AstroScript Sparkle Program (Eudemonia SC 1st, 21 Players)

Murphy 1410

You Should Play NBN

This deck is a combination of a few different decks I have been playing over the last year. NBN is really strong right now. I recently ran a 50 player Store Championship and NBN outperformed everything else. A lot of this is due to the current runner meta. We all know why.

I was sick of getting R&D stomped as ETF and don't like pure NEH FA. I need options.

First off, you better have a REALLY good reason not to play NEH right now. Card draw is fantastic and that extra 2 influence is major right now with the Most Wanted List in effect.

So, why Spark?

Control

Story time: Ken Tenma is applying the pressure. I rezzed some cards to dodge a siphon last turn but this turn I was out of options. Ken steals my last 3 credits and sees an opening. R&D is an unrezzed Ice on top of a rezzed Popup.

He takes a credit on click 3 going up to 7 and click 4 is High Stakes Job. Ken sails past the first unrezzed Ice confident his gamble will be successful. As he approaches the Popup, he is distracted by a well timed Product Placement rezzed in the remote. This triggers Spark, causing Pop-up Window to End The Fun. Pop-up Window will end runs with Spark too often.

Spark does a few things.

  • Gives you money to rez stuff through PAD Campaign, Launch Campaign, and Pop-up
  • Takes money away from the runner so they can't trash the stuff you rez
  • Powers Midseasons by enhancing the Corp/Runner credit differential

But most importantly to the current meta...

Spark Slows Down Runner Setup

The popular decks I am seeing in my meta right now (SF Bay Area) are Faust, DLR, and Stealth.

All of these have non-trivial setups.

Faust and Stealth usually require credits to setup. Spark slows this setup down.

And DLR takes tags. So you win on Psychographics or FA, play fast, who cares.

What To Do About Whizzard

Put Ice over Launch Campaign and SanSan. Pop-up and Special Offer are usually the best. You can setup Midseason plays with these Ice too.

You NEED to score an early Astro vs Whizzard. Usually they don't have Clot. Bluff it out if you need to with Midseasons backup. Just do it.

<3 Resistor <3

This card is great. It punishes tag me super hard. It doesn't seem like it would but it just does. And it is 0 to rez. Any card with a 0 on it should be studied by scholars.

Other Cards

Architect is in there because I needed Ice more than I needed Adonis and my Ice keeps getting eaten or infected recently. Also, people don't expect it as much in this Post-Wanted List world.

All the other Ice are just really good cards. Look at the numbers on those cards and you will understand why they are in this deck.

Midseasons is a backup plan. I need at least 2 or 3 ways to win. Psychographics is great as a 1 of when paired with 2 Midseasons.

Product Placement is just the best. It has a TON of utility. I never thought it would be important to be able to bluff a Cyberdex Virus Suite on R&D or visa versa. And it takes the Runner's money away from them for a rez, wtf?

Put A LOT of Ice on R&D

Against Anarch or Shaper, I end up with at least 4 Ice on R&D and probably 6-7 installed on R&D over the course of the game. If you can get SanSan into an annoying remote, the game comes down to how often the Runner can access R&D. Lower that number, do a bunch of other complicated things, and then win the game.

If they don't pressure R&D they are spending money on pointless HQ runs or trashing your stuff, opening up Midseasons. If they don't pressure your remotes, you build up a huge econ advantage and can FA out.

Wiggle your way to victory. Netrunner.

4 comments
8 Mar 2016 Daigelmir

Congratulations on your winning. A couple of questions though: 1- Do u think that Data Raven would benefit the deck? 2- What do u think of the inclusion of Closed Accounts, The All-Seeing I, and Keegan Lane?

8 Mar 2016 Murphy

Thanks Daigelmir.

I should first mention that this is the first iteration of the deck and I didn't have much practice to tune it. I have played many decks that are similar to this though. So all I can do is speculate on your suggestions based on previous use of those cards.

Data Raven is nice but Medium is HUGE right now in my meta. I already have the two Turnpikes so I worry about a Medium player just going tag me. That is a race I have lost many times in the past with Data Ravens. And I like Turnpike too much here to give that up.

I used to run either 1 Closed Accounts or 1 All-Seeing in a previous Spark + Midseasons deck. I would go between those two cards based on how I was feeling about the meta. However, that deck ran Ash instead of FA.

Both are strong cards. For this deck I decided to go hard on FA. Generally I would prefer Closed between those two as there is usually only 1 or 2 Resources worth trashing.

I am trying to tax them in this deck (and have relatively little ETR) so I don't think Keegan fits. Keegan is better with Data Raven too.

For all 3 cards, generally the only time the Runner has a tag on my turn is after Midseasons. Tagging is very much an alternative strategy in this deck.

Thanks for the suggestions :)

8 Mar 2016 Daigelmir

@MurphyVery good notes. Thank you for your time. One thing to mention though is how would you see masterpiece perform against Nexus Kate. I mean there has to be a strategy to counter her 5 link (initial link + Rabbit Holes + Nexus). I can only see that this deck might encounter a little bit of difficulties using tracers ICE Suite agains Kate. What do u think? :)

8 Mar 2016 Murphy

@Daigelmir Nexus can certainly be a problem. I haven't seen too much of Nexus outside of Swiss though so it's not something I tech against.

The Nexus I have seen usually doesn't have Clot though so I would recommend just playing fast and slowing down their setup as much as possible with Spark. And put as much non-tracing Ice on R&D as you can once they are setup.

If they are running early, they are spending money to trash junk and not getting setup. I have even landed a couple Midseasons vs Nexus in the past too.