Smash the System

Fair warning, this deck is not what I'd call "competitive". Or even "good". Certainly if it had been brought to a tournament it would have been the result of a bet and/or copious consumption of alcohol. However with the rotation approaching I figure this Johnny Monstrosity should be posted before it gets washed away, along with some beautiful cards that make it work.

By Any Means is my most favouritest Bad Netrunner Card to ever be printed. There is something quintessentially Anarch about the card and the effect can be brutal, but there's never really a deck that makes good use of it. Because of the decision to move away from Plascrete to the Jarogenew Mercs who have, ummm, issues, the ways to make this card hum just aren't there. Above all, Anarchs are busy with game plans like "winning" that don't need such silly cards that demand some real jank.

If only we had a janky Anarch ID who played bad cards and accidentally synergised with By Any Means. 

Step 1: Set up board, try not to lose. Blow up the odd bit of ice, put some pressure on the remotes and try not to give the game plan away. Ideally you want Hannah, Juli, Manuel on board plus maybe Eru or Patchwork. If you play the Mercs, you might tip people off but if you're playing Seb everyone thinks your being a snowflake and trying to play whacky cards. 

Step 2: Whilst trying not to lose, try and also draw and keep an additional Hannah Wheels, Direct Access and/or Jarogenew Mercs in hand. Try to spread out the pressure on their servers and create some openings in the corp's central defences as you look for your moment.

Step 3: Play By Any Means, make as many runs as possible and throw as much of their board, hand and deck into the bin as you can get away with.

Between Manuel and Mary da Silva you can hammer R&D for 3 cards at a time (4 on the Eru run). With Cupulation and Manuel you only need to get into HQ once and you can more or less trash the corp's hand. And with Hannah obviously you can get a completely free hit on a remote and then also get your click back to run somewhere else while clearing the tag.

For those also unaware, By Any Means also directly counters almost all traps as when you access bad stuff your super smart Anarch eyes glaze over the text of Cerebral Overwriter, scratch your head at what a Checkist Scion even is and why you should care, and daintily pluck the file labeled Snare! out of R&D before immediately throwing the offending cards into the bin. So if someone is playing Thule or wants to do a last hurrah with PE, you can play this deck to let them know that you are sick of their mind games and just want to smash the system.

Just remember that this applies to Agenda as well, so when you trash 4 cards from RnD and they're all agendas, remember to run Archives to pick them up.

Step 4: You might have accidentally won? Hopefully you had fun or did a beautiful turn. If nothing else the Corp is probably taking at least a turn or two to draw cards and try to rebuild a board.

As an aside, this deck is more fun to play in person than on J.NET as you can physically throw everything you access into Archives with the appropriate level of disdain you, as the runner, should show the evil Corp (though don't be a dick about it, please). Still there is nothing quite so satisfying as taking all the horrible Corp cards that seem to ruin your day giving them a quick glance and then hurling them into the trash. Enjoy.