An Ode to Partially Pumped Traces (21.04)

NISEI's lead designer recently explained that traces were an overcomplicated mechanic whose effect could normally be accomplished in other ways. That's absolutely correct; I very rarely see traces slightly pumped, but not pumped so high that the Runner can't pay.

This deck, though, has changed all that. It's a deck where I'll regularly pump small trace effects by 4-5 or so, and it'll be completely the right move. On top of that, it's maintaining a shockingly high win rate (>80% over quite a few games in the jinteki.net casual lobby, although not all the games were with this exact version of the deck).

Strategy

One of the reasons this deck works so well is that it has three distinct paths to victory (with a lot of overlap in the cards and sometimes even the general play pattern, so you can shift between them as the game goes on).

Plan A: Economic dominance

The main idea behind this deck, and its primary plan, is to run the runner's economy into the ground: not directly, but by spreading their credits too thin by making them do too many things at once.

One component of this line of attack is based on "minor" tagging effects like Ping and Turnpike. These tags generally aren't meant to stick; they're simply meant to make the Runner pay , 3 to clear the tag. That's a lot of money, all things considered (clearing tags is an unwanted economic hit even under normal circumstances, and SYNC: Everything, Everywhere is used as the identity because it makes it more expensive). Likewise, AR-Enhanced Security makes the Runner waste additional time and money whenever they try to trash components of your economy.

Another component is based on the traces after which this deck is named. The deck has an unusually powerful economic engine available (not asset spam, but primarily asset-based, because Hard-Hitting News and AR-Enhanced Security are pretty good at protecting your assets), meaning that it's easy to get richer than the Runner (and to do so much faster than was possible in the 20.09 format thanks to the newly legal Regolith Mining License). So most of the time, you'll be richer than the Runner. There are quite a few traces in the deck (IP Block's first subroutine, Macrophage's fourth) that Runners will typically let fire, planning to pay the trace. When this happens, you pump the trace; not enough to stop the Runner, and not enough that they won't pay, but just enough that it's still worth it for them to continue the run. (This is especially good on IP Block, which tags and ends the run on an unpaid trace; you can happily spend 5 or so pumping the trace because if the Runner doesn't pay, the hit to them will still be on the order of 5 of value in credits and clicks.) You can do the same thing on the trace created by the Runner's Citadel Sanctuary, if they have one.

The end result is that both you and the Runner will end up slightly poorer; but the trade will be to your net benefit, because NBN decks generally prefer both players to be poor rather than both players to be rich (it makes fully pumped traces much easier to land), and you had more money than the Runner to start with so your credit lead will end up becoming more relevant (40 versus 30 isn't a meaningful credit lead, but 15 versus 5 is).

When relying entirely on this plan, if the Runner doesn't concede due to being too far behind, you win by scoring out in a scoring server, glacier-style. Cards like Tollbooth and Bellona help you to construct a server that's unassailable on a low credit count.

Plan B: Tag and bag

An infamous NBN/Weyland plan from the early days of Netrunner, and still viable nowadays: get a few tags to stick on the Runner, then flatline them with ludicrous amounts of meat damage.

Basically any time that the Runner runs on a low credit count, you have a chance to land a Hard-Hitting News (the cost of this depends on how many credits the Runner has, so this naturally works much better in a deck like this one that tries to keep the Runner's credit pool stretched to its limit). Playing as SYNC, clearing the resulting tags without a tech card will cost , , , , 12. Given that the Runner was on a low credit count, they won't probably have that much (unless they have large amounts of drip economy) and will be forced to float tags going into your turn. High-Profile Target is the kill card; unless the Runner has +max hand size effects, damage prevention, or emergency draw like Sports Hopper (and uses it at the right time), this is a very reliable flatline starting from three tags (and if the Runner ended the turn that got them tagged with a small hand – entirely possible, because many Runners don't take care to keep their hand full against NBN – you can flatline on fewer tags because time spent removing tags is time not spent drawing cards).

This plan doesn't always work to its full potential on its own (although it definitely can do, and I've had a number of turn 3 wins), but in cases where it partially succeeds and partially fails, it's easy to switch back to plan A; the Runner will take so long to recover from removing all the tags that you can easily maintain a huge economic lead. Alternatively, if the Runner chooses not to remove the tags (but you don't have a kill card handy), you can just trash their economic assets and wait to draw the High-Profile Target; your Daily Business Shows give you the advantage in finding it before you lose to agenda theft, and (unless the Runner is playing some sort of mill deck) you will certainly find it before losing to overdraw. Note that it can often be correct to hit the Runner with Hard-Hitting News a second time in order to push their tag count too high to reasonably be cleared; otherwise, you risk the Runner eventually clearing the tags before you finally draw your tag punishment.

Plan C: Snare!

I normally don't see ambushes out of NBN except for the occasional Mumbad Virtual Tour. That's a huge missed opportunity, in my opinion; Snare! synergises really well with both of this deck's main plans, and has some potential to win the game independently of them.

First off, the obvious way in which Snare! can win: if the Runner accesses it with fewer than three cards in hand, they will get flatlined. If the Runner is being incautious, this can happen randomly at any point of the game, and if they aren't expecting the card in your deck, they may not take the usual precaution of drawing up before running. This deck is particularly likely to land a surprise Snare! out of nowhere because a) it isn't a Jinteki deck, which tips people off to be more careful, and b) a Runner who is floating tags or who is racing to snipe agendas after you have established an unassailable economic lead pretty much has to be reckless in order to try to win the race.

Snare! also does a good job protecting you from multi-access. This deck has a need to properly ICE its scoring server and (past the early game) R&D, but will generally only lightly ICE other servers, and that includes HQ. So quite frequently, you'll end up facing a random Legwork or the like some time in the midgame, after there have been no HQ runs for ages. This is a perfect time to hit the Runner with two Snare!s at once, almost always a guaranteed flatline, and Daily Business Show gives you a lot of scope to put the Snare!s in HQ if you want them there. Along similar lines, it also gives you a lot of scope to leave them in R&D, helping to protect you from Conduit.

Still, those are only the secondary uses of Snare!; although most decks which play it play it for the net damage, it also lands a tag. One way that helps is simply just in terms of the economic hit to the Runner of clearing the tag after they take it; it doesn't matter whether the tag comes from an NBN card or an imported JInteki card, it's still going to cost , 3 to clear.

The other way it helps, though, is allowing for the potential to give the Runner many more tags than they bargained for, all at once. Say the Runner runs HQ through a Turnpike, or a remote through a Ping, and you have a Snare! behind it. They've taken one tag from the ICE, and a second from the Snare!; if the Snare! is in HQ the Runner will probably feel forced to trash it, and may well end up taking a third tag from AR-Enhanced Security (which, unlike the similar NBN: Controlling the Message, works against trashes of uninstalled cards in addition to installed cards). That's a lot of tags to clear all at once, especially as the Runner has likely already spent a few clicks before the run happened (except as Adam or Sunny or against HB decks, it's rare to run first click). Most likely, the Runner will be forced into floating a tag or two, allowing you to trash their economy when it comes back round to your turn (even if you spent all your credits on your Snare!, you can still flip your ID to get two free trashes). And of course, floating tags + having few cards in hand (as a consequence of the Snare!) makes a Runner very vulnerable to High-Profile Target flatlines.

Card choices

Agendas

This deck has one agenda it really likes to score: AR-Enhanced Security. ARES is one of the best agendas in the game; even in decks where it has absolutely no synergy it often ends up pulling its weight anyway (by protecting you from random trashes), and in this deck it has really a lot of synergy. This is an agenda that you're ideally looking to score turn 2 if possible (protected by a small piece of ICE, or a Hard-Hitting News, or even never-advanced; the threat of an HHN that might or might not actually be in your hand is usually enough to prevent the Runner checking random face-down cards that could well just be a PAD Campaign).

The main benefits of ARES, besides the benefits it gives to just about any deck it's in, are in making it very expensive to trash your economic assets, and making Snare! much more powerful. ARES also gives more of a tax than usual because of your ID ability, and acts as your seventh point (but one that's ideally scored before the other six).

Aside from that, this is the sort of deck that likes to rely on 5/3s (both for deck slot reasons, and because advancement requirements are mostly irrelevant; a 4/2 wouldn't be significantly easier to score). One of the choices for 5/3s is obvious: Bellona is NBN's best 5/3 agenda by a very long way. Bellona can be scored early without much of a tempo hit (due to refunding credits when scored), and protects itself in the early game very effectively by being incredibly risky to steal (if the Runner pays to steal it, they are running a very high risk of getting hit by Hard-Hitting News the next turn, even if their credit total otherwise looked fairly safe). It's also a pretty good choice for scoring out in your scoring server; even if the Runner is able to do a hero run on the server and get in with a few credits to spare, the 5 cost of stealing it will often be enough to protect it.

Unfortunately, the choices for the other agenda are much more barren. I've been trying out Send a Message, and it's OK but not great (you won't always be able to install a Tollbooth before it gets stolen, after all); it's definitely weaker than the now-banned SSL Endorsement. Other possibilities for this slot include Global Food Initiative (but you'd probably have to remove a Surveyor to save on influence), and Project Beale (which, just like Global Food Initiative, can be scored as a 5/3 but is stolen as a 3/2, but which would increase the deck's agenda density). The agenda mix of this deck isn't a great one for "stolen as a 2-pointer" agendas, though. So perhaps there are other choices that would be still better (Tomorrow's Headline, maybe?). This is definitely part of the deck that could do with experimentation! Luckily, the deck is so powerful in general that the details of the last six agenda points don't seem to matter much.

Economy

Most NBN decks are generally based on being richer than the Runner, and this deck is no real exception.

Apart from the staple Hedge Fund (which isn't quite as good as its Runner counterpart Sure Gamble but is nonetheless still an auto-include for all but unusual decks), the economy is primarily asset-based. PAD Campaign and Mumba Temple are staple economic assets that have been around for a while, providing a steady drip of value while being expensive to trash. Some Runners will leave these around forever, meaning that you'll almost be guaranteed to end up richer than them; others will trash them, but end up paying quite a lot in the process, and thus will end up stuck at a low credit count pretty much naturally.

As a side note, playing as SYNC lets us cheat a little on Mumba Temple's drawback; normally it requires you to reduce your ICE density, but the restriction is implemented by placing a limit on the absolute number of ICE in your deck. SYNC has a reduced maximum deck size, so it can include a higher proportion of ICE alongside Mumba Temple and yet still keep within the 15-ICE restriction.

Out of the new cards from System Gateway, Regolith Mining License is the card that's impressed me the most. Almost a year ago, I reviewed Daily Quest, discussing how that card is too janky to use as the basis of an entire economy, but could give you a nice one-time boost when placed in your scoring server. Regolith Mining License is a card that's optimized for a one-time boost when placed in your scoring server, and it gives a scary, scary amount of credits when you do; 13 profit over six clicks (15 with Mumba Temple supporting it), for just one deck slot, is a level of Corp burst economy that's probably unprecedented in Netrunner. (This level of burst economy has been possible for a while, but it normally required janky combos or building your whole deck around it; being able to pull it off with only a single deck slot is something new, and very powerful given how tight Corp decks typically are on deck slots.)

Rounding out the economy is Daily Business Show. This is just as expensive to trash as PAD Campaign is, and does a very good job of helping you to draw your cards in the right order (in particular, it can bury agendas when you don't need them, and dig you to ICE or tag punishment economy or Snare!s twice as fast as normal, whatever you happen to need at the time). In effect, it makes every other card in the deck more valuable by increasing the chance you draw it when you need it.

Tagging and tag punishment

This is a SYNC deck – an identity that literally does nothing but interact with tags – so of course you'd expect to see a tagging suite in it. This deck's is perhaps a little lighter in tagging operations than normal, but makes up for it in incidental tagging.

The primary tagging operation is of course Hard-Hitting News. This fits perfectly into the deck's strategy from a number of different angles (in particular, it's a card that at it's strongest when the Runner is poor, and this deck tries to keep the Runner poor), and becomes much more powerful in SYNC because the tags become even more expensive to clear. Although it's great to see one of these in your opening hand, running three copies is probably too much (most turns you won't have a window to play Hard-Hitting News, so they have a tendency to flood your hand, and even Daily Business Show can't fully mitigate this). Running two copies is enough for most games, and helps save on deck slots (which are very tight in this deck, as usual for Corp decks).

There's no real need to play extensive tag punishment in a deck like this. The basic action to trash a resource is often enough to ruin the Runner's economy (and it's possible to flip the ID if needed, making for an upgraded tag-punishment basic action). Having some tag punishment is needed in case the Runner goes tag-me (and just decides to do without their resources), but a single copy of High-Profile Target is generally enough for that. High-Profile Target is the perfect tag punishment for the deck for three reasons: a Snare! hit sometimes leaves the Runner with a choice between drawing cards to buffer against damage and partially clearing tags (and High-Profile Target kills regardless of the choice they make); at high tag counts, it kills very reliably even through damage mitigation like Obelus or Heartbeat (meaning that going tag-me is probably not an option); and unlike BOOM!, it isn't trashable without tech cards (if you're running only a single tag punishment card, you want to make it hard for the Runner to get it out of your hand).

Note that the possibility that the Runner could be running tag protection such as Misdirection is another reason to keep the number of cards dedicated to the tag-and-bag strategy low; you don't want to dedicate too much of your deck to it in case the runner is able to handle, leaving more space for the deck's other main plans.

ICE

Pure tagging and asset spam decks generally don't run very much ICE. This deck, however, does need a way to actually win, and plan A relies on a glacier-type strategy and scoring out in order to do that. Additionally, trying to keep the Runner poor involves taxing them, and (apart from the trash cost on assets) our ICE is the main way to do that.

The ICE falls into a few main categories, with much of the ICE being usable for multiple purposes. Turnpike and IP Block are taxing ICE, meant to be more expensive to break and/or facetank than it was for the Corp to play them. IP Block in particular works really well; the random AI hate is often relevant, the rez-to-break ratio is great, and if the Runner facetanks it you can partially pump the trace in order to help keep the credit totals low.

Ping, Surveyor and Tollbooth are for protecting your remotes. Generally speaking, you'll use Pings (which are cheap to rez) to pad out the size of the surver, making Surveyor larger; Tollbooth is an alternative that's also expensive to break (and that will force the runner to install their decoder), giving you multiple ways to build your scoring server and increasing the chance you draw one in time. (Tollbooth and Surveyor also make for good Send a Message targets.) Ping can be used purely as a barrier to protect an early AR-Enhanced Security (and in the early game, the economic hit from a lone Ping tag can be significant), but ideally you're really hoping to trigger multiple Pings on the same run, leaving the Runner with an unexpected surfeit of tags and not enough clicks to deal with them. Tollbooth and Surveyor can alternatively be used to protect a central, if you're suffering from pressure on the centrals (Ping doesn't work well there, due to not being significantly taxing after the initial rez).

Thoth's primary purpose is in increasing the size of an unexpected rush of tags (ideally you'd place it inside your Pings, although you often don't have the opporunity). In SYNC, its mandatory tag is more taxing than it would be elsewhere, and the total tax of 1 tag + 1 + 1 net damage is probably enough in total to make the card worth it. It also doubles as tag punishment, making a server almost impervious if the Runner decides to float tags (as a bonus, they may well not know this until it's too late and they get flatlined).

Macrophage is something of a necessity in this deck: the deck is generally quite weak to viruses, but it works as effective hate against them and helps patch up the weakness. It also just about manages to pull its weight even against non-virus decks: ideally, you bury it deep in a server with large ICE in front of it, and then partially pump the trace on the end-the-run subroutine (if the Runner chooses not to pay they've already paid to break your large ICE, and if they do pay, the Runner loses as many credits as you paid so you maintain the economic advantage).

Notably missing is Funhouse. I tried that card out in this deck for quite a while, but it was very disappointing. The main issue is that it won't ever surprise-tag the Runner (they can always choose to end the run), but also won't ever stop a hero run (or a Runner who has gone tag-me), and that leaves a very small set of circumstances in which it's useful. Data Raven, which has now rotated, was better mostly because its subroutine was capable of tagging the Runner on your turn, using a pumpable trace. Against a deck that runs tag punishment, there's always the possibility that that one tag will win the game on its own and the Corp will pump a huge number of credits into the trace, meaning that Data Raven's subroutine is effectively must-break. Funhouse's subroutine is much less scary: the cost to pay through it is predictable, and the timing of the tag is also predictable, so a Runner will have full information about whether they need to break it or not.

Conclusions

I've been playing with this as my primary Corp deck for a while, and found it to be a pretty strong deck (a little surprising, especially as it's played out of an ID that often isn't thought of as strong). It's quite resilient to changes in minor details (in particular, the Daily Business Shows mean that you can put dead cards like Funhouse in the deck and not be punished too badly for it), making it quite a fertile base for experimentation; I suspect that this isn't the best version of it, and there may well be some way to make it even better. It also mulligans fairly well.

This is also quite an instructive deck just from the mechanical / game-design point of view, reflecting pretty much all the aspects of how traces work. It has traces that are pumped too high to pay them (e.g. Hard-Hitting News), traces that exist for taxing purposes (e.g. Turnpike), and even traces that get partially pumped, so that you get value whether or not the Runner chooses to pay.

This deck has also taught me a lot about playing against NBN. In particular, if an NBN player leaves valuable things like Bellona inadequately protected in the early game, it's because they want you to steal them and get hit by Hard-Hitting News. Do they have the HHN? Well, yes, if they didn't their turn 1 would probably have been a lot more cautious.

Incidentally, this implies that at some point the Netrunner metagame may reach a point where players mulligan as a bluff. It hasn't reached that point yet, and probably won't in the future, but I'd love to see it happen; it would be the logical progression of a lot of the game's themes.