"Elementary, My Dear Wilson!"
- Famous Netrunner Stacks -
#21: The Great Wall

by Jens Kreutzer
with Michael Nock
and Daniel Schneider

"Has anyone tried a Great Wall of Chiba deck yet?""
— Dr. David Mar on the Netrunner-L, 20 May 1996.

Netrunner comes with three types of ice cards: code gates, walls, and sentries. A healthy mix with the focus on sentries is usually the way to go in order to make the Runner install all three types of icebreakers. In spite of this, specializing in one kind of ice and making use of supporting cards like Skälderviken SA Beta Test Site has always tickled Corp players' imaginations. While decks specializing in a subset of sentries (Black ice) have met with only very moderate success, the infamous Nasty Code Gate Deck has been very successful indeed. Of the trio, it's wall decks that never really got off the ground (despite the above quote from the infant days of Netrunner). But why?

There are two reasons. One: Walls don't have any "killer" support card like Encoder, Inc. to exploit. (Neither do Black ice sentries, but they in themselves tend to be dangerous for Runners, so this is not so big a problem — it's often enough to get them cheap). Two: There is this cheapo one-size-fits-all solution to walls named Pile Driver. For three bits — which is a steal — the Runner can be sure to break any wall in the game, even behemoths Wall of Ice and Toughonium Wall, which cost a whopping 13 bits to rez! Compare this to Liche, which for one bit more costs the Runner at least (with Big Frackin' Gun) six bits to break, barring random effects like AI Boon, and most sentry breakers won't do it under ten bits! Toughonium Wall's flavor text just seems to be a big joke: "It's so tough you can't even think about breaking it." Pile Driver eats it for breakfast, and since nobody really plays with stealth, the drawback of losing three stealth bits is negligible. There is of course Big Frackin' Gun, which does the same to sentries, but at double the price!

Thus, a wall deck (which will want to feature all of the "big" walls) will have its dreams shattered and rammed into the ground by Pile Driver, a breaker that shows up in many, many Runner decks. If all the wall-building efforts can so easily be faced down by the Runner, building a wall deck just doesn't seem worth it. But precisely because it must cope with strong opposition, building a wall deck against the odds is also a fun exercise which many Corp players have undergone. So let's see what we can come up with.

Here are the Netrunner cards that support walls and therefore fit the theme.

Superior Net Barriers (Agenda - Research) – Diff.: 6

All walls have +1 strength. When you score Superior Net Barriers, reveal as many walls as you wish. Then, gain one bit for each revealed or rezzed wall.

Data Masons (Node) – Rez cost: 1, Trash cost: 1

Cost to rez walls is reduced by 2. All walls have +1 strength.

Jerusalem City Grid (Upgrade - Region) – Rez cost: 2, Trash cost: 5

Cost to rez walls on this fort is reduced by 2. All walls on this fort have +1 strength.

What these do is basically making walls cheaper to rez and raising their strength. Superior Net Barriers is a permanent strength boost, but is unbelievably difficult to score. Data Masons has a universal effect but is easily trashed, whereas Jerusalem City Grid provides the same effect for just one datafort, but is more expensive to trash. Unfortunately, we don't get an "adds an end-the-run subroutine" effect like with Encoder, Inc. to combine with Snowbank.

While Superior Net Barriers cannot be relied on to have a huge impact on the game (difficult to score, and you probably will only get one or two Barriers to have an effect since scoring a third usually ends the game), Data Masons and Jerusalem are straightforward: Include a couple of each, put a Masons or two into lightly protected subforts and a Jerusalem in R&D, perhaps another one in HQ and in the agenda-scoring subfort — then start bricklaying. Soon, some nice and big walls will surround your forts.

Daniel Schneider built the following pre-Classic wall deck that tries to make use of all three wall support cards:

Pre-Classic Wall Deck
by Daniel Schneider

5 Superior Net Barriers
3 Genetics-Visionary Acquisition
6 Data Masons
5 Jerusalem City Grid
5 BBS Whispering Campaign
2 Rescheduler
2 Project Consultants
9 Crystal Wall
2 Rock Is Strong
2 Galatea
2 Toughonium Wall
2 Shock.r

Here are his comments on the deck (translated from the German): "The basic idea is of course rezzing almost all of the ice for free and making it tougher to boot. The goal is therefore to have at least two rezzed Data Masons in play. Data Masons is the most important card in the deck. Each Masons should be protected by one Crystal Wall. Since the deck has many must-includes cluttering up its card slots, BBS Whispering Campaign fits the bill as a bit engine that doesn't take up much room. Although most ice won't cost anything to rez if all goes well, you'll need quite some bits to get going, paying for thicker ice layers, rezzing nodes and fast advancement.

"Due to its expensive trash cost and its powerful effect, Jerusalem City Grid will be very strong in this deck. The agenda mix is ok, but not great. The Corp will try to score a Genetics-Visionary Acquisition as quickly as possible while the Runner 'looks the other way'. Then, the first Superior Net Barriers can be scored with Project Consultants, while the second one can perhaps be scored the slow way in a big-wall subfort (or with another Consultants). Should the few Project Consultants fail to show up in time, the Reschedulers can help find them.

"A different agenda mix of your standard 3/2 and 3/3 agendas not connected to the wall theme would certainly be stronger, since only one Superior Net Barriers is actually used for its effect. As the deck was designed before Classic came out, Glacier is absent from the deck list.

Glacier (Ice - Wall) – Rez cost: 0, Strength: 5

Rezzing Glacier costs 1 agenda point, in addition to the normal cost.
@ End the run.
@ End the run.
(1): Move Glacier to the outermost position of any other data fort. Use this ability only at the start of a run. You may use this ability even if Glacier is unrezzed, in which case, you reveal it.

"Glacier surely would be great to protect additional Data Masons, but in order to do this reliably, the Corp would have to be sure to always get the first agenda point quickly. Besides, 7 agenda points (1 Genetics plus 2 Net Barriers) won't be enough for the win anymore, and Glacier is costly in its own kind of way, since you need a bit each time you want to move it. Considering this, the deck would have to altered considerably to accommodate Glacier."

Crystal Wall (Ice - Wall) – Rez cost: 4, Strength: 3

@ End the run.

Daniel probably chose Crystal Wall as his main piece of ice because it is the perfect match for the two cost reducers Data Masons and Jerusalem City Grid: Either two Masons in play or one Masons and a Jerusalem on the fort will reduce the rez cost of Crystal Wall to zero. It would also gain a strength of 5 or even 6 if a Superior Net Barriers has been scored. Not too shabby, but even at strength 6, Pile Driver still breaks it for 3 bits (while Rent-I-Con needs 5 bits and Bartmoss Memorial Icebreaker as many as 7 bits).

Rock is Strong and Galatea, both with a rez cost of 6, are a logical extrapolation of this strategy: They rez for free with a Jerusalem and two Masons in play. A common safeguard for wall decks is including one or two code gates and sentries as well, just to "keep the Runner honest" and make him install a full breaker suite. Daniel settled for Shock.r (an inexpensive yet highly effective sentry) and Galatea, cleverly piggybacking Galatea's alter ego as a code gate on the cost-reducing effects that this piece of ice still gains due to its being a wall.

As a modification to Daniel's deck, you could take out the Reschedulers and substitute some more Project Consultants. This is a matter of personal style; Rescheduler might seem to be a waste of actions when you could be drawing Project Consultants instead, but Daniel is notorious for getting a lot of mileage out of this underappreciated node, as it also helps with an HQ cluttered up with agendas. Runners also usually do not bother to trash it.

Fine-tuning aside, Daniel's incarnation of a basic "Big Walls" deck serves as a good starting point for a more general discussion. In light of their weak support cards in comparison to code gates and their ubiquitous nemesis Pile Driver, walls almost seem to be the red-headed stepchild among the ice types of Netrunner. Code gates shut the Runner out on the cheap, whereas sentries have all the cool (read: deadly) effects on trespassers and are expensive to break. So who needs walls anyway? Aren't they just a more expensive way of saying "code gate", just to force the Runner to install another type of icebreaker? One could see that as a design flaw in Netrunner, but the truth is that walls do serve a very specific purpose in the game: They are the touchstone where all of the noisy/stealthy subgame happens. Barring exceptions like MS-todon, a Corp will need walls to make noisy Runners reveal themselves.

Unfortunately, this pivotal role of walls is downplayed by the overall weakness of the stealth strategy: Normally, the only downside to being noisy is the detrimental effect on stealth cards, but almost nobody plays them anyway. Rather than Cloak and its ilk, it is Library Search, Rush Hour and All-hands that make Runners consider using stealthy breakers like Worm at all these days — or, as the case may well be, using generic breakers like Bartmoss Memorial Icebreaker in the first place. Rumor has it that the ill-fated Silent Impact expansion would have given the stealth strategy a shot in the arm, thereby making the noisy issue a real issue again (and walls an integral part of the prudent Corp's defense line). But alas, we have to make do without it.

In order to make the "Big Walls" deck at least a little more viable, it is key to look at the various kinds of breakers that might oppose it. There are three possibilities (or four for the completist):

• Generic breakers like Bartmoss Memorial Icebreaker and Rent-I-Con. These tend to show up a lot, but big walls are quite expensive for them to break, so the Corp player will be happy to see these two, Bartmoss in particular.

• Worms. The Corp already likes to see them because they are more expensive to install than noisy wallbreakers (and because they are not Pile Driver), but what is more, there is a deadly card in the Corp player's arsenal that spells death for them: Aardvark. It is probably worthwhile to include a couple of Aardvarks in a wall deck because it will absolutely cripple a Runner depending on worms. This is a reasonable metagame choice against Runner stacks that depend on Rush Hour, All-hands or Library Search for their multi-access.

• Noisy wallbreakers (usually, this means Pile Driver). Chances are that this spoilsport will rear its ugly hammerhead rather sooner than later. There is not much the Corp can do with the walls themselves to make it harder for Pile Driver, but Classic has given us another way of punishing noisy Runners: Sleepy ice (and London City Grid). These might give the Corp somewhat of a fighting chance.

• For the completist: There is also Japanese Water Torture. Have you ever wondered why this card is so expensive to install and so ridiculously expensive to actually use? (Yes, you have to forgo an action and pay a bit for each point of strength you want to give Water Torture in an encounter with a piece of ice.) The answer: It is neither a worm nor noisy, so it slips by both Aardvark and sleepy ice. But the Runner really has to pay through the nose for that, so the Corp will be happy indeed about a rare sighting of JWT.

In addition to fast-advancement cards, it would be wise to include another way of scoring agendas safely: Bizarre Encryption Scheme makes the Runner run the agenda fort twice, which can become prohibitively expensive with breakers like Bartmoss Memorial Icebreaker. Because of all of this diversification, the deck cannot include more than two or four copies of key cards, and this makes Off-site Backups a useful tool for getting them back in a pinch. Michael Nock has looked at Daniel's decklist and tried to build an updated version that includes cards from Classic and implements the above thoughts:

Post-Classic Wall Deck
by Michael Nock

3 Superior Net Barriers
3 Political Coup
1 Security Net Optimization
4 Data Masons
2 Jerusalem City Grid
2 London City Grid
2 Aardvark
2 Bizarre Encryption Scheme
4 BBS Whispering Campaign
3 Management Shake-up
3 Off-site Backups
4 Data Wall 2.0
2 Galatea
2 Glacier
1 Razor Wire
1 Shotgun Wire
1 Caryatid
1 Wall of Ice
1 Toughonium Wall
2 Deadeye
1 Imperial Guard

This decklist is intended as a basic version. Let us think about some improvements. A wall deck has difficulties anyway in a competitive environment, so it should get the sleekest agenda mix possible to make up for it. Truth be told, it is counterproductive to include Superior Net Barriers on principle only because it fits the theme. The Corp will want to spend most bits on those big walls that have become affordable all of a sudden and not on the fast-advancement firepower necessary for Barriers. Still, should the Corp amass some surplus bits by scoring Political Coups or feel the need to end the game quickly, Management Shake-up does come in handy. So, keeping a Shake-up or three, we could throw out all Superior Net Barriers and substitute Marine Arcology, Corporate War or even Ice Transmutation for them if we want to stick closer to the core theme.

But before we start looking for power boosts, let us look at some permutations of this basic concept. Remaining true to the original idea, I have tried my own take on the Big Walls deck:

Post-Classic Wall Deck
by Jens Kreutzer

3 Superior Net Barriers
3 Corporate Downsizing
2 Marine Arcology
4 Data Masons
2 Jerusalem City Grid
2 London City Grid
2 Aardvark
2 Chicago Branch
4 Department of Truth Enhancement
4 Night Shift
3 Walking Wall
2 Mobile Barricade
1 Razor Wire
2 Reinforced Wall
2 Shotgun Wire
1 Wall of Ice
1 Toughonium Wall
1 Mazer
2 Deadeye
2 Baskerville

It is similar to Michael's deck, also making a point of using all three wall support cards Superior Net Barriers, Data Masons, and Jerusalem City Grid. However, in order to make good use of Classic's sleepy ice to combat noisy breakers, I thought it imperative to include a way of rearranging the ice because sleepy ice always wants a wall in front of it. Herman Revista takes up too many slots, so I used this opportunity to showcase the two mobile walls from Proteus, Walking Wall and Mobile Barricade. These can move in front of Deadeye or Baskerville in a pinch.

As my fast-advancement option, I selected Chicago Branch. With an installed Chicago that survives one Runner turn, Corporate Downsizing and Marine Arcology can be scored out of HQ in a turn. Both yield some much-needed bits, as do Department of Truth Enhancement and Night Shift. Since Night Shift replaces itself by letting the Corp draw a card when played, it thins down the deck in a way and makes it a little easier to draw into the gimmick cards like Aardvark, of which there are only two copies in most cases. As an alternative to Chicago Branch, you might want to give Vapor Ops a try.

The ice selection lets rarely-encountered walls like Reinforced Wall see some action, but this can be altered to taste. It is debatable whether including walls that do Net damage is a good idea; I tend to see them as a nice surprise that might catch a Runner unawares, but other players say that giving the Runner options is always a bad thing. If the Runner has enough cards in hand to weather the Net damage, he or she can choose whether to spend the bits to break the routine or not while (presumably) still getting the agenda. Two "end the run" subroutines, on the other hand, are either broken or else.

Neither Michael nor I uses a lot of Jerusalem City Grids anymore; the reason is that Jerusalem cannot share a datafort with London City Grid. In the end, I chose Mazer over Galatea/Caryatid because it costs 3 bits more to get one of these wall-spawned code gates rezzed than their counterparts Keeper/Mazer, which means that they do not even start to get cheaper before you have two cost reducers in play. With only 6 of them in the deck, I would rather not take any chances.

While sleepy ice is a nice vendetta against those pesky Pile Drivers, it still does not solve the problem that Pile Driver breaks walls so frustratingly cheaply. London City Grid is really a case in point here: It is really nice versus all noisy icebreakers except Pile Driver.

London City Grid (Upgrade - Region) – Rez cost: 3, Trash cost: 6

Runner must pay (1), in addition to the normal cost, to use each subroutine of a noisy icebreaker during runs on this fort.

Pile Driver (Program – Icebreaker – Noisy – 1 MU) – Cost: 1, Strength: 7

(3): Break up to four wall subroutines on a single piece of ice.
(1): +1 strength
Whenever you use Pile Driver's break-walls subroutine, lose a total of (3) from stealth cards.

Because Pile Driver already has a strength of 7, rare is the case when it uses any other subroutine than the first (though Toughonium Wall benefits nicely from the strength increase Data Masons and Jerusalem provide). This means that the only effect London City Grid will usually have on Pile Driver is raising the cost to break a wall from 3 to 4 bits. If there are not 4 walls on a London City Grid fort already, you might as well install another wall to make Pile Driver spend 3 more bits. Therefore, Jerusalem City Grid might actually be better versus Pile Driver than London City Grid, although you still must figure in the installation costs.

So how can the Corp really hurt Pile Driver? London City Grid wants Pile Driver to use its second subroutine more often. This means walls with high strength and brings Classic's Sterdroid to mind. Rock Is Strong plus London City Grid plus Sterdroid would cost Pile Driver 10 bits to break (as opposed to 4 bits without Sterdroid but with London City Grid) — not too bad as a result. But Sterdroid costs 3 bits to activate, so it is really only a net gain of 3 bits for the Corp, which is not a lot for jumping through so many hoops. What is more, Sterdroid is trashed after activation, so the Corp will not be able to pull this off very often. Critically, Sterdroid tops off at strength 10, which means that flagships Wall of Ice and Toughonium Wall won't even get the maximum mileage out of Sterdroid. Therefore, as things are, I don't feel that this upgrade is the way to go in a wall deck.

Are there any options left? A Runner with the handle whodack recently wrote the following comment on a BBS: "The only good thing against Pile Driver is Data Walls and walls with five subroutines … which only Sandstorm and Iceberg qualify for (kinda)." Data Walls would let us stray too far away from the "Big Walls" theme, but the other two walls are worth some thoughts.

Iceberg (Ice - Wall) – Rez cost: 4, Strength: 4

@ Do 1 Net damage.
@ (2): Iceberg has one "@ End the run" subroutine for the present encounter. Use this ability only when Runner encounters Iceberg.

Sandstorm (Ice - Wall) – Rez cost: 4, Strength: 4

Sandstorm has one "@ End the run" subroutine for every (2) you pay, above the rez cost, when you rez it.

Iceberg must be paid for each time it is encountered, so paying 10 bits (or 8 if you count the Net damage subroutine) to make Pile Driver spend 3 more bits is out of the question. That leaves us with Sandstorm. To give it five subroutines, the Corp must pay 10 bits as well, but if the Runner runs that fort twice, the Corp starts to come out ahead in the bit race as it is 6 bits each time for Pile Driver. Mind you, all of this does not figure in the rez cost of 4 that must still be paid — paid hopefully by Data Masons or Jerusalem if this plan is supposed to get anywhere economically.

A nice match for Sandstorm is an underused agenda: Data Fort Reclamation. You get ten bits to spend on a new datafort, and these can be used to pay for Sandstorm's extra-subroutines ability. With two Data Masons in play, Data Fort Reclamation lets you rez a monster Sandstorm for free! If the Corp tops it off with an Ice Transmutation thereafter, Pile Driver would have to face ten subroutines and spend 9 bits a pop (while other wallbreakers would be in the same ballpark). Note that this deck has 50 cards.

Anti-Pile Driver Wall Deck With Sandstorm
by Jens Kreutzer

4 Data Fort Reclamation
4 Ice Transmutation
6 Data Masons
3 London City Grid
2 Aardvark
4 Bizarre Encryption Scheme
2 Management Shake-Up
6 BBS Whispering Campaign
4 Data Wall 2.0
6 Sandstorm
1 Toughonium Wall
4 Deadeye
2 Imperial Guard
2 Quandary

Well, coming to a close: What is the verdict on big walls as a deck idea? Unless your metagame has the majority of Runners playing with Worms and Rush Hour/All-hands/Library Search, I would stay away from this concept in a competitive environment. From the three ice types code gates, walls, and sentries, walls probably are the weakest as a basis for a deck. Still, since there are a number of support cards, it is definitely a fun decktype to try out in a casual environment. Just hope you don't have to face Pile Driver all that often!

After all of this desperation and resignation because of Pile Driver, this article should finish on a more light-hearted note. One more card that supports walls has not been mentioned so far: Proteus's Minotaur.

Minotaur (Ice – Sentry) – Rez cost: 6, Strength: 4

For each rezzed code gate or wall installed outside Minotaur, Minotaur has one "@ End the run" subroutine.

This is not a "pure" walls card since it supports code gates as well (and arguably better). Is it worthwhile to include it in a wall deck regardless? Minotaur is comparable to PI in the 'Face:

PI in the 'Face (Ice – Sentry) – Rez cost: 5, Strength: 3

@ End the run.

Minotaur has a rez cost of 6 (one more than PI in the 'Face), but its strength is one point higher, too. So if we assume that Minotaur gets one subroutine, it is not more expensive than PI in the 'Face, getting better as soon as there are two walls outside of it. In a wall deck, that is a pretty good deal, as we can assume that it is feasible to install Minotaur with at least one wall to support it. That means that it is all right to include Minotaur in about any wall deck. Of course, to make Minotaur really shine, the Corp wants lots of ice outside of it. To pull this off, the Corp player would need cheap ice and some infrastructure along the lines of Chester Mix to enable a truly big data fort. All of this points into the direction of a code gate deck — preferably one with payback ice. The step to Encoder, Inc. and the Nasty Code Gate deck is a small one.

A deck that uses Minotaur to its full potential and stays true to the "big walls" theme of this article won't work. Maybe Snowbank and some other cheaper walls that rez for free with a couple of Data Masons could pull it off, but I do not want to stray too far from the "Great Wall" topic. Still, here is a theme deck for your enjoyment that portrays lots of walls forming the labyrinth in which the Minotaur dwells. Bring on ancient Greece!

Con-Crete Walls (Minotaur Theme Deck)
by Jens Kreutzer

4 Marine Arcology
5 Political Coup
4 Data Masons
3 Trojan Horse
3 Scorched Earth
1 Siren
1 Chimera
1 New Blood
4 BBS Whispering Campaign
6 Minotaur
1 Cerberus
4 Data Wall
4 Crystal Wall
1 Galatea
1 Caryatid
1 Nerve Labyrinth
1 Mazer

I chose a mixture of walls that do not look too futuristic to go with the theme. The agendas reflect the Mediterranean Sea and the political decision of Athens to send tribute to the island of Crete (including human food for the Minotaur, i. e. new blood!). For reasons of flavor, Trojan Horse is a must-include, so this deck needs a way to make use of tags, which I chose to be Scorched Earth (as Troy was burnt and razed to the ground). As for the rest: well, Siren, Chimera and Cerberus aren't a perfect fit strategically, but they just had to show up as prominent members of the ancient Greek bestiary. They might be good for a nice surpise, though. Data Masons and BBS Whispering Campaign, on the other hand, do not fit the flavor theme that well, but they are necessary for the "walls" part and plain old bits to pay for it all, respectively. Perhaps you can think of the Masons as Daedalus and Icarus (who built the labyrinth), and the Campaign might be Ariadne whispering into Theseus's ears how to survive the labyrinth.