Championship Tactics

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of two 2016 World Championship decks for Android: Netrunner.

The 2016 Android: Netrunner World Champion Corp Deck and the 2016 Android: Netrunner World Champion Runner Deck are recreations of the decks piloted by Chris Dyer to a first place finish at the 2016 Netrunner World Championship last November. The decks feature extended full-bleed art for every card as well as new visuals for NBN Identity Controlling the Message (23 Seconds, 17). These fully-legal decks not only give veterans a new visual format for classic cards, but allow new players to experience dominating strategies and successful deckbuilding.

Dyer has been a Netrunner player since the release of the Core Set on his side of the pond in England, and found success with the decks while preparing for Worlds with his testing-partner Alex White, who finished sixth overall. 

Chris sat down with Fantasy Flight Games for an introduction to the decks. Today, we’re taking a look at the 2016 Android: Netrunner World Champion Corp Deck—check back in a few weeks for a glimpse at the runner side.

You're It

Fantasy Flight Games: Can you walk us through the process of creating your Controlling the Message deck? What is its central goal, and how did you go about filling the slots to accomplish that goal?

Chris Dyer: I'd picked up Controlling the Message before UK Nationals in August, and my testing group and I immediately found it extremely strong. The idea is that you use Controlling the Message's defensive ability to protect very high impact but fragile assets, such as Sensie Actors Union (Democracy and Dogma, 53) and Commercial Bankers Group (Democracy and Dogma, 54). If the runner contests those assets, then it will cost them a lot of their early turns, and if they don't, then your board state will quickly snowball with the extra cards and money that they give you.

Many of the cards in the deck are therefore chosen to exacerbate that tempo swing in the early game; if you look at the ice in particular it's almost all extremely cheap to rez, such as Resistor (Data and Destiny, 15), or it's punishing for the runner to face check— Turnpike (Data and Destiny, 18) is particularly strong for this.

This list also has the full complement of five Political assets, whereas many other players chose to drop the two Commercial Bankers Groups for a Biotic Labor (Core Set, 56). During testing, we found that having those two extra 'must trash' assets really helped put the pressure on the runner early. 

The deck also aims to pull off very swingy plays by scoring Breaking News (Core Set, 82) and leveraging the tags in some way; our list has two of both Closed Accounts (Core Set, 84) and Exchange of Information (The Liberated Mind, 92) to ensure that one of these options was always available.

Finally, if the runner chooses or is forced to accumulate tags, then there's a single copy of Psychographics (Core Set, 85) which can be combined with Project Beale (Future Proof, 115) to close the game out.

FFG: What are some of your favorite card interactions in the deck?

CD: My favorite thing about this deck is how flexible it is, and how well all the parts work together. So if you are able to play Hard Hitting News (23 Seconds, 16), for example, you're threatening all of your tag punishment cards and, at the same time, all your Resistors just gained four strength.

I'm also a big fan of Mumbad Virtual Tour (Salsette Island, 76) in this deck; installing it behind a piece of cheap but taxing ice like Turnpike creates a trap like element that you don't often see in tournament level decks.

My favorite card in the deck is  Cobra (Salsette Island, 74). Controlling the Message is extremely good at forcing the runner to try to attack you before they've had time to set-up properly, and Cobra can really punish that. It became a mascot for all the UK players who were playing Controlling the Message over the tournament.

FFG: Did you have a specific moment with this deck that stood out during Worlds?

CD: I had a blast playing it all through the tournament, to be honest. I won my first three games by scoring Project Beales worth five, four, and four points. Then in my fourth game, I flatlined my opponent when they ran in to a Cobra and only had one card left in their hand.

I also played Ben Ni's Data Leak Reversal  (Future Proof, 103) deck in the cut, and knew that if he just kept milling me I could win via Psychographics and a Project Beale that had been on the table all game. I was petrified that he'd realize what I was up to and check my remotes, so I had to try to appear like I was dejected and didn't think that I could win until I only had one card left in R&D, at which point I could let the relief show!

FFG: What specific type of decks does this do well against, conversely, what does it need to watch out for?

CD: If you leave it alone, then Controlling the Message's powerful assets make it extremely fast and allow it to score out very quickly, so it's naturally strong against slower runner decks that are looking to assemble a “big rig” or a combo of some sort. It's also very punishing to decks that don't have a lot of early economy, because they'll struggle to keep your early assets in check while avoiding a Hard Hitting News.

On the flip side, the deck can struggle against decks that have a lot of early burst economy, such as Temujin Contracts (Blood Money, 26) out of either Criminal or Anarch IDs. 'Tag-me' decks that are deliberately designed to both take and exploit having lots of tags are the hardest matchup, because many of the tricks that your deck likes to use will just play right into their hands.

The nice thing about Controlling the Message though is that the deck is so flexible and can score in so many different ways that you can always adapt your game plan and you've always got a chance.

FFG: Any last words on Controlling the Message?

CD: I really enjoyed my games with Controlling the Message, both as the Runner and the Corp. It's such a dynamic deck that it creates so many important decisions on both sides of the table, and that's what I always look for in a game of Netrunner.

Embrace the Message

Can your overwhelming economy stop the runner in their tracks, or will an avalanche of tags bury the hacker for good? Whatever you choose, up your game when the 2016 Android: Netrunner World Champion Corp Deck releases in Q2 of this year.