@Nordrunner That’s interesting. What do you usually find yourself retrieving, or is that totally matchup dependent?
I’d be concerned cutting an SMC, just through my own personal experiences at Store Champs and Chronos. I was playing CT with a Torch/Corroder/Femme/Knight/Sharpshooter rig + events (Siphon, Indexing etc.) and a lot more draw than your deck does. I had 3 Test Runs and 2 SMCs but still didn’t find I had exactly what I wanted when I needed it, I even had 3 clone chips so I could re-use SMC if required (although their primiary purpose was to re-use Sharpshooter or guard Corroder from Shutdown). Admittedly, my income curve was more based on MO so it was slower than the big burst income you have through the PPVP-events combo.
Naively I would assume that my card throughput mine was superior to yours, but perhaps all those clicks on MO could be considered as clicks on Pro Contacts in this build, which is netting money and cards.
Any particular reason you’re avoiding Quality Time? If the premise is to make events cheaper then that would seem to synergise, although I suppose there’s a lot of competition for the free PPVP credits.
I always liked RR in this type of deck. Totally catches the opponent off guard. Great with Femme/Torch.
The Ram, in the current environ, is awesome. With tons of Eli and Thorns around, not to mention the Heimdall Bros., I think it’s an awesome call if you have the MUs (and you have plenty of those).
@Arkhon Thanks for the thoughts. dropping one SMC I think is ok since RR is is there as a method to cheat things into play. It doesn’t really matter what I get with RR, but I try to get torch or Femme is I can since it is worth the biggest discount. I was also playing with no SMC’s at one point, and totally agree that it does not work.
Proco suits this deck better. The issue with MO is the clicks it takes to use it. I have to draw so much in this deck, that by drawing and using opus I get bogged down fast. Proco gives me the money and the cards to fuel my econ/sniper events and keep moving on with the game. Consider ProCo with PPVP/Lucky Find for a sec. if I have 2 PPVP on the table and 0 creds, click 1 or 2 I ProCo into a lucky find, and my econ is totally back on track. QT I will play it, mess with 8-9 cards in hand, have no PPVP creds and be broke. With Opus I have to use 3-4 clicks just to recover to the same level of creds, and I haven’t seen anymore of my deck in the process.
Resource (1)
1x Same Old Thing (Creation and Control)
Icebreaker (6)
2x Atman (Creation and Control)
1x Deus X (A Study in Static)
1x Femme Fatale (Core Set) •
1x Inti (Creation and Control)
1x Sharpshooter (True Colors)
Program (5)
2x Datasucker (Core Set) ••
1x Parasite (Core Set) ••
2x Self-modifying Code (Creation and Control)
15 influence spent (max 15)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Honor and Profit
I don’t really like the idea of not playing an RDI anymore, same as I don’t like that I’ve to play 2 datasucker / 2 SMC to keep the deck at 45 cards. Any idea on what could I change to make it more efficient ?
But you can only cheat it into play if it’s already got as far as your heap, which usually means it’s been through your hand/play so you’ve already seen it. My point is that You might not see the card you want/need with only one copy plus 3 x TR and 1 x SMC.
I’m absolutely certain your build is robust against the slower decks that like to shore up their defences. I’m just wondering how well it races against fast NBN decks? I’m about to test this evening so I guess we’ll see!
@Arkhon I get your point totally, and no doubt less SMC could = a little less early game pressure. Think of it this way, you have 4 ways to go into your deck and get progs, and 4 ways to to install from your heap. Thats 4/40 or 1/10. By card 10, I should have an answer most games. That seems totally reasonable to me, and thats just for tutors. There is also the ability to draw and play the needed breaker too. Femme can be seen as an AI of sorts, and since there are two, I am now looking at a pretty good probability of getting a a femme or the specific breakers that can get me through an early game rush server. Does it always happen, no, will it with 3 SMC even? Most likely not. So yes, you are rolling the dice slightly, but all I need to do early game is usually somehow some way find 1 or 2 agendas. As you mentioned, the late game is pretty simple and am more less just picking good spots to finish them off. I just dropped the 2nd SMC so I am still testing it, Ill be interested to hear your experience.
I hope you enjoy the deck, I have had a lot of fun with it.
I have to second @Nordrunner’s experiences here - in pretty much every CT deck I’ve ever built, the 3rd SMC ended up being removed, because I rarely wanted to use more than 2 total, and drawing the third one was always sorta “mehhh, I’d like a real card instead, please”.
Especially if you’re running Clone Chips, CT’s extra memory unit allows tricks like Cloning an SMC to go fetch something else, without needing a console/memchip or trashing already installed stuff. But for that, you actually want to have a used SMC, not one in hand
@calimsha I have not tested a deck quite like that, so take this for what it’s worth. My first general question is if there is enough economy in that deck. In comparison to my CT deck, does datasucker, and kates install ability make up for not having another economy generator like ProCo?
I think i would definitely try to find room for either makers eye or RDI. Escher has always seemed like a card i can cut. When it works at full capacity there is no substitute for it, but I find most games it’s more or less awkward. The thing about RDI or TME is they will almost always be good every game. Another card that can probably be cut in a pinch, and this might get some backlash on this, but maybe 1 diesel or QT. Draw power is somewhat hard to pin down in a deck, especially when plays like SMC, test run, and clone chip are out there. If the deck is built right, I think it’s optimal to play the lowest amount of draw cards that can still help you reliably get your rig out. This can only be found out through testing, but if I were working on that deck, that is where I would start.
@Nordrunner : In the last iteration of this deck, i’ve cut both Quality time for a second LARLA that i’m gonna plan to use as a Quality time after I played either 1-2 clone chip, 2-3 indexing or more than 3-4 econ cards. This make enough space to put back the 3rd SMC. For what it’s worth, i’ve never found myself having harsh time with econ.
@PeekaySK and @Nordrunner: I may not be up to date with the most recent iteration of the deck, I thought the discussion was going from 2 to 1 SMC, not 3 to 2. I think I prefer 2 because it gives you more options earlier on and late game it facilitates retrieval of a lost breaker via Scavenge - you still pay full cost but I think the influence is better spent on sniping tools.
I played it this evening, but it wasn’t quick enough to beat my friend’s TWIY* FA and I lost three on the spin. The Kate version would have fared much better. The main problem was that he was able to rez small ICE for $1-2 that was gear-checking me to find a $9 breaker, so he was able to put immense strain on my economy and drawing capability. The Kate deck would have dialled up a Parasite and wandered straight in.
I also never had more than one PPVP in play, so the economy events weren’t significantly better than as-printed. Is this just unlucky? How many do you typically find yourself using?
The events I went with were 1 x Indexing, 1 x Maker’s Eye, 2 x Leg Work, 1 x Planned Assault, 1 x Stimhack, 1 x LARLA as well as 3 x all the economy events, TR and Scavenge.
By the late game I was in great shape to get in anywhere, but by then he already had a head start and just needed to find his last agenda - which is so much easier now with Fast Track. I was able to snipe them sometimes with Leg Work, but it was usually 50/50 whether I’d intercept it.
I didn’t feel like there was enough R&D pressure (admittedly I took out one Maker’s Eye compared to your build). The Indexing worked well the only time I got to play it, but I feel like I’d prefer RDI.
EDIT: Additionally, I didn’t get to use LARLA at all. The games were so fast I was nowhere near through my deck.
@arkhon good feedback. I’m not shocked a twiy deck beat you. Especially if your opponent is good with it. You will not win all these matchups, but the question would have is, how many games did you play, and did you have a reasonable chance to win, and how good was his draw? Sometimes matchups are irrelevant if the Corp gets an early astro chain. NBN will just win so often no matter the runner Id or deck.
All decks will have bad matchups, i feel like if I can win the majority of my good matchups and have a 50/50 or so in a bad matchup, I’m in a good position. I feel that way with this deck as I feel I win at least 50% of my twiy matchups in an estimated 20 games or so against worthy competition.
All that being said, a Kate deck to help you manage the early game easier might be the best way for you to go.
I do like playing CT (I went with her throughout Store Champ / Chronos season) and Sam is very experienced with TWIY*. The games were lost 7-4, 7-6, 7-5 and I was definitely in contention in all of them. In the final game I forced through a Leg Work access to see 3 out of 6 cards after he Fast-Tracked the final Breaking News he would need for game. But I missed it and he then showed me I also missed an NAPD Contract which would have won it for me outright. So that game was 50/50 as it played out but I definitely made a misplay earlier on which gifted him a Beale. If I’d been less tired I think I would have won it, so it’s not so bad. His deck is absurdly fast though, it’s ridiculous.
I probably didn’t play totally optimally, but I will get the hang of it over the coming days. I would like to squeeze in RDI though, what are your arguments for leaving it out?
Finally, @Nordrunner, what do you consider a “good” opening hand with this deck? What would be your ideal opening 5 and worst case scenario? I had a few decisions for mulligans and I’m not sure if I go them right.
@arkhon. I think you’d do fine with an RDI in there. No real argument against it other than it just takes additional time away from drawing and playing other cards. Like nerve agent, it’s a little clunky. I prefer the elegance of prepaid into event runs as it saves clicks and creds every game. Sometimes when the window to run R&D is tight, to be able to play RDI and afford to run it in the same turn is not always there. This is when the events are really valuable. For the record though, I started the deck with 3 RDI and it was also great.
As far as starting hand. An ideal hand would probably be ppvp, proco, event economy card, and test run scavenge. I will mull hands that have mostly event economy in it to look for proco and ppvp especially. It’s worth mentioning I think that proco works in this deck because the high octane event economy really softens the tempo hit you can get by playing it. Worse case is going to be no way to get breakers and no long term economy card (ppvp or proco). The nice thing about a 40 card deck the way it’s built is keep drawing and you will find what you need sooner than later… usually… :P.
Event (22)
3x Diesel (Core Set)
3x Dirty Laundry (Creation and Control)
3x Indexing (Future Proof)
1x Legwork (Honor and Profit) ••
1x Levy AR Lab Access (Creation and Control)
3x Lucky Find (Double Time) ••••• •
3x Quality Time (Humanity’s Shadow)
1x Scavenge (Creation and Control)
3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
1x Test Run (Cyber Exodus)
Hardware (9)
3x Clone Chip (Creation and Control)
1x CyberSolutions Mem Chip (Fear and Loathing)
2x Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead)
3x Prepaid VoicePAD (Second Thoughts)
Resource (2)
2x Same Old Thing (Creation and Control)
Icebreaker (5)
2x Atman (Creation and Control)
1x Deus X (A Study in Static)
1x Femme Fatale (Core Set) •
1x Inti (Creation and Control)
Program (7)
2x Datasucker (Core Set) ••
2x Parasite (Core Set) ••••
3x Self-modifying Code (Creation and Control)
I tinkered around with a Kraken/Parasite recursion variant which was really fun but it didn’t improve my winrate; it simply made my wins blowouts. This version cuts all excess fat in favor of nothing but essential cards.
My next project will probably be a Workshop version of Nords’s CT and extensive testing of Woman in the Red Dress coupled with Legworks (or HQI with Workshop)
Thanks for the list. Why CyberSolutions over Akamatsu? I wish I could fit Desperado into this but Lucky Find eats a lot of influence. No Sharpshooter seems like asking to be blown out by Archer.
I found in games I either won quickly and didn’t need any or I needed more than one MU. Cybersolutions just condensed the slots and I’m unlikely to draw it early, which is what I want. I typically don’t care for it, but this deck can easily afford it.
Archer isn’t really an issue outside of Corporate Troubleshooter. Atman at 5 or 6 is mandatory for Weyland anyways, so that’s always my first priority. An out of faction splash could be nasty, but recurring an Atman wouldn’t be the death of me.
A few more things about that list that jump out at me -
2x Same Old Thing - I feel silly for not thinking of this. Usually I play with just one, but sometimes I’d have it out and want to use it on Indexing or something except then maybe you won’t be able to LARLA later.
3x Self-modifying Code - Doesn’t this become a dead card pretty quickly with your MU situation? 1 Atman + 1 Datasucker + anything else and now they’re totally dead until you hit your 1 Cybersolutions. Lots of people seem to prefer 2 SMC but I generally prefer 3 just because it’s so great early even if it’s sometimes dead late. I guess maybe QT makes dead cards less of a concern as well.
1x Scavenge, 1x Test Run - I’m not sure what Scavenge really does here? You can buy stuff back with dead SMCs, but you probably won’t often have the memory to spare. You can pair it with Test Run to cheat out Femme, but they’re both 1ofs. It seems like a card that you pull out in some sticky situation where you really need something to happen ASAP even if getting it is going to be inefficient. What do you think of something like -1 Parasite -1 Scavenge +1 Test Run +1 Legwork?
Scavenge is great for reseting Femme too. Often your opponent will trash the Tollbooth you hit when you installed it, and switching it to the next one is really good…
@Lysander: Have you considered playing Grimoire instead of the second Parasite?
It does the same job as Cybersolutions but also synergises with the viruses.
That frees up a card slot for something in-faction (perhaps lose an Indexing and play 2 x Maker’s Eye)
