Divadus Rants - Crappy Chrome City Cybernetics

[Warning: Much rage is about to be unleashed in textual format about a highly specific piece of pasteboard. There will be mathematical analysis throughout, but also a lot of subjective disappointment and considerable butthurt. Continue at your own risk. Also, the furious affectations donned by the author may be a teensy bit exaggerated. Just a smidgen. Kthx.]

It's been a long time - I shouldn'ta left you... without a strong rhyme to step to. So, I have been playing and loving Netrunner recently (I really do intensely adore this game), but a niggling question compelled me to revisit this blog and say my piece about it: How did the ANR design team manage to drop the ball so thoroughly with the cybernetics? More specifically, why is Net-Ready Eyes so good when the other pieces of cybernetic hardware are not? Most specifically, why is Skulljack so phenomenally bad? Before I launch into my full-fledged tirade, I suppose that a bit of a 'current card pool' spiel would be worthwhile at this point:

Discursions with Divadus - The Dark Side of the Moon

Hey y'all - so I have been in a fairly remote geographical location for the past several months with limited internet capabilities. As such, I was unable to provide any sort of update, let alone pack reviews as they arrived (which was my original intent).

Nonetheless, over the past couple months, I did manage to scrawl some thoughts on the latter half of the Lunar Cycle, thanks to text spoilers (bless you, snow-jax). Of note, my thoughts are substantially less organized than last time - these scribblings do not begin to approximate a review, nor are they intended to be any sort of summative statement about the cards discussed. Additionally, I have left certain cards un-addressed, either due to lack of any appreciably interesting thing to say on them, lack of experience/understanding of a new mechanic ushered in (would love to have talked about Leela, but felt I needed some games with her under my belt) or simply lack of time (I've been busy yo), and some of my remarks may betray ignorance of the most current of current spoilers. It just seemed like a shame to let my ramblings go to waste, even though their precise temporal standing, with respect to the present meta, is no longer especially relevant. So yeah, here's to belated housekeeping.

I hope to actually be a little more active on this blog in the coming year, so stay tuned for more (engaging) content.

New Zealand Nationals 2014

As one of the final Nationals to take place worldwide, New Zealand's runners were watching results closely and spent an extra month tuning their decks. In this The Spaces Between meta the corps in particular showed polish. An entire round in Swiss went without a runner win and there were an incredible number of flatlines on the day.

You can find commentated video of the elimination rounds below but first let's meet the runners that survived to the top 4.

Amber - Jinteki: PE and Andromeda
Currently ranked 1st in the NZ OCTGN Tournament with a 7-1 record, Amber was a favourite to make it through to the elimination rounds at Nationals. Her 'pet' deck, Bad Dogs Jinteki: PE, left only one runner alive in the Swiss rounds. The deck features four different dog ice including Grim and Fenris which are a natural fit with Clone Retirement. You'll also notice, no Jacksons! For her runner Amber brought Flick of the Rist, a high efficiency Andromeda based on Nordrunner's Andromeda CEO deck.

Dan - Jinteki: RP and Noise
Veteran Dan has a few tournament wins under his belt but his meddling kids have decreased his playtime recently. Packing tournament winning lists, ffox's Jinteki: RP and Sam L's Noise with more clone chip helped Dan show the rookies what it takes to earn a seat at the final table.

Egor - Near Earth Hub and Andromeda
Egor left unsatisfied at Auckland's regionals and flew over to Australia to take 2nd place at the 33 player Brisbane Regionals. His latest trip to Australia for their Nationals saw him narrowly miss the top 8 in a field of 80 players. His corp is the new powerhouse NEH Fast Advance with a very unusual economy. Security Subcontract with cheap binary ice like Paper Wall and the inclusion of Profiteering give his deck the capability to generate 12 credits a turn or power a pair of Archers. 

William - Near Earth Hub and Noise
Riding a superbye train from victories at Store Championships and Auckland Regionals William's bye at Nationals helped him finish top of the Swiss standings and poised to three-peat. Abandoning his trusty Chaos Theory Dinomite he's packed Noise to the limit with economy cards... well just two Sure Gambles: almost the limit. His NEH runs a completely different influence package to Egor's as evidenced by his 75% flatline rate in Swiss. The lucky ones get run over by Astrotrains.

Discursions with Divadus - First Contact

Like any sane Netrunner aficionado, I salivate in Pavlovian fashion whenever shiny, new cards are presented before me. The third data pack of the Lunar Cycle, First Contact, certainly elicited such a reaction. Thus, being an avid lucubrator, I decided to scrawl some of my thoughts about the pack's contents. Sorry, just grabbing a napkin - won't be a moment. 

You're a Whizzard H4rry - Decklist, Discussion and VoDs

D4vid Recursion Whizzard

Do you ever see a card and go "wow, I want to build a deck around that"? I had this reaction when I saw D4v1d. It fills one of the glaring holes in Anarch: high strength ice.

N.E.A.R.P.A.D - Decklist, Discussion and VoDs

Near Earth Active Response and Protected Asset Division

A different take on Near-Earth Hub

Already Near-Earth Hub: Broadcast Center has been shown to be an amazingly strong identity. The extra influence and card draw have been used to good effect to bolster NBN Fast Advance, but I think that the ID can offer so much more.