NEH Glass Shop (1st Place, Undefeated, Phoenix Comics TT)

There are 869 Unique cards in Netrunner at the time of this post, in theory, someone could take up the dubious hobby of writing about the competitive viability of a unique stack of cards each week and never have much overlap.

In practice, when some of those cards are Leviathan and Force of Nature, there are bound to be multiple takes on the same strategies using the same cards – from just last week’s glance at runner cards we see how shallow the competitive cardpool truly is.

In a world of copycats, clones, and nyetdecks – how does one make their chosen pile special and unique? The answer is simple:

You give it a stupid name and never shut up about it.

Near-Earth Hub: Breakfast Center Agenda (12)

3x AstroScript Pilot Program

3x Breaking News

2x Explode-a-palooza

3x Project Beale

1x 15 Minutes Asset (6)

3x Jackson Howard

3x PAD Campaign Upgrade (3)

3x SanSan City Grid Operation (15)

3x Hedge Fund

1x Midseason Replacements

2x Scorched Earth ••••• •••

3x Sweeps Week

3x Traffic Accident •••

3x 24/7 News Cycle Barrier (3)

1x Resistor

2x Wraparound Code Gate (5)

1x Archangel

1x Enigma

3x Pop-up Window Sentry (5)

3x Data Raven

2x Gutenberg 11 influence spent (max 17)

20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)

49 cards (min 45)

Why is it called the Glass Shop? Cause it’s broken as hell. – Podoboyz99

Setting aside for a moment the fact that stores specializing in the sale of glass automotive, architectural, decorative or otherwise – exclusively deal in undamaged glass products; this deck name is complete nonsense.

Perhaps it is an indictment of post-recession American small businesses still struggling to find their footing on the shifting sands of the modern tax code? Or maybe it’s just a stupid fucking name – because that’s one of the only things you really own in netrunner: your playstyle and your dumbass deck name.

whenever my opponent jacks out after a Raven res, I swiftly tell them “They always do.”

Whether “smug 14 year-old” is a playstyle or a lifestyle is up for debate, but I know for sure that NBN + Meat damage is an archetype everyone knows and loves. The Butcher Shop, a place that dispenses meat, it makes a modicum of sense, so that’s what we call these decks now.

This is not a classic ButcherShop list, it’s no CheeseCakeShop combo deck, It’s not a Haarp ConvieninceShop deck with only one win condition.

Trying to negotiate the arcane and largely mystical structure of netrunner deck names is difficult enough without people renaming existing archetypes everytime they change a card. It’s your NRDB, call it what you want, post it as what you want, but when we start talking about it, don’t cram it down my throat and tell me it’s a new deck. K Podo? THX.

And my live-in nurse has just informed me that I’ve met my daily quota for old-man ranting, and it’s time to take my pills. Also Wild Wild West is on.

The Deck

That Robert Conrad is such a rascal. What is this deck you ask? It’s Butchershop with 24/7 News Cycle. Phew, that was hard to describe, I better sit down and catch my breath. Taking some cues from This haarp kill deck by Asclepius – 24/7 opens the door to some potential no-win situations for runners; however it is a bit deceptive.

The original butchershop was a breaking news combo deck, install advancing it means you have to steal it and get midseasoned or be flatlined next turn off of the when scored trigger. Having an astro token or sansan meant similar plays were available to you.

24/7 over midseasons allowed you to sidestep the need for a money advantage and a weakness to film critic; but even that has issues. Getting 1 breaking news into your score area is pretty trivial, getting the next agenda scored to pay for 24/7 can be an issue with Clot being played in all of the most popular post-MWL decks.

To kill someone you need to:

Find and score breaking news and 1 other agenda possibly through clots, get a kill combo into your hand, land your combo through plascrete and I’ve had worse, before losing 7 agenda points out of R&D or getting your scored breaking news’s turn-tabled.

Can it be done? Of course. Is it the next big thing for Store Champs? Doubtful. The draw power of NEH does a lot of work regardless of your archetype – packing 3 sansans and a mostly scorable agenda suite means you can yellow bullshit your way to victory through points or meat – but it’s still too much of a slot machine for me.

Now that this deck has front paged, their won’t be as many free wins for anyone looking to YOMI their opponents into thinking they are playing astrobiotics. Yellow decks can kill you guys, shocking I know!

Before You Sleeve Up

The days of dual combo NEH may be long behind us, but if I can’t dissuade you from abandoning your fantasy of rolling agendas off of a sansan while threatening to Tag n’ Bag some fools – this deck is good to go.

Take Podoboyz99’s advice and nix the midseasons for another card. I vote tollbooth. 13 ICE is far too little, especially when the gear checks are so infrequent.

If straight up murder is more your thing, I endorse Convenience Shop (open 24/7), it is the best 24/7 combo deck that you can run right now.

For the die-hard try hard there is always Astrobiotics. Calimsha’s Bullshit Neh is up-to-date and prepared for the current metagame. In my opinion, it’s just the superior deck. There are things runners can do about getting flatlined, there are far fewer things they can do about racing you to 7 points.

That’s all there is to it, and no amount of smug internet boasting about how fast and unstoppable your strategy is, increases the consistency of your deck. I think my old man pills are kicking in. See ya nerds.

Ruining the game,

-Chill84