Yea, Grails are nasty as they can absolutely wreck you if you are running while unable to break all 3 types of ICE. I’ve won games as Corp almost solely off of the runner first or second turn faceplanting into a grail ICE. Best one was a Gabe player who went turn one Faerie Siphon into a double Merlin (I was running Foundry) for the flatline.
Moral of the story, if you have reason to believe your opponent is running Grails, be very careful running early until you can be sure you can break whatever they rez.
I think we’re giving up other categories of cards in order to run tons of good to decent events, and we’re doing that simply to make may work. We’re assessing how much value May brings to the deck (a lot!), vs running a console, some resources and a bigger program suite. The very heart and soul of this deck is oracle may, the doubles are just a good way to let you utilize her draw + card ability.
Having run something similar I can see where you’re coming from. But May is really good. A better economic engine than Kati Jones. I think that it’s worth the pain. I think code siphon pushes this deck over the top. It’s only problem at the moment is getting breakers set up. If you add another 3 ‘breakers’ which also remove OM misses from the stack you are in a really strong spot!
I think this thread demonstrates 2 things:
Oracle May is a powerhouse if you build your deck for her.
Power Nap is a good card in the current card pool if you build your deck around it.
It also shows you can build 1 deck to satisfy both those requirements.
I’m looking forward to replacing Eureka! with a different Double if/when that becomes possible!
This was the most recent attempt to use power nap since it came out. I’ve been trying to make it work like crazy, even trying out wacky criminal double decks.
Oracle may, if you don’t consider that it can miss, is amazing. 2 credits and a card for a click is as efficient as it gets. These things came together because I wanted to do a short deck (CT) and I knew I wanted to go event heavy. The original deck had 2 hostage, and that’s when the light bulb for power nap lit up.
I totally agree about code siphon. It will take this from a relative high variance deck to a reliable monstrosity. As you mentioned, getting breakers is the weakness. Some times you get them fast, some times you have to dig for test run while drawing breaker after breaker that costs too much to play without eureka or scavenge (given the current meta).
I played this deck for a few days and loved it, but came to the same conclusion. Once we’ve got Code Siphon, then I’ll build it again and go back to it. It’s so much fun.
I agree Code Siphon will be good for this deck, but I’m not sure it will be as game-changing as you suggest. You need to land the run on R&D (presumably the most defended server) so it doesn’t help you fetch the first breaker - unless you’re willing to run blind hoping for a bioroid or something like Pup or Pop-up. And then it only fetches from the stack, not the heap, so it doesn’t help with May misfires. I think it will make its good starts more explosive by fetching a second breaker on the same turn as the first. But I’m not convinced it will reduce the variance enormously, if you don’t see Test Run in the first 20 cards or so you’re still badly on the back foot.
Why do you think code siphon is strong in this deck? It seems to me that getting into rd is very unlikely with no breakers out in the first place. So it’s only useful for breakers 2/3 at best. Even when you can get it in you don’t save much/any money. The tutor affect is of course very strong but this won’t help early game speed and may times your breakers will be in the heap and require a test run. I’m definitely looking forward to trying it just not sure it fits on the Oracle deck.
I think it will be very useful. In my experience, getting two breakers out isn’t a problem, but the third can take a while. That one usually relies on seeing all three test rubs, which might take your whole deck.
If you scout the ICE on R&D early, you can Test run the first breaker and use it to get into R&D. That gets you the second breaker with Code Siphon, which leaves two test runs (or a second Code Siphon) to fetch the last breaker.
Femme is the first breaker out nearly every time for me. So with just test run and code siphon you can get femme and ram out cheap and fast. Test run femme on HQ, run,scavenege to rnd, code siphon. Ram for 2 bucks! Femme scaveng makes it very exploitable.
About Code Siphon, good as it is, we can’t forget that it gives you that tag. As you have one resource that is totally key to your game you can’t float tags for even one turn with this deck, so Code Siphon effectively costs 2 clicks (without being a double to fuel power nap) and 2 creds. That said I think being less totally reliant on Test Run could be huge, so it’s a mixed bag. Will need much testing.
I agree that is by far this deck’s biggest problem. Had a game yesterday where I was locked out of the remote and R&D for about 8 turns while I dug to the bottom of the deck for the third Test Run.
Unrezzed ice is a problem as the deck has few tricks. Facechecking and blind run events are risky. I think the deck really needs an extra breaker. Crypsis kind of makes sense and it’s what I’d run in an Oracle Tenma deck but it doesn’t play all that nicely with Test Run. It would take some testing but how about a big infaction AI breaker that people tend to forget about, Alpha?
Just use crypsis and trash it… your solution costs 1 less than crypsis to break but can only break 1/3 of the ice installed, it then goes to the top of the deck for you to draw and stare at it until the game ends. Even overmind is reasonable…
Overmind could work too, probably up the Scavenges to 3 and it works nicely with CT.
The problem with just letting Crypsis trash is that you can’t afford a Test Run that doesn’t set up the rig. They’re far too valuable in this deck. But you often would have the extra click for the virus counter so it doesn’t rule it out as an option.
overmind can help you threaten early too, and worst case Ontario contribute 4 to the scavenge of itself for battering ram from hand/heap, or pay up to the big breakers if you find the dollars first. Overmind is pretty great with test run, using it, then redrawing it and reusing it next turn…if you can afford it.
Anything but alpha. I do think something can be done with alpha and omega, but I’m not convinced the card pool is there yet.
Omega is good, I wouldn’t say great, in Kit, as Omega plus any Fracter gets you into a 2 deep server. Maybe if you were doing some crazy parasite recursion play to keep any server from going more than 2 deep Alpha and Omega would be able to function as your main (only) breakers, but that’s a completely different deck idea.
Once you get one breaker out Tinkering means you can get through anything if you really have to. I’ve been going harder on the Tinkering because of Morning Star (an experiment that will almost certainly have to end come Blue Sun because 2x Curtain Wall is, well, curtains). But yes, I’ve been thinking about Overmind as an early game solution for a while (see earlier in the thread). Plus it’s a cheaper way to get through the first multi-subroutine destroyer when it rezs.
So finally got to play this deck last night. I lost to an HB Glacier deck that BER’d a Janus on their scoring server and PR’d a Wotan on R&D. I also wasn’t drawing into money too well, and learned drawing cards is better for money than clicking for credits and waiting for May.
I swapped a Legwork for Planned Assault but didn’t get to see it most of the time, and the one time I saw it I ended up pitching it. But I think one plan should be to rig up when the ice start building up, instead of just making runs. Test run into Eureka works as fine as Test Run Scavenge, so Scavenges could be saved for just installs off Overmind.
My list is running the Garrote option instead of Femme, and I feel I was hurting for that third Lucky Find, but then again didn’t run into many sentries either. TR Femme is very nice early or even targeted aggression, but facechecking anything else late game is riskier.
What is meant by unrezzed ICE is a problem? I find face-checking with this deck is a breeze. If you’re scared (and/or versus PE) you Test Run your Killer first (Garrote for me). Against HB you should never be too scared face-checking as long as it’s click one. Against some decks I will face-check early game with no breakers, like I would confidently with Noise. I don’t see unrezzed ICE as a problem for this CT build at all, but that’s just my experience.
By the way, I brought this to the local LGS for the bi-weekly ANR tournament night. Unfortunately, there was no tournament (as usual); only 1 other person showed up (the organizer). Hooray for a healthy local scene! I beat his RP deck. I will keep showing up to the tournament night until I get a play a damn tournament.
