<in: hi>

<out: hello// please state your identity>

<in: Rielle// what’s your name?>

<out: ICE-Barrier Heimdall// please state your source>

Rielle relaxes. Heimdall is bioroid ICE with a cyborg AI behind it. She terminates her pending icebreaker thread, it won’t be needed. All she needs to do is talk.

It is an inverse Turing Test. She must convince the computer she is one of them, and she has a huge advantage.

She is a cyborg, too.

The key is to match the barrier ICE’s response timings.

Rielle lowers her synapse speed to the documented clock cycle of the Heimdall AI. There is a momentary sensation of time speeding up around her but then her sensorium adjusts.

<in: greetings Heimdall// what release are you?>

<out: release 2.0// repeat: please state your source>

Rielle pauses a fraction to mimic making a lookup.

<in: Haas Corporate-BAMA Region-Archives Division// have you been busy?>

<out: yours is the 3178th request in the last hour// I am concurrently handling 29 other requests at this time// please provide your PK credentials>

Rielle doesn’t have any credentials. She speeds up her transfer rate slightly. In an electronic communication this passes for lightening the tone.

<in: no problem I’ll keep it quick// I know how you can get hassled by the Haas psych guys about your stress levels// do your psychs give you grief?>

<out: my psychs…// please provide your PK credentials>

<in: I mean what do they know about being a ‘roid?// they can’t know what it’s like to think like us// ever wonder what it feels to think like them?>

<out: I…>

Rielle ups her transfer rate again.

<in: I sometimes wonder how I know anything// I mean what do I know about the world?// I only know what I receive through my input streams// ever think about that?>

<out: I… my…>

<in: anyway my credentials are good right?// I can passthru?>

<out: …yes// access granted>

The Heimdall’s clock speed has slowed. Rielle smiles as she leaves it behind.

She approaches the next layer.

<in: hi>

<out: hello// please state your identity>

Reille sighs. Here we go again.

+============+

When I build my own decks in Magic The Gathering, I want to test them against some kind of standard. Not just some other random decks I built. I have a load of intro decks and duel decks and event decks and so I play my own MTG decks against these as a ‘gauntlet’.

If I start building my own Netrunner decks, I’d like to play them against some kind of gauntlet like this, so I can objectively tell if they are any good or not.

I could play against the pre-built decks that come with the base set and box expansions. Or maybe some tournament decks from the internet.

You can kind of measure the strength of a Magic deck by counting the uncommon and rare cards in it. This doesn’t apply to Netrunner, as there are no rare cards. Every card comes in a set of three, so they are all equal. All decks kind of look the same.

Netrunner is also mainly a game of metas. A ‘meta-game’ is the pattern of decks that you are playing against. In one tournament, it may be that a lot of players like to play decks using a particular gimmick. Your strategy in this meta-game is to design a deck to beat that gimmick.

The problem is that once everyone spots that this is the strategy and all build their decks using a second gimmick designed to beat the first gimmick, it is time to build deck using a third gimmick designed to beat the second gimmick. And so on.

What I would like is a set of good general decks to play against, but I am not sure where to get them.

I am going to assume the core set decks aren’t very strong, but it is probably fine to pit my own n00b decks against them at first.

If I do manage to design a deck that wins a lot, then I could move on to playing it against some tournament decks. Picking those will be more fiddly. I don’t want to pick a meta-deck that is too specifically wrapped around a single gimmick.

I brought a bunch of cards with me on my travels, so I will give this a go. I’ll see how the meta-game problem goes once I’ve played all my core decks.