Breakfast Time.

This is a Noise deck that I've been playing for a while, pretty straight forward strategy at its core, Darwin plus recurring credits and then parasite away anything too annoying for Darwin. I've tried lots of variations over the last month or so and eventually I landed on this configuration, it's a bit different than other builds but it gives you a lot of options. It used to run aesop's and wyldside and that is a good variant as well, especially now with cache. This deck always gives you a fighting chance, and tends to make for very interesting games, but sometimes it feels a step behind power wise, so thought I would share and hopefully get some fresh eyes and ideas on where to take it.

Playstyle

Consistent steady aggression, try to keep remotes from getting too strong, early random accesses are good, but not at the cost of having a turn where you are broke and powerless; with noises ability you get random accesses all game long, so better is to keep the corp pinned down, and steadily build up your board until there are too many threats at once for the corp to handle. I think of it, as an increasing pressure deck. Basically, this means keep running steadily, but never go all out, leave money and cards in reserve to wait for when the corp makes a big move, don't force them, play reactively and let them think there is an opening, then pounce on it. Once recurring credits are going, you can actually accomplish a lot with very few credits, which can surprise a corp player.

Breakers

Darwin and Parasite, plus a few others for particular scenarios that can be problematic. I've listed knight and sharpshooter below as the build has been 2 knight and 1 sharpshooter, but I just started testing the 3 D4v1d instead, not sure what is more useful.

• Corroder deals with wraparound.
• Sharpshooter is for a surprise archer or Grim.
• Knight is for anything else; tollbooth, or running safely at possible archers mostly.
• D4v1d seems like it could replace knight and sharpshooter so I am trying it out.
• Atman was in here for a long time, but it was almost never being used. It may be the ice people are running right now, so maybe it should come back in at some point.

Economy

Economy aims to get the most bang for the fewest clicks and then Kati jones to keep things going. Except for Kati, all 4 Econ cards only use one or two clicks but give big payouts, 4, 6, 6, and 5; for sure gamble, lucky find, queens gambit, and daily casts respectively. These then also help burst you up to have enough money to drop out your cyber feeders and spinal modem, at least one of which is essential to make Darwin playable. Gotta keep shovelling in that krill!

Queen's gambit is maybe the only unusual one, but it has been great for me, in twenty plus games, I've only guessed atrociously wrong once, (atlas!), most decks right now have upgrades or assets so it almost always finds a target.

Programs

Pretty standard virus suite, I've found that datasucker, parasite, and imp are the most important viruses. Not getting them when you want them is bad, so I use two djinns and a self modifying code to improve consistency and djinn's memory boost is almost always helpful, but never essential. One of each nerve agent and medium seems the right amount and you can usually get one to help turn the screws, if you get an opening on one of the centrals.

A note on parasites, there are never enough of them, so you need to be very selective with your parasites, don't just parasite things right away because you can, your priority is to kill off difficult to repeatedly break ice on the servers you want to run on. Usually, I prioritize any scoring remote first, then on whichever central you want to strike with medium or nerve agent. It's so easy to just throw a parasite on the first pop up, roto turret or Eli you see, but it isn't always the right play since you may not get another one for when you really need it later. Only do it, if you are going to run there immediately afterward, or it strengthens your threat on that server significantly, e.g. Parasite on r&d if you have a medium in hand. However, usually if it's a juicy target like komainu or Tsurugi, you just go for it anyway since those ice are prohibitively expensive to break using Darwin.

Tricks and Meta Calls

Surge!!

I greatly undervalued this card before, it has been very strong for me, it almost always leads to me scoring points. You only ever play it, if the opponent has done something where they are counting on a parasited ice to stay alive 1 more turn, or a Darwin not having enough strength, or a medium dig only being 1 or 2 cards. At the right moment, it gives you that push that let's you break through.

And then code cracker... I was getting beat down by jinteki pe, and I didn't like going the keyhole route, Infiltrate doesn't help because I don't have same old thing, and the damage prevention cards still seem weaker to me, so code cracker. No plascrete, because I can keep up in Econ with Kati jones and if you think they are playing scorch, you start Imping hq aggressively. It's not a sure fire way to avoid fiery justice, but along with noise mills it gives you a reasonable chance of not dying quickly.