Again. I remind you, these decks are not necessarily competitive. Will they work? Possibly. Will they win? Who knows. Will they make you think? I hope so.
Shapers in general have a lot of good tools. One of their Consoles is called the Toolbox and for good measure - with Tutors galore and recursion in the form of Cone Chips and Scavenge, this faction relies on being able to find the right tool for the job in their bag of tricks.
What if we take both of these to extremes?
Note - this deck list spawns partially from discussion on BGG about using Escher and the Strength for a full run breakers.
Note - this deck list spawns partially from discussion on BGG about using Escher and the Strength for a full run breakers.
From Chaos to Nothing
Chaos Theory: Wünderkind (Cyber Exodus)
Event (11)
3x Diesel (Core Set)
3x Escher (Creation and Control)
2x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
3x Test Run (Cyber Exodus)
Hardware (18)
3x Capstone (True Colors)
3x Clone Chip (Creation and Control)
3x Dinosaurus (Cyber Exodus)
3x R&D Interface (Future Proof)
3x Rabbit Hole (Core Set)
3x Replicator (Humanity's Shadow)
Resource (2)
2x Aesop's Pawnshop (Core Set)
Icebreaker (3)
1x Gordian Blade (Core Set) (Edit: Fixed from Snowball!)
1x Inti (Creation and Control)
1x Pipeline (Core Set)
Program (6)
3x Magnum Opus (Core Set)
3x Self-modifying Code (Creation and Control)
Deck built on NetrunnerDB.
The idea here is that between Replicator and Rabbit Hole you'll be able to thin your deck rapidly of cards, increasing your chance to be able to draw what you want. Add in Capstone to the mix (newly released in True Colors this month) and you have a card draw engine to support blowing through the rest of those cards. Replicator+Capstone means you'll be able to at least draw one card after both are on the table every time you install a piece of hardware. Time it right and you can dump your hand for an entire new one, drawing into whatever you are looking for - probably your economy and your tutors. Sure that's a lot of clicks, but what is reducing your deck to be able to get your key elements out (Escher, RD Interface, and hardware to feed to Aesop's)
Economy wise, there is a trick here... Escher is The Key to this deck. Run. Run often. Force them to rez ice. And once they have several ice rezzed and you can see several of their types, you can Self Modifying Code your way into whatever strength for a run gaining breaker you need to secure RD. Between Capstone and Replicator/Rabbit Hole shenanigans you should be able to draw into Escher quickly. And once their servers are arranged in neat, static orders of all Barriers or all Code Gates, those 'Gain strength for the entire run' breakers suddenly are a lot more efficient...
And Magnum Opus and Aesop's round out the Economic engine - after all, what good are 3 Replicators going to do you in play, or 3 Rabbit holes, or
The trick will be knowing when to install so you have Aesop's fodder later in the game, and toss for card draw. Hard thing to teach, but that is about awareness of the state of the game and the deck itself. Hopefully you will be able to thin this deck out quick and fast, making that less of an issue.
What else could it use?
Levy AR Access is probably not a bad idea in this deck. Same Ol Thing to recur those Eschers too. Its big weakness is Program destruction too, but the Clone Chips should help out with that. Money might be an issue, so swapping into Daily Casts+Aesops might not be a bad thing.Plus I didn't spend any Influence. Expose might be really useful to, less chance of running into Neural Katana's or Brain Damage ICE while face checking.
Will it work? Who knows. Does it make you think? I certainly hope so.
You won't have 3 Capstone in play. It's unique.
ReplyDeleteFair point! Fair point. It will still be good bait to itself to throw to draw cards however :)
ReplyDeleteThis looks like a cool concept worth pursuing! I don't think I've seen anyone pursue taking full advantage of '+strength for whole run' ice for a long time, and there are a lot of relevant new cards for the concept.
ReplyDeleteI would think Snowball might be better than Inti though. It's a straight up more efficient breaker against common barriers, and if you're re-arranging ice you can maximize its benefits easily.
good call. when Capstone hits OCTGN i plan on testing this out, and thata a good idea for a change. Im also thinking room for infilitrate and sattelite access would help
DeleteRegarding the Rabbit holes. What do you think of switching them to LLDS processors. It won't thin the deck as rabbit hole does, but the install cost is lower and you can sell of your Inti and clone chip it back in (preferably on dino), gaining a +3 strength boost for the rest of the turn.
ReplyDeleteThe Rabbit Holes would be the one that I would drop if anything for LLDS - however, LLDS is so situational for a single turn that unless I was running a deep hard Exile Recursion deck I probably wouldn't use it.
DeleteRabbit Hole in the above deck also lets you sneak in an Underworld Contacts if you want, for a little bit of drip economy that isn't usually there. Not sure what I would take out for it though, hah.
But hey! this blog is to make people think - try it out! It might be just what you need to win the game. :)
I love this discussion as I've had a deck idea based around deck thinning. The idea of only having 3 breakers was the impetus that drove me to create this version:
ReplyDeleteChallenge the Meta: Chaos (41 cards)
Chaos Theory: Wunderkind
Event (17)
3 Diesel
3 Escher
3 Indexing
3 Infiltration
2 Levy AR Lab Access
3 Sure Gamble
Hardware (8)
3 Clone Chip
3 Rabbit Hole
2 The Toolbox
Resource (12)
2 Aesop's Pawnshop
3 Armitage Codebusting
1 Crash Space
3 Daily Casts
3 Underworld Contact
Icebreaker (3)
1 Gordian Blade
1 Inti
1 Pipeline
Program (1)
1 Snitch
Now the first thing I did wrong, no tutors. That's a mistake I plan on correcting. Second, I made a meta call and went with link through Rabbit Hole. Since I had all that link, why not Underworld Contacts? From there additional resource economy, leading to thoughts of Aesop's to increase efficiency.
I've found that even though I generally was well off on credits (to the point that I plan on removing Sure Gamble) Pipeline and Inti are just too expensive for my tastes.So seeing as I have all that influence still available I'm going to play with better, more efficient breakers and find room for tutors.
So thanks for the inspiration, it lead to some fun games. No wins, but lessons were learned. Thanks!
Im glad it can lead you to inspiration! Hope that this leads you to more interesting decks and, with practice, more wins through surprising the corp!
Delete