Netrunner : NetDecking Anarch

So I've been playing a bit of Android: Netrunner in my time off.  I thought I'd post some deck lists. First up is a deck I've been enjoying quite a bit. It's probably not the strongest or most consistent runner deck, but it has been working alright for me in casual games.  It's funny, I like card games that have a lot of player interaction but in the end I'm always drawn towards decks that don't give a shit about what your opponent does. This deck is quite a bit like that, with a final goal of digging deep into your opponent's R&D, it doesn't care about their remote servers, and agendas or potential traps.  All it does is try to build an unstoppable running engine to grab those agendas before the corp even has them in the HQ.  Here's the list:

Identity
Noise - Noise is one of two available Anarch identities as of the time of this writing.  The other, Whizzard, is not suited to the strategy that this deck will run. We're going to be heavy on viruses, so we want to use Noise's ability to trash cards into the archive.  Assuming the corp has three 3 point agendas and six 2 point agendas in their deck, that's about a 20% chance of trashing an agenda into the archive every time we install a virus.

Hardware (4)
2x Grimoire
2x Cyberfeeder

Grimoire serves a dual purpose in this deck. It's a much needed +2 MU and also a free virus counter whenever we install a virus, which will help speed along our deck.  Opening hands with grimoire are great, but even if we don't have it from the outset we will have a good way to draw it with Wyldside.

Cyberfeeder helps with this deck's weak economy.  Without Magnum Opus, this deck can have trouble consistently earning bits, so anywhere we can save is good.

Programs (20)
3x Djinn
3x Datasucker
3x Parasite
2x Medium
2x Mimic
2x Yog.0
2x Corroder
2x Wyrm
1x Crypsis







Djinn is one of the key cards in this deck.  It's ability to tutor up viruses is going to have some redundancy with Wyldside, but sometimes you just really need a Datasucker or Medium.  The other advantage of Djinn is that it acts as a nice reserve of spare MU for your datasuckers and mediums, which you'll be needing.  Three copies might be one too many but I'd rather consistently draw into this card.

Datasucker might be the most important card in this deck. One is good, allowing you to efficiently use Mimic and Yog.0 which can't raise their strength.  It also can push parasite over the edge and allow you to blow up pesky ice that's costing you on repeated runs.  Lastly, it is the only really effective way to use Wyrm, which would be prohibitively expensive otherwise.  Getting virus counters on Datasucker is extremely easy, since you can usually run the archives or HQ which tend to be less defended, and then use the accumulated counters on the important R&D run.  I mentioned that one Datasucker is good before, but two is a wrecking machine. Use your Djinn to tutor up the second one and install it for free off of a Cyberfeeder.

Parasite is a pretty straight forward card. play it on annoying ice and force your opponent to waste a turn clearing virus counters or just take the loss.

Medium is crucial to this deck, but I only run two because they're expensive and one tends to be sufficient.  Digging deep into R&D is really the key to this deck, so install it early and start building those counters up.  If you're reveling 4 or 5 cards chances are you'll score an agenda.

Mimic, Yog.0 and Corroder are serviceable ice.  Yog.0 and Mimic are actually quite good once you find a way to lower ice's strength (i.e. datasucker), but Yog.0 basically requires a Modded to install without feeling horrible about it. If you can install all three of these, you're in good shape, otherwise there are some swiss army knives in this deck that can pick up the slack.

Wyrm and Crypsis are those swiss army knives.  Wyrm is bad, but it's cheap and can break any kind of ice so sometimes it'll just have to do. It also has an added synergy with parasite, allowing you to just blow up annoying ice without having to bother paying the expensive 3 bits to break subroutines.  Crypsis is in as a singleton because it is unique in its dual nature as a virus and an icebreaker. It's expenisve to install and cumbersome to use, but sometimes it's nice to be able to tutor it up with a Djinn and start running.

Resources (7)
2x Wyldside
2x Ice Carver
3x Armitage Codebusting
Wyldside is an important engine that this deck needs to draw into money saving event cards.  I lose a click, but basically never have to spend clicks drawing cards once I install this.  It's worth it, and I only run two copies because you can't install more than one anyway.

Ice carver enables a lot of our other programs. It's another unique card, though, and pricey to install so we only run two.






Armitage codebusting is just good click/bit economics.  It gives  us kind of a poor man's magnum opus, which we can't run because our MU are already strained by the tons of viruses we're going to be installing on top of our regular suite of icebreakers. It's got an added benefit of being cheap to install, so it's a good card to help you recover a stash of bits after a particularly expensive run.

Events (14)
2x Sure Gamble
3x Easy Mark
3x Modded
3x The Maker's Eye
2x Stim Hack
1x Deja Vu

Sure gamble, Easy Mark, and Modded serve the same purpose in this deck. All of them are there to save us money.  Modded is worth it even to install 2 cost programs and hardware because it does it all on the same click, albeit at the cost of the click it would have taken you to draw modded. However, card draw should not be a problem if we've landed a Wyldside.  Easy Mark is better than Sure Gamble since you can use it to quickly recover from being broke, however sure gamble does net you the most immediate bits assuming you've got at least 5 to pay its cost, which isn't always the case!

The Maker's Eye works well in this deck, and on against an early undefended R&D you can dig 3 cards deep and hopefully score something.  Late game the effect stacks with Medium so it's still useful.

Stimhack is included as a last ditch card that can sometimes just win the game.  You hate to play it, but when you know the corp is desperately trying to advance an agenda while you're low on bits this card can pull out a surprise run that takes it.

Finally theres a singleton Deja Vu.  This card exists for the sole purpose of recovering parasites from the heap after you blow up ice, or getting back a crypsis that you just had to use without any counters.  You can also use it to grab a resource that's all used up (armitage codebusting) or an important card that the corp trashed while you were tagged (like Wyldside).

Anyway, that's the deck. Try it out and let me know what you think. Like I said, this is probably not as competitive as the more straightforward Shaper/Criminal decks out there, but it has the advantage of not really having to care about what the corp does.  Let them build their remote servers and advance agendas there, you don't need to run those. You want the cards they haven't seen yet.  If they stack a ton of defenses on the R&D, there's nothing stopping you from then running their remote servers.  Next time we'll take a look at my NBN deck.