New Zealand 2016 Nationals Report

4th NZ Nationals was the bomdigi! This year, the decision was made to host the event in the South Island (little ol' New Zealand is indeed divided into two major land masses), but the weekend was no less fantastic for it. 21 people ended up attending from all corners of the country. There were players from Christchurch (the hosting city), Wellington, Auckland, and even Hamilton present. Packs up to Blood Money were legal for the event. Suffice to say, there were a lot of Temujin Criminals present.

Temujin Contract - Bring on the Khannage!

Temujin Contract - Bring on the Khannage

Sometimes when evaluating cards, its easy to fall into the trap of thinking about it theoretically instead of practically. When Rumor Mill was spoiled, I was super excited despite not having played the card. When Temujin Contract was spoiled, I was like "This is good", but not as excited. Boy, was I wrong.

Something for the corps to fear

Rumor mill is bonkers!!!111one

Rumor Mill is bonkers!!!1

Since Order and Chaos dropped, we had our first hints of Princess Space Kitten in the flavour-text of Memstrips. This was continued further with Trope. The silly name alone sparkled a lot of delight. When blood money was first spoiled, all we could see was the art of Rumor Mill, depicting Princess Space Kitten's digital avatar - literally a kitten in an astronaut suit. People were excited enough about the card without even knowing what it did, but now that it has been spoiled, we have the rare combination of the best art in the data pack also being the strongest card.

The Cookbook to CI7 - Heuristics

Heuristics

This is just a list of general rules for how to deal with various situations. You will have to read the various full lists for a more comprehensive analysis. Think of this as a quick cheat-sheet.

The Cookbook to CI7 - Conclusion

Conclusion

In the previous article, we talked about how to run against CI7. With this out of the way, you should now know the majority of what you need when it comes to CI7, both in terms of playing it or playing against it, and what to expect on both sides.

In this article, we will go over a few alternate deck choices, list some heuristics to follow for general use, and provide some alternate resources to either extend your CI7 game further, or give alternate explanations (in case mine weren't good enough).

The Cookbook to CI7 - Part 4 Running against CI7

Running against CI7

A lot of runners don’t really have any practice against CI7. This typically means they don’t know any of the tricks to beat it, and CI7 often does a lot better than it really should. In the previous article, we talked about how to setup as a CI7 corp. This was the last of the articles on how to play CI7. This article is focused on the other side, running against CI7.

The Cookbook to CI7 - Part 3 Setting up as CI7

Welcome back. In the previous article we talked about how to combo through all the various hate a CI7 has to deal with on their winning turn. In this article we are talking about setting up to get the combo. It should be clear that most combinations of combo-hate that a runner-deck brings can be beaten, so getting through the setup phase is the main way that CI7 loses the game.

Setting up as CI7 is typically pretty simple, despite being the most skill intensive part of it. You have to draw cards until you have the combo - overdraw to trash any doubles (or play them outside of the combo turn), and generally have enough money to hold any of the cards you need. The skill in setting up comes from many things, such as knowing where to ice against who, what to mulligan against, and just gaining money and cards at the right times. Lastly there is also the factor of recognising whether or not you can combo early, and whether or not you can make any swaps to make it easier. In this, like all things, practice makes perfect, but here are some hints on things you can do.

The Cookbook to CI7 - Part 2 How to combo through hate

How to combo through hate

Welcome back to our series of articles on how to play CI7. In the previous article, we talked about how the deck work, and how to do the base combo. In this article, we are talking about how to combo through Anti-CI7 hate cards. There are two types of Anti-CI7 hate. There is the hate that stops you before you’ve set up, and the hate that interrupts you in the middle of the combo.

The Cookbook to CI7 - Part 1 Introduction

CI7 (also known as Cerebral Imaging 7-point shutdown) is the ultimate in combo decks for Netrunner. The aim of CI7 is to score 3 agendas worth 7 points in one turn. It is a complicated deck to pilot, but if you consider yourself an intermediate-level player, then you should definitely be capable of doing so.

In this series of articles, you will learn about the CI7 combo. The basic building blocks of the deck, and how to pilot it into winning you the 7 points in one turn. The various articles will be:

1. Introduction to CI7 - This is what you are currently reading. What is CI7? How does it work? What is the deck? What is the base-combo you use to score 7 points in one turn?
2. How to combo through hate - This is a list of ways CI7 can work around the various tools runners use to give it a bad time.
3. Setting up as CI7 - How to get to the point where you can win in one turn.
4. Running against CI7 - How to deal with CI7 as a runner.
5. Conclusion - Some final words, as well as a cheat sheet of quick responses for the combo.

At any time feel free to double check cards or terms in the handy-dandy CI7 Glossary! You may also want to check out the Heuristics cheat sheet.

What is CI7?

So you might have heard of CI7 here and there. Some degenerate players, such as world-champion Dan D’Argenio love to play it. Sometimes it gets brought up as a hard-counter to many of the meta-defining runner builds. It is a strong but complicated deck, and looks to be in a better place than ever thanks to the latest MWL tournament update.

The Cookbook to CI7 - Glossary

CI7 - The deck with Cerebral Imaging that wins by scoring 7 agendas in one turn

Pile - 3 cards to be played by AD

Slot - One of the 3 cards in an AD-pile

Combo - The act of using various cards in one turn to score 7 agendas

AD - Accelerated Diagnostics

EC - Efficiency Committee

JH - Jackson Howard

PS - Power Shutdown

SFMM - Shipment from MirrorMorph

SFSS - Shipment from SanSan

SFK - Shipment from Kaguya

AM - Archived Memories

RO - Reclamation Order

BL - Biotic Labor

SM - Subliminal Messaging

Interns - Interns (Who'da thought?)

CT - Cyberdex Trial

CVS - Cyberdex Virus Suite

GFI - Global Food Initiative. Can be any 5/3 agenda for the purpose of the combo

PV - Project Vitruvius. Can be any 3/2 agenda for the purpose of the combo

Installable - one of the 6 cards that needs to be installed for the combo to work. Typically GFI, PV, EC and 3x JH.

X1/X2 - These refer to installables when the specific one doesn't matter, e.g. in the base combo it could be PV or GFI in either order.

Hate - Any cards that the runner uses that make it harder for CI7 to win.
Plop - Political Operative
CC - Clone Chip
SacCon - Sacrificial Construct
Peddler - Street Peddler
Bounce - Cards returned to hand from Leela's ability

The Woes of Weyland - Part V: Capital Competition

Economy Creep

Hmm...

How could I even suggest that Weyland has monetary problems? What is this lunacy? Aight, here's the dealie. Weyland's economy is as good as it's ever been. The issue? Every other faction's economy (Corp and Runner) has considerably improved.

Long gone are the days of NBN and Jinteki haplessly clicking for credits. Sweeps Week alone catapulted NBN's economy (particularly if found turn 1 against Andromeda) and is seen in triplicate in basically any competitive NBN deck, while Near-Earth Hub's inherent synergy with assets heavily bolstered the likes of Marked Accounts (and the classic PAD Campaign).

The Woes of Weyland - Part IV: Flatline Frustration

A Tragic Trajectory

The glory days.

I'm sure this part came as no surprise to you all. Since Core Set days, flatline has always been one of Weyland's 'things'. One of their most influential cards is the notorious Scorched Earth - the bane of many a careless and/or unlucky Runner, depending on who you ask. In the earliest stages of A:NR history - from 'pure core' through early Genesis Cycle - Weyland was a genuine force to be reckoned with. Its ability to rapidly rush out agendas behind small gear-check ice like Ice Wall and Wall of Static, transitioning into Archers and Oversight-ed Hadrian's Walls, all while maintaining the ever-present threat of flatline - in the form of the dreaded SEA-Scorch combo - was something that none of the other Megacorps were capable of at the time.

The Woes of Weyland - Part III: Subpar Scoring

The Agenda Story

The stellar art on these cards fills me with the deepest of sorrow.

Welcome back. So, many consider one of Weyland's greatest flaws to be that they have the weakest agenda selection out of the four factions. Let's investigate that, faction by faction, shall we?

The Woes of Weyland - Part II: Rush Revisited

Forcing the Gear-Check

I am cognizant that Enigma is neutral; Weyland's code gates leave much to be desired.

Having established thus far that Weyland and glacier strategies do not gel well, how about the other end of the spectrum? That is to say, aggressively scoring agendas behind one or two ice, before the Runner has the necessary breaker solution. Yes, rush is the strategy that Weyland's more merit-worthy ice are geared toward.

The Woes of Weyland - Part I: Abhorrent Advanceables

AOWR Agony

"Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions." - T.S. Eliot

This is probably no surprise. A large number of Weyland's ice make use of the 'ice advancement' mechanic - currently, 16 out of 30 of Weyland's ice are able to be advanced (17, if we include the technically unadvanceable Builder, which is basically an advanceable ice support card in ice form). Sadly, this is not a good thing. In fact, I do not hesitate to say that the designer's continued efforts in developing advanceable ice for Weyland have unfortunately hurt the faction's ice selection considerably. I believe that the abominable, advance-only-while-rezzed ice (Salvage, Tyrant, and Woodcutter), henceforth to be known as the AOWR suite, and their awful surrounding suite of support cards from the Genesis Cycle (Weyland Consortium: Because We Built It, Simone Diego, Amazon Industrial Zone), have done more damage to Weyland's card pool than many realize.

The Woes of Weyland: Introduction

[Note: The majority of this article was penned before the announcement of the NAPD Most Wanted List, whose impact on the meta has yet to be determined. As such, all references to the 'current meta' within the article, unless otherwise indicated, pertain to the period post-Data and Destiny, but pre-Mumbad Cycle and before the Most Wanted List takes effect. I address the MWL where I deem appropriate, but it is not the primary topic of discussion.]

[Note #2: This series contains absolutely absurd amounts of alliteration. Probably about half of the cases were intentional. Believe it or not, a substantial number of instances were excised during the editorial process. All the same, please do not let my juvenile literary proclivities dissuade you from continuing on - the discussion and analysis contained herein still stand on their own merits. Hopefully. 

Already adore affected alliteration (and assonance, apparently)? Amazing! Amusement abounds ahead. Allons-y!]

Hi, occasional readers of intermittently updated blog - Divadus here. So, on the heels of what could be the final deluxe expansion and a bold move by the game's new lead designer, impassioned discussions in Netrunner circles regarding the future of the game are frequent. I am but one of many. But my particular cause for concern is one greater than myself and one that is shared by a not inconsiderable segment of the Netrunner community. This time the focus of my interest, ire and imminent impudence is none other than our beloved Weyland. Oh boy...