Tier* 1 Sage Adam

[MasterAir]

Woo D&D. It's got new shiny toys that are terribad. So I decided to add Sage - because you know what makes bad cards better, other bad cards. Wooo!

It turned out to be much better than I thought it would be. Career Fair, Data Folding, Casts, Earthrise are amazing. Brain Chip gets out of hand quite quickly. I played it vs Sync and New Angeles Sol and won handily. I lost to Haarp Murder Movie when I accidentally blew up my Brainchip that was keeping me alive on a Shattered Remains. I'll get you next time Apeasylum. Obviously this deck needs to find room for some sort of R&D menace, probably just a couple of R&D interfaces. The directives are really strong. I think Adam is very cool. Give it a go, let me know what you think.


Tier 1 Sage Adam

Adam: Compulsive Hacker

Event (13)
3x Career Fair •••
3x Dirty Laundry
1x Independent Thinking
2x Stimhack ••
3x Sure Gamble
1x Uninstall

Hardware (5)
1x Brain Cage
2x Brain Chip
2x e3 Feedback Implants ••••

Resource (20)
2x Armitage Codebusting
3x Daily Casts
3x Data Folding
2x Dr. Lovegood
3x Earthrise Hotel
2x Kati Jones
1x Public Sympathy
2x Scrubber ••
2x Street Peddler ••

Icebreaker (3)
1x Femme Fatale •
1x Mimic •
1x Sage •••

Program (4)
1x D4v1d ••••
2x Multithreader
1x Self-modifying Code •••

25 influence spent (max 25)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Data and Destiny

Deck built on http://netrunnerdb.com.



* You're right, this should be version, not tier. But ... close enough.

[Sincil Banks]

Have you considered Paper Tripping in this deck?

[Vapo]

Adam is a dick to Sol, because all his own cards are so marginal it's impossible to pick something worthwhile for Targeted Marketing that he's actually definitely running I guess picking brain chip is probably the way to go, or maybe just Kati and hope it's not some odd build that's avoided her.

Only 1 SMC and 1 sage? Seems a bit vulnerable to anything that can get going quickly. Is one uninstall enough d4v1d recursion? Seems like it's dying for a clone chip or something to provide extra uses and some emergency recursion since all your breakers are 1-ofs.

[MasterAir]

This isn't a very good deck. So it's hard to defend it.

The 3 directives are all very powerful cards that are a pain in the arse. So it gets by vs rush a bit because ABR is really good. Also, it's hard to rush and leave HQ undefended. It gets through the stack quite fast, so I think you can be set up after 2-3 turns. Program Trashing is bad, you can often play carefully enough to avoid losing your rig. You can get into 2 ice servers without your sage for a bit. Um... be careful.

Uninstall was lost either to damage or on a street peddler in all 3 games. I didn't care, that card is really bad. It should probably come out for a real card.

I'm interested to play it a bit more against some really good corp decks. See what happens. I don't think it's a million miles away from playable. Data Folding is a much better card than it looks. You get rich* while you can't find your breakers. I think the best version of Adam plays Faust and Drug Dealer. But everyone is playing Faust and Drug Dealer, and it's really tedious. The second Kati should be the third Armitage, some money now is better than a little more money at some point later.

*eventually

[GuyCliquil]

I really like this deck. I hadn't thought of Sage plus Adam for the ludicrous end game. What would you say would be your answer to those annoying decks that score out of hand (or try to)

[MasterAir]

I think that NAT is pretty potent vs FA (to a point). ABR means that NBN needs to set up a 2 ice remote to reliably rush things (though clearly ABR through whatever isn't a good long term option).

If this is ever going to be a real deck it needs at least 1 R&D pressure card.

-1 e3, +1 R&DI might be correct. -1 peddler/scrubber, -1 career fair, +1 R&DI, +1 armitage might be ok. Both of those might be best of all. E3 is necessary if you want to sage anything non-trivial. D4v1d is maybe too much influence. But I think it's kind of important so...

I'm glad you like it Guy. It's way less terrible than I thought it would be. My first impressions are that its a reasonable tier 2 deck. I might try it in Bristol at the weekend (if I make it). 25 influence to build nearly a whole deck is tiny. All of Adam's cards are a 2x at most, none of them are spectacular (especially in Adam).

The other binder card that seems ok in Adam is Stim Dealer. Brain Chip gives you waaaaay too big a hand size by the end of the game.

[Stephen]

I notice only a single Independent Thinking, which I think is probably the way to go. I actually can't think of that many good reasons to have this card, after all, if you're trashing directives you're losing the upside (as well as the downside) which is what actually makes Adam good. Is there something I'm missing about this card?

I guess Jinteki decks forcing you to faceplant into Tsurugi etc would be a good reason to bin ABR, although Dr Lovegood does a better job of dealing with this problem, doesn't he?

[MasterAir]

ABR becomes a liability eventually. I don't massively rate Independent thinking. There aren't that many alternative cards that don't cost influence.

You're right to question its inclusion. It does draw a lot of cards. I'm thinking about 1 ABR in deck so that I can turn it off for a bit, then put it back on again.

[GuyCliquil]

I have seen some games with Adam where ABR has been a pain - mainly against Jinteki where it is forcing the Adam player to constantly run places he does not particularly want to run and absorb either the costs of trashing high cost assets, the damage of Snares, Shocks, Shi Kyus or just simply having to fight his way through non ETR Ice. Turning that off in that particularly matchup seems important even if you are willing to leave it running when it is just a cost to efficiency & economy bouncing off ETR ice when you don't feel like fighting you're way through.

[GuyCliquil]

Have been working with Adam and am worried a lot now about consistency. How did you find just have 1 of each breaker in the deck?

[MasterAir]

I found it fine. You have ABR for early game and a boatload of draw. I think the SMC should be the Test Run that Timmy Wong's Worlds deck used.

[GuyCliquil]

Ah... missed the SMC. Makes sense now.