[Startup] Tunguska Event

easterncalculus 763

Inspired by the Hyperdriver + Apocalypse decks of old, this janky Captain Padma deck eschews The Boat in favour of building up a massive single bombardment. It aims to blow the corporation’s R&D department wide open in a single incredible turn, or burn up in the atmosphere and become a legend.

Ideal starting hand is one of Hippocampic Mechanocytes, Basilar Synthgland 2KVJ or perhaps Professional Contacts. We do not want any of our Deep Dives, Running Hots or Katorga Breakout (unless they don’t ice HQ for some reason...)

Setting up:

Popping off: (5)

(optional)

Final 3+:

Katorga Breakout also lets us pick up any combo pieces we accidentally lose to core or meat damage whilst setting up. I went with Captain Padma for her charge ability and Hippocampic Mechanocytes but Ayla "Bios" Rahim: Simulant Specialist could also be a good shout.

Breakers:

If we have enough money on our final turn, 3x Mayfly should be enough- but alternatively Nanuq can easily cut through a very tough server - it’s perfect for that one important run on a glacier, and also a great tool for when we need to deal with a problem in the remote for some reason. However since it is removed on stealing an agenda be careful about when we install it.

I’m not sure Prepaid VoicePAD and Ghosttongue are the best picks here (I honestly think, after a few games, that an extra Katorga Breakout might go a long way instead) but in theory all can give us so much gas with our event econ.

I don’t think this deck is very good, but it is a lot of fun to pilot at a casual level. I don’t usually publish my typical weekly jank builds, but am doing so at the request of a friend who wanted to check out the decklist.

8 comments
10 May 2023 Silent Arbiter

Love the idea, tested it up with boats to be able to check remotes and pressure even building up the combo. The main issue I've found is that you end up almost always discarding your deep dives with the 3x brain. I've tried to solve that issue playing Ayla, having at least 1 deep dive and 1 katorga is usually enough once you draw the 3 Running Hot to do 2 multi click deep dive on the same turn. Sadly is not a competitive deck, otherwise it'd be my new runner for sure. - Don't like the Basilisk collar at all in startup since without heartbeat or caldera there's no way to prevent those cores. I'm considering trying cutting those and the hippocampic aswell, since you take 3x brains only in the combo turn without the collar. Thanks for the share, really a pleasure playing with this deck.

12 May 2023 rotage

Using extra clicks for a big combo turn does seem a lot of fun. Excellent deck! :)

13 May 2023 revengeanceful

I love this so much, well done!

14 May 2023 easterncalculus

Wow, huge thanks for the comments everyone, especially @rotage who’s own decklists were a massive influence on my desire to run a hyperdriver-style shaper deck! It’s a real honour to see you comment here!

@Silent Arbiter: I’ve definitely had trouble retaining all 3 Deep Dives post-Running Hot. I think that beyond startup, some sort of host card like Paule's Café might solve this, but in the meantime that’s what the large handsize (Hippocampic Mechanocytes) and intelligent use of Stoneship Chart Room is supposed to help with. As I said above, to be more competitive I think a second Katorga Breakout is necessary and even then I’ve had a few games where I’ve had to pull the trigger too soon and have totally whiffed on hitting any agendas- but that’s part of the fun of playing casual netrunner (at least, I think so).

I’m really glad people have had fun running this deck - would love to hear more suggestions on how it could be improved!

14 May 2023 Xyptero

Thoughts on The Maker's Eye, given you want to run R&D fairly regularly anyway, and finding an agenda or two earlier basically guarantees a win from your final combo? And why Dirty Laundry over Into the Depths?

19 May 2023 easterncalculus

@Xyptero: Thanks for your comment! The Maker's Eye could definitely find a spot in this deck - it just didn't make the cut for me. This deck already has a few cards over the minimum and most of the cards felt necessary to the game plan, though I definitely think there are alternatives that could be much more consistent with the final turn combo. We plan to win with Deep Dive, so we have our endgame multi-access, but we are running an event-based deck so we do need more events. These additional events I chose for one of the following reasons:

To maximise Captain Padma's ability we want to run R&D a lot. But in this deck, we aren't really trying to maximise this - it's of a quick solution to a little extra handsize over the course of setting up. We really don't plan to succeed and steal agendas until our final turn, and then we hope to succeed with Deep Dive. Whilst multi-access on this final "Quest Completed" turn is useful, Jailbreak is more flexible (we can use this on HQ which Deep Dive can't explore) and can be used for card draw early in the game.

That leads us to Into the Depths - is it better than Dirty Laundry? Most of the time, I would agree - it has the same monetary bonus with less of an upfront cost, it's more flexible and allows for tutoring - we can even charge Hippocampic Mechanocytes with it! But it has two properties that make it less suited for this deck (I believe):

  • It requires an Iced server: Though we can Into the Depths on any server, we get no rewards unless we pass Ice, which usually requires breaking them. And we only want to break Ice (ideally) on our final turn due to how Mayfly and Nanuq work - at that point, we want to already have enough money and cards to win. With Dirty Laundry, we can simply run an unprotected remote or central for a quick 3 and get an access without breaking any Ice.
  • The cost is too low: Imagine the following situation: we have Ghosttongue installed, and 1 Prepaid VoicePAD. If we play Into the Depths and pass one piece of ice we can gain 4 for a cost of 1 - but Ghosttongue makes that 1 free, so we actually make 4 over the course of the action (ignoring the cost to break ice here). Now lets play that back with Dirty Laundry instead: now we would be getting 5 for the price of 2, except that Ghosttongue and Prepaid VoicePAD can pay for the 2 cost, effectively turning Dirty Laundry into a Sure Gamble + 1 that also gives us a run. In this specific deck, due to discounts applied, cards with a higher base cost can provide a higher reward. This is also true with other cards, and why I tried to lean towards expensive events - with Ghosttongue and 1 Prepaid VoicePAD, Sure Gamble seems much better than Creative Commission - but we do need some early game economy before we built up our discount engine, which is why I slot both.

Sorry for the TLDR! And thanks for the food for thought 🙂

14 Jun 2023 Xyptero

Very interesting breakdown, thanks!

19 Jul 2023 Xyptero

I've just put up the list I've come to over the last few weeks of playing and adapting the deck to a slightly more conventional gameplan - let me know what you think!

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