Blacklist Moon- 1st place Swansea Regional

Gives you a validating like

Took this version to the Sheffield Regionals and went technically* undefeated with it. I think this is the more defensive of the three versions that Chris gave in his write up but it offers a massive advantage over the other two by being able to double gear check criminals after they have installed Mongoose.

I came second with this at Sheffield too, even though I only picked it up a few days before (well, swapped out an Eli for something else, but essentially the same). It is really strong, I just need some more practice.

Played an (again similar to @Nememiah's) Whizz as the Runner and beat three of these Moons though (including Tr1s who's apparently being salty) - how do you find the Whizz match up? I think as you allude to in your other match up Desperado is key but I'm keen to try out Sifr and Maw or other consoles to see what gives.

@evilgaz I will maintain until the end of time that I was deeply and horribly unlucky. :)

Two points to add to that - you were on the Bioroid Work Crew + ABT version of moons, correct? I think that list is slightly weaker than the euro-style moons largely because I am not sure what benefit BWC is providing that Jeeves wouldn't. I think you should give this one a try and see how differently they play.

Secondly, in my experience Maw is the way more disruptive of the two consoles. Ice can be replaced with friends but random trashes from hand can be devastating. The obvious limiting factor is the cost, but given how much money you were making with just Bloose on the table I am not sure that is an issue.

I was on the "Timo" version. He's done a lot more testing than me, but from our experience ABT is much easier to score and can often be sneaked out when no one is looking. This then leads to runners being more keen to check everything you put down and greater click compression. BWC do work (so are aptly named), for example getting a Vitruvius with a counter from a Biotic score when there's no Jeeves (because you can't get one to stick or don't see one).

Maw is the console I'm going to test, as I played a Leela with Maw in round 2 and it was really disruptive, plus I was previously on MO MaxX and the Maw in that is fierce too. Although Moons was ultimately victorious against Leela, the thing that saved me was the runner getting careless and eating an Architect, which allowed me to get a Maw'd Food back from the bin and into play. Fortunately the runner only had one click and ran the card I installed from R&D on a 50/50. I may have got away with it anyway, but losing agendas and Biotics at random every turn was really messy.

Yeah Theo and I have chatted a bit about ABT and he is considering changing ABT for that reason. While I think good players, or those with experience against Moons will check everything you put down regardless, I do take the point that having more ways to get virtruvius counters is good. As always the question is slots, but it may be worth testing 2x BWC over lakshmi and one piece of ice.

Yeah and it's doubly bad if your hand is already thin because of hacktivist. Cutting the desperados also means you can probably find the slots and influence for 3x temujin as well, which makes the cost of Maw easier to swallow.

It's not really impressive when y'all win regionals playing identical basic moons decks.

Wish I could downvote

We all play in Regionals to impress you Max, so none of us will sleep tonight and somehow have to find a way to live life without your love and respect. I'm not sure how we'll do it, but hope that one day, we shall find peace.

@MaxSchwartzNetrunner oh of course, because people aren't supposed to play good decks at big events are they? I forgot. We're supposed to all play novelties and never play anything that's actually proven to be good - I mean, we might win something if we played good decks, and that wouldn't be right now, would it?

@AberDamo4No you can play your cookie cutter decks, but it's not impressive seeing identical bland ezpk decks posted just because they win firsts in regionals. The decks practically play themselves at that point. No one's surprised or impressed when a moon deck wins regionals. It makes y'all look like chumps. Not to mention half of people blatantly netdeck it. Good luck at worlds

@MaxSchwartzNetrunner you are wrong. I say this as someone who has no particular love for Moonspam (I've never played it, though I've faced it many times). The deck certainly does not play itself, and is in fact quite skill intensive - I find the difference between the average moons player and the good one is noticable. I'm sure plenty of people do netdeck it, but they play it badly.

The meta will always have its tier 1 decks. This is certainly not the worst one to play against - most of the games against Moonspam actually feel like a game of netrunner.

@evilgaz yeah sorry I sometimes forget that people need gamefaqs to beat games because they can't do it by themselves.

How's that low road? Pretty I hope.

@MaxSchwartzNetrunner your comment doesn't make any sense. Are you some kind of Netrunner ninja will lots of acclaims under your belt from your l337 skillz? Please enlighten me. I've won the odd thing or two myself, with a variety of decks. Don't see any harm in using good decks or personal favourites if one prefers. I like a bit of both.

You seem cross that good players are using good decks. Is the high road, "not use high quality decks are regionals"? I'm not sure what you're trying to explain.

Ordinarily I avoid this kind of silly internet argument, but I got a kick out of some funny things that happened, so I will share them here:

• One of the guys that was super involved in the design and testing of the deck is accused of netdecking it.

• Two worlds top 16 players (among other achievements) are called chumps and sarcastically wished good luck at worlds, presumably because they can't possibly win against "really" good players without pure luck.

• One is later then told he needs a gamefaq because he can't possibly be good enough to win games without someone else's help.

The internet is weird.

These decks are stale now. Creativity is dead.

How long have you been playing ANR, @MaxSchwartzNetrunner? "Creativity is dead" has been a reccuring theme over the course of this game, going back to Sucker Andy and Fastro Train NBN. The game was dead last Worlds as well, with CtM "killing creativity". Oh how many times the game has died.

I am one of those mediocre players dabbling with this type of Moons deck, and I can attest to what @RotomAppliance is saying about the deck being skill intensive. It certainly doesn't "play itself", and there are several approaches as a runner to combat it.

You not liking a deck is one thing. Calling everybody who plays it (and some of the originators of the deck) chumps is another. It's a good deck. Do you never play a good deck if you haven't come up with the entire concept all on your own?

So, wisdom probably dictates leaving this well enough alone but a few thoughts

1-i do see that its daft to post a list already on here, but i was asked to by a few people. The intro is meant to be a joke.

2-the game definitely needs out of the the box thinkers to create whole new archetypes like Hoyland, Timmy Wong or Ben Ni, but alas I don't have the skillz. I do think though that we shouldn't understand the skills required to make the right smaller changes to an existing list. For this one, Theo's brilliant decision to add tech startups (and my stern insistence to play a fast advance deck come what may) changed this build quite a bit from existing moon decks, and I think they've now been shown as superior.

3-More generally, i think its fine for the game if experienced players are repping the same decks a lot of the time. Think of a game like twilight struggle, in which the same decks are always used. That predictability allows players to assess both their own lines of play and the ones likely to be available to their opponent, which is a dynamic that has powered many of my favourite experiences playing netrunner (e.g. Kate vs NEH games, Whizz vs CTM). I think there is a general problem for the game when asset spams are on top, but I don't think its right that there being a clear 'best deck' is inherently problematic.

Some tips for beating Whizz with this deck? @evilgaz

Early Architect is really important. How long the period of the game in which they don't have the breakers or the tempo to break Architect is, and how much damage you can do in that time, is really important.

Quandary is a hero because it's a really long time before they can realistically install Yog.0.

You have to time your scores really carefully vs Desperado Whizz because spending a turn not installing assets is exactly how they get on top of you. If you score too early, you'll get stuck on 2-4 points with no board, but if you wait too long the exact same thing will happen to you. Scoring in the first 5 or so turns is really not advisable, you should be trying to create a really annoying board state with a few iced remotes to build your Estelle.

Their points don't really matter, except to the extent that Medium becomes an option for them once they're on 4. Sometimes I'll install agendas for Estelle counters in the early game knowing they're very likely to be checked. Probably your first three ice even can go on the remote - they have to be quite set up before Medium is going to hurt you more than it's going to hurt them.

The most important thing is to keep the pressure on. You should almost never click for credits in the early/midgame, you should always be drawing for more assets and Friends to keep up with them.

Closing out the game is really tricky. Some games, they just won't find the right breaker, you'll build a 10 counter Estelle and get the SFT win, or get a protected Lakshmi and just cheese them out. But if you're not so ahead then quite often you'll get to 4 points and that'll give them the opportunity to smash your board. Then you have one of two plans. Option 1 is to try and Install-advance a GFI and Friends for Lakshmi with Biotic in hand. Even if you don't have a third rez for the Lakshmi, if you have an asset in your hand you can get back AAL with the Friends and use that.

Option 2 is to go for the four-score plan (which is where ABT really comes in handy but it can be done in SFT lists as well). Remember, the Whizz player's central-access plan against you is very bad/slow because of how much tempo they have to spend killing your board, even in the lategame.

@kollapse been playing since the game came out back in... 2012-3?

Timmy Wong played this deck ages ago and everyone just trying ride the same train. You know what he went on to do? Make crazy creative decks like the infinite cell portal deck. Something I've been trying to make work since the first box, but I suck worse than a Hoover.

Creativity is dying and T Wong, Jon Dalesandry, and them San Fran folk the only people keeping it alive.

@kollapse been playing since the game came out back in... 2012-3?

Timmy Wong played this deck ages ago and everyone just trying ride the same train. You know what he went on to do? Make crazy creative decks like the infinite cell portal deck. Something I've been trying to make work since the first box, but I suck worse than a Hoover.

Creativity is dying and T Wong, Jon Dalesandry, and them San Fran folk the only people keeping it alive.

This must be some of the most uninformed and unperceptive comments I have ever read regarding Netrunner and its communities of players and creators, Max. I will do as Tim suggested earlier and just leave this be. It's apparent that arguments and facts aren't doing there job here.

@MaxSchwartzNetrunner What?? I made a Blackmail/Val combo deck just this summer.

@Laxen Did you really? Are you sure it wasn't any of them San Fran folk?

@MaxSchwartzNetrunnerI loved Gamefaqs back in the day, but I can really recommend Youtube now when you're stuck in games, or need help getting those last achievements! Just search for the game and the thing you need help with, pro tip!

@Laxen I really hope it ran incubator

@dubious Nah, RDI ;)

Tim knowing what you know now in 2019 do you still think playing this deck was worth it to get the regional win? What is the death of netrunner due to lack of creativity compared to those fleeting moments of validation