Cache It While You Can

Thanks for sharing your deck.

As a new player (especially as an Anarch), can you please share your perspective on Crypsis vs Darwin?

Lots of the new Noise decks are using #Darwin, and I've been trying to fully understand their utility, especially if I foresee needing to run on servers that have 3 pieces of ICE.

Sure. I think the main choice between Crypsis and Darwin comes down to whether you play Hivemind.

If you play Hivemind, then most of your deck and strategy comes down to one or two HUGE turns. If you 1) already have Darwin on the table, 2) already have a medium on the table, and 3) have an Incubator with a few counters on the table, then the HUGE turn goes something like this:

First Click: Install Hivemind. Second Click: Move Incubator tokens to Hivemind. Click Three: Surge more medium tokens on Hivemind. Turn Four: Run R&D and access 8-10 cards. At least. And when the corp purges virus counters, then you build up another pile and do it again. Tyrellian's Can of Whoop Ass deck is a nice example of this strategy. netrunnerdb.com

Crypsis decks are working differently. They aren't necessarily saving resources for one huge turn. Rather, they are playing as many viruses as they can (particularly Cache which you can feed to Aesop's, netting 7 credits for one click w/ a Grimoire in play). Those viruses put cards in Archives while making money.

I would say that the Darwin decks are more of a combo deck--like all combo decks they are potentially very powerful, and capable of amazing plays, but also a bit more fragile. Crypsis decks are a bit more consistent, but, even with Incubator, they are unlikely to make that huge play.

And--I would stress--the simplest answer to your question is whether you want to play Hivemind and go "all in" on a huge swing.

I should say that when this deck is doing its thing, my turns look like this: First Click: Play Déjà Vu to pull a Cache and a Parasite out of Archives. Second and Third click: Run install both viruses. Fourth click: Run wherever the corp looks weakest.

Next turn, put a click or two on crypsis. Fire up Djinn for another cache or parasite, repeat.