Control Madani (Undefeated) (BROKEN?)

Hi Everyone, Whiteblade here. I wanted to share something myself and some of the snarebears have been cooking post elevation release: Control Madani Shaper.

So why Madani anyway?

Madani is a fucked up Netrunner card. One of the problems for shaper historically has been this: You want to play a set of toolbox utility programs but you can’t hold them all in your hand at the same time. Madani solves this problem cleanly, allowing you to juggle your Muses, Physarum Entangler, Hush and other utility tools AND host your ice breakers.

These are the same underlying principles that made Worldtree Wu a messed up deck. Being able to have any answer on tap at paid ability speed (or a tutor away) results in you having the perfect answer to every situation.

Magdalene is a great shell for this deck. You want to have multiple DZMZ’s installed to discount the installs (on yours and your opponent’s turns). Include Simulchip and random program installs, and you have a runner ID that is going to generate you probably 7-8 clicks of value in a game.

The secret sauce is the Basilar Synthgland. You may look at this list and go “there’s no way this is good” but let me tell you, it’s cracked. The “downside” of lower handsize is turned into upside with Magdalene, as you can reach your hand limit faster to get the clickless install. The 5 clicks accelerate you faster towards your control shaper boardstate.

Okay but how do we win?

We’re not really interested in winning the game per se, but stopping the corporation from winning. Your first few turns will be establishing the Madini engine (hosting the programs, getting some card draw down) and once you have a boardstate, you convert that boardstate into value. It’s okay to let the first few agendas go, but then you turn into pure remote camp. Entangler plus your cheap breaker suite (flickered in and out of play with your Simulchips) gives you a surprising amount of remote pressure. Once the remote is cleared, you pivot to a Cataloguer finish or sweep HQ with a Cup.

This is the same play pattern of Worldtree Wu, and for those readers who are collecting social security cheques, Laguna Lock Hayley. The goal here is not to proactively try and close the game until we generate an overwhelming economic and tempo advantage from our Madini and toolbox programs. Cards like Hush, Entangler and Cup allow us to apply pressure in different areas, while our Muses act as tutors and flicker effects for all our breakers or tech pieces.

This deck can fairly consistently draw its own deck out by turn 8. Then you Ashen, and play pure gas. Once you get to the lock boardstate you can slowly grind out a win from there.

But what is this bad against?

Au Co, mostly. Decks that can punish us for installing the Synthgland are our worst matchup, so any Public Trail EOTL deck or net damage focused ID is going to hurt us. We can win without installing the Synthgland in those matchups, but it slows us down.

Anything that is also pure FA will pose some issues. You need to change your gameplan and be more aggressive (perhaps interacting before you establish “the lock”) to deal with their threats. We can no longer Clot lock the corporation, so the onus on us is to make sure we apply pressure early enough before the corporation is on game point. Sweeping hand with Cup can often be key.

Closing Thoughts:

This deck is pretty good. Is it by far the best runner in the format bar none? Absolutely not. I do think it is doing some extremely powerful rule breaking things though, and it is difficult to play. I don’t know what the final version of this deck will look like, but I imagine Madini Control Shaper will take on some meta presence. The deck is just too strong.

A special shoutout to TBU3K and Cablecarnage for drafting the original list and iterating on the idea. I’m excited to see where this deck goes, it’s super lit.