Mad Men

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been testing this deck extensively. And it’s strong, fast, and consistent. With the release of Honor & Profit it got some fantastic new tools. First, let us take a step back and think about the strengths of this faction which will feed into the deck philosophy.

Deck Philosophy

Our company, NBN, is active in the business of media and advertising. And let’s face it, media and advertising is a business with high margins and high returns on investment. The true power of NBN is gaining high returns on a relative small investment. Small investments, high returns.

As an example, let’s take Pop-up Window. It takes a very small investment to install and rez it. But its benefits are relatively large in comparison to its costs, whether it’s the credits gained by you, the credits paid by the runner, or the consumption of a Parasite. A card with a high return on investment.

In the game of Android: Netrunner, the ultimate return on investment comes in the form of agenda points. And NBN simply has some of the best agendas with highest returns on investment, notably AstroScript Pilot Program, Project Beale, and Breaking News. When you think of AstroScript Pilot Program in terms of return on investment, you’ll understand it’s simply great. For an investment of install and triple advance, you’ll get a return of two agenda points and one advancement token ready for further agenda scoring.

On top of its great agendas NBN has some high return on investment tools available to search and fast advance these agendas with a lightning speed, notably SanSan City Grid, Biotic Labor, and Fast Track. More on these great tools later.

Another attribute of NBN in general and of ‘Mad Men’ specifically is that you are able to operate very well even in a situation with only a small number of credits. This deck hardly needs or has more than nine credits. This decks has cards with a high short-term return on investment.

To summarize, the deck philosophy of ‘Mad Men’ is to use NBN’s high return on investment attributes to score seven agenda points with the speed of lightning.

Deck Strategy

The objective of the deck is simple: get the Astrotrain rolling, score three two-pointers and finish off with a Breaking News. Therefore, the first goal is to score that first AstroScript Pilot Program as quickly as possible. To do this you’ll need to mulligan, draw or Fast Track into the first AstroScript. Additionally you’ll need to have either an installed SanSan City Grid (and 8 credits), a Biotic Labor in hand (and 7 credits), or have a reasonable secure remote server (and sufficient credits).

Let’s discuss scoring agendas in terms of return on investment. ‘Mad Men’ is indifferent to the way to score an agenda, whether it’s fast advance or via a remote server. What it is does care about is to score the agendas with the highest return on investment. You’re always analysing the available possibilities to score your agendas. On top of that ‘Mad Men’ has efficient tools to increase the available scoring possibilities. Its flexibility to score agendas in different ways makes this deck strong and consistent.

For fast advancement the deck has available three copies of SanSan City Grid and two copies of Biotic Labor. Three copies of SanSan City Grid are great as I love runners to spend their credits to get in the remote and trash the SanSan. And then I have another copy ready to install. For the optimal number copies of Biotic Labor I did a lot of testing, and I found to prefer two copies over three. Furthermore, the four points of influence I’d happily spend on another beauty.

Fast Track is one of the most important cards of ‘Mad Men’. Firstly, it allows you to search for the first AstroScript Pilot Program, to get that Astrotrain rolling. Secondly, with an available AstroScript token and either an installed SanSan City Grid or a Biotic Labor in hand, you can use Fast Track to score the next AstroScript straight from R&D. And finally you’ll use Fast Track to search for Breaking News to score the last point and win the game. Fast Track allows you to find what you’ll need, and does that for very a low cost. It’s return on investment is simply fantastic. I’ll happily have three copies of Fast Track in the deck.

Now it’s a good point the discuss the identity of the deck. NBN: The World is Yours* is great for this deck. Firstly, the six card hand allows you to use Fast Track more aggressively. When the window is right, search for the agenda you’ll need for your next turn and hide it in your six card HQ. This really works well. Secondly, the lower deck size of TWIY* really increases consistency. A deck size of 44 cards is preferable to 40 cards for a lower agenda density, while you’ll still be able to find your agendas quickly enough using Fast Track.

Draw engine

‘Mad Men’ is a quick deck and quick decks benefit from burst card drawing. The two greatest burst drawing cards are Anonymous Tip and Blue Level Clearance. I use two copies of the both of them. Both cards quickly draw the cards I’ll need for winning, while filling HQ to its six cards. Both cards carry the core attribute of ‘Mad Men’; high returns on investment. Fast Track obviously completes the high return on investment draw engine of this deck.

Blue Level Clearance truly is fantastic in this deck. It’s both a drawing engine and an economy card. What makes Blue Level Clearance great for this deck is its low play cost. As mentioned ‘Mad Men’ does well even on low credits. With only requiring two credits you can spend one turn with Blue Level Clearance and Hedge Fund to get back to nine credits and replete the cards in HQ.

A noticeable absentee to ‘Mad Men’ is Jackson Howard. While a great card to other decks, for this deck he’s just too slow.

Economy

There are ten economy cards in ‘Mad Men’. Included are three copies of Hedge Fund, three copies of Sweeps Week, two copies of Shipment from SanSan and two copies of the aforementioned Blue Level Clearance. These operation cards have high to very high returns on investment, provide a quick burst economy, and are playable from low levels of credits. The advantage of the burst from low levels is the ability to recover quickly after the use of SanSan City Grid and Biotic Labor, or after being hit by an Account Siphon.

The two copies of Shipment from SanSan are great in this deck. The Shipment works quite well in a low credits situation, being able to continue the Astrotrain even from zero credits. A great late game card.

The type of economy that does not fit within ‘Mad Men’ is dripping economy, which has a too low return on investment in the short-term. So no asset economy like Marked Accounts and PAD Campaign, no ice economy like Pop-up Window. Subliminal Messaging also falls into this category, and is excluded for that reason. We need high return on investment on a short-term basis.

Other out-off-faction burst economy cards with a low play cost like Celebrity Gift, Beanstalk Royalties, and Green Level Clearance are nice, but are inferior to Blue Level Clearance. There’s no place for them.

Ice

Then the ice composition. This deck needs two types of ice. The first type of ice has the purpose to create the window to score the first AstroScript Pilot Program. The first AstroScript is either fast advanced directly from HQ or installed in a one to three ice deep remote server. Protecting the AstroScript in the early game is essential. For this purpose we need cheap end-the-run ice. The deck contains eleven pieces of end-the-run ice with a rez cost of three and lower, that’s one quarter of the deck space.

Included in the deck are three copies of Wraparound, two copies of Wall of Static, two copies of Quandary, two copies of Chimera, and two copies of Rainbow. The dedication of one quarter of the deck to cheap end-the-run ice together with its composition is de result of extensive play-testing. This cheap ice protects the AstroScript Pilot Program in the early game and enables to open-up a scoring window. This ice is weak against Parasite and Knight, so it’s good to have some back-up available.

Do note that these eleven pieces of ice have a high return on investment. For a quite small investment they provide the protection you’ll need for your valuable agendas.

There’s some noticeable ice that doesn’t quality for this first purpose. While RSVP is nice to protect a SanSan City Grid it fails to protect an AstroScript Pilot Program well enough. It doesn’t work on HQ and to protect a remote server it’s too dependent on the order you draw your ice. Another piece of ice I failed to appreciate is Guard. It’s just too expensive for what it does and there are simply too many Faeries out there.

Then there is the second type of ice. After you’ve scored the first AstroScript Pilot Program you’ll need to draw or Fast Track into the next AstroScripts. At that point the runner will be hitting your R&D and HQ, looking to steal your agendas. To slow the runner down there’s the need for some more taxing ice.

Besides being a cheap end-the-run ice Rainbow also classifies as taxing ice. For almost all icebreakers it’ll cost the runner more to break than it cost me to rez it. Rainbow is a fantastic ice, and will almost always go on one of the central servers. A high return on investment.

Furthermore there are two copies of Grim and one Tollbooth, destined to tax the runner on the central servers. Grim is obviously great in front of an end-the-run ice, but also works well as a single ice. Building a remote server and score from it, forces the runner to install programs, I’ll be happy to trash later.

One noticeable absentee is Eli 1.0. I truly love this taxing ice, but I love spending the influence on Blue Level Clearance even more. Alas.

During the early game I tend not to rez ice on the central servers. I do need the credits to fast advance the first AstroScript Pilot Program or to protect it in a remote server. You must be willing to lose some agenda points during the early game. Be indifferent. Clearly there are some reason where you do want to rez ice, like a run on your HQ containing AstroScript Pilot Program, Account Siphon, and multi-access runs like Legwork, The Maker’s Eye, Medium, and (the run after) Indexing.

Concluding Thoughts

I love this deck. ‘Mad Men’ is strong, fast and consistent. It flourishes on its high return on investment attributes. Every click spend is worth it. It can score agendas both from a remote server or fast advance them. It can even score agendas straight from R&D. ‘Mad Men’ has a very high agenda points return on investment.