time I believe I had only one biotic labor but two archived memories and plenty of credits but failed in order of operations and could not score the PR.

30 Nov 2013 ttsgosadow

Played this deck a couple of times, but lost because I couldn't keep the runner out of my servers. There's very few ice, part of which is clickable or doesnt stop the runner (Minelayer). But the deck is great to play nonetheless! Think I would swap out the minelayers for EtR ICE, HQ interface nailed me one game, but that wasn't half as bad as the Nerve Agent in the game after that :)

3 Dec 2013 CrimsonWraith

Noise, Nerve Agent, and HQ Interface are devastating against this deck, particularly when combo'ed with Demolition Run or Imp. I really think there's too many hard counters for this deck to be truly competitive, but it remains one of my favorite decks to play... as y'all have noticed, it's just a lot of fun and something very different.

The ice in this deck is what I'm most unhappy with, and I've made several changes, though I haven't had enough time to test and post those updates. With just nine agendas and a ton of cards in HQ, the idea is that single accesses every so often really should not hurt you. The ice needs to make the runner spend enough clicks/credits that they're not getting multiple accesses every turn, while also being cheap enough to rez that you have flexibility with your HQ size.

In my latest build I've dropped 1x Eli, 1x Viktor 1.0, and 1x Viper for 3x NEXT Bronze. Also substituted 2x Successful Demonstration and 1x Archived Memories for 3x Restructure. I'll try to post some updates once I get a chance to test it out. In the meantime, I'd love to hear any suggestions.

18 Dec 2013 CrimsonWraith

I seem to have broken the formatting in the original deck list description, so I'm re-posting the card requirements and combination here, hopefully in a more readable manner:

Here's the cards you're looking for in hand to trigger the combo: *2x Biotic Labor (3 in the deck) * 3x Shipment from Kaguya * 1x Shipment from Mirrormorph (2 in the deck) *2x Trick of Light (2 in the deck) * 1x 3/2 agenda (4 in the deck) * 1x Priority Requisition (2 in the deck) * 1x Efficiency Committee (3 in the deck)

The combo: 1. Biotic Labor (4 clicks remaining, 4 credits spent) 2. Biotic Labor (5 clicks, 8 credits) 3. Install Shipment from Mirrormorph, putting Priority Req, Efficiency Committee, and a 3/2 agenda in three new remote servers (4 clicks, 9 credits) 4. Advance Efficiency Committee (3 clicks, 10 credits) 5. Advance Efficiency Committee (2 clicks, 11 credits) 6. Trick of Light 2 counters from Ice Wall to Efficiency Committee and score it (1 click, 12 credits) 7. Spend Efficiency Committee's Hosted Agenda Counter (2 clicks, 12 credits) 8. Spend Efficiency Committee's Hosted Agenda Counter (3 clicks, 12 credits) 9. Spend Efficiency Committee's Hosted Agenda Counter (4 clicks, 12 credits) 10. Shipment from Kaguya on Priority Requisition and the 3/2 agenda (3 clicks, 12 credits) 11. Shipment from Kaguya on Priority Requisition and the 3/2 agenda (2 clicks, 12 credits) 12. Shipment from Kaguya on Priority Requisition and the 3/2 agenda (1 click, 12 credits), and score the 3/2 agenda 13. Trick of Light from Ice Wall to Priority Requisition and score the Priority Req (0 clicks remaining, 13 credits spent, 7 agenda points scored)

18 Dec 2013 CrimsonWraith

Well, that didn't work either, and I can't delete/edit comments. Doh! Okay, updating deck list with an entry to my BGG blogpost with the combo detailed.

27 Dec 2013 Watzlav

Thank you for this deck, it's a prime example of thinking-out-of-a-box. If you wanted to check out my unique blueprint to score 7AP in one round, check out the link below. Meanwhile I will be having fun testing the deck and hopefully reading your insightful comments. a link

3 Jan 2014 unseenvision

Doesn't Efficiency Committee say 'You cannot advance cards for the remainder of this turn'?

So you're saying that the advances from Shipment from Kaguya don't count as advancing a card...? Seems a little strange to me if this is how you are interpreting it. Is there any official word on this?

4 Jan 2014 CrimsonWraith

Efficiency Committee prohibits the Corp from advancing cards for the remainder of the turn. The term "advancing a card" refers specifically to the default Corp action of spending a click and a credit to advance a card. Cards like Shipment from Kaguya, Trick of Light, and Shipment from SanSan are placing or moving advancement tokens, which is considered different than advancing a card.

All of this is official and was included in the last FAQ update from about three months ago. You can check for yourself on Page 11. :)

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/android-netrunner/support/FAQ/Android-Netrunner%20FAQ.pdf

7 Jan 2014 nbove

Hmmm, have you considered updating this deck with the new Accelerated Shutdown mechanic? It seems like you could pull of some pretty incredible combos with it.

7 Jan 2014 CrimsonWraith

I had the same thought at first, excited that it brought the necessary cards-in-hand and credits requirement even lower than the current count with this build. Then I experimented with it and it went rather miserably. The problem with the Accelerated Diagnostics and Power Shutdown combo is its reliance on Jackson Howard. Generally, you must have at least one Jackson Howard in R&D/Archives and at least one either installed or in HQ, in order to seed the table for the Accelerated Diagnostics combo. In my experience, that meant that I could not use Jackson Howard for card draw and re-seeding R&D with economy cards like normal and made the deck less efficient and less consistent.

If you're looking strictly for a 7-points-in-1-turn combo, it's been my experience that the Power Shutdown and Accelerated Diagnostics variants are much less reliable than this build.

9 Jan 2015 konradh

I played yesterday against similar deck two times. I almost won, managed to grab some agendas from R&D, but unfortunately those were just Vitruviuses, not Efficiency Committee. Sigh.

29 Jul 2019 Handkuffer

Not personally sure about this desk - played in lost as it took too long for the right cards to turn up - finally when they did I had so many agendas in hand, the runner was able to steal. I had four or five cards left in RD when this happened. Not sure how its possible to win. Maybe Im playing it wrong