[Startup] How to Improve a Deck

Space Cowboy 322

I made a deck with the new cards, but it didn't turn out so well. So lets learn from it, shall we?

First, learn the rules of the mechanics you are aiming for. I was hoping for big, fun, stupid, janky combos, but NISEI put a kibosh on it. I was hoping to spam multiple effects on Virtuoso triggers. A The Maker's Eye run plus The Twinning accesses into HQ and Docklands Pass accesses topped by Mu Safecracker bonus accesses, then paid back with Zahya Sadeghi: Versatile Smuggler bucks. While you still can put together fun stuff with Zahya, it doesn't work with Virtuoso as it ends the run before your bonus HQ breach. Bummer.

Second, stealth is awesome, but tough to get out. I figured it would be pretty easy to get The Twinning counters from all of the stealth credit sources I could think of, Mantle, Penumbral Toolkit, Trickster Taka. And Afterimage is a super strong breaker. But its a tough pull to get all the right cards in the right order.

Third, I kept Mayfly and Overclock to threaten any remote, and pressure centrals for the win. But a two card combo is again, tough to pull to effectively threaten. I was figuring The Maker's Eye and The Twinning would be my win condition. But now I'm thinking that investing 4 influence on essentially duplicates of The Twinning is investing too heavily, and can easily be swapped for something different.

In conclusion, I'm sure you can do better than me. So how might you improve this list? I know there are ways to make this great, though I'm heavily leaning away from stealth altogether. What would you do?

4 comments
28 Jul 2022 Baa Ram Wu

interesting.... There's a chance that it could be almost worth playing stealth without stealth breakers... hear me out here!

Mu safecraker is a notoriously 'bad card' TM however the addition of The twinning could make it interesting in Zhaya.

You would drop the taka and play a second mantle so you 'always' have access to 2 stelth credits, then each run on R&D is a potential access + 1 from safecraker + 2 from twinning + (potentially) 3 from Makers - That's a min 4 / max 7 card dig which is pretty insane for startup (plus 4-7 credits back)

(or you drop the makers, play Jailbreaks and then have 4 influence for Corroder/Unity)

Shame safecraker doesn't play with Virtuoso in the same way docklands does but still interesting

28 Jul 2022 Space Cowboy

@Baa Ram Wu I like that suggestion. If I were to attempt to make a viable deck out of the 'Notoriously Bad Card Mu' (NBCM), would I want one or two NBCM? Probably 2 if I want to actually see it in a game. How about -2 Maker's eye, +1 Mantle, +1 Cleaver/Corroder, +1 NBCM, -1 Penumbral.

28 Jul 2022 Baa Ram Wu

@Space Cowboy

I was tinkering around with your deck and came up with this: netrunnerdb.com

Felt pretty decent in the 5 games I tried with it. Mantle/Cezve + Hyberberic is super hot. I went with dirty laundry’s - but they could be Carpe Diems - just more comfortable with DL personally.

29 Jul 2022 x3r0h0ur

just copy my stealth deck, I fixed it after last Tuesday :P netrunnerdb.com Though, I still want Mantle to have a maker's eye every turn....