I was initially confused why Cuj.0 seemed so weak compared to the other two Cerberus breakers. My suspicion is that being in the faction with various means to reduce ice strength (Datasucker, Ice Carver, Bishop, Scrubbed), the limited-use Sentry breaker cannot have too high a base strength.
Also we can imagine how ridiculously strong a higher strength Cuj.0 would be with the introduction of Forked. Eater is stronger for that purpose, yes. But Cuj.0 would allow you to access on the Forked run. I think the (upcoming) existence of Forked in-faction led to the conscious weakening of Cuj.0.
Ehh. I’m not crazy about Forked in Anarch, personally. Anarch already has parasite in-faction, and most sentries are STR 3 or less anyway, so I don’t think Cujo would see a ton of use in that regard.
I think the best use for Cujo is alongside mimic. Playing both will allow for an earlier sentry breaker (often the first breaker needed) as well as protecting against high-strength sentries, especially against glacier decks that just wiped viruses (datasucker).
Cuj.0 is great for breaking dangerous things, as long as you’ve a pile of money. It’s really expensive for getting through most things repeatedly, and eventually it goes away.
I’d really rather have Crypsis, which suffers from all the same problems but has the virtue of letting you add tokens.
I have a stimhack recursion E3 quetzal deck that utilizes ekomind, increased hand size and overmind, it does not run datasucker, so mimic would be unreliable, while having a place to usefully dump stimhack credits during a run, save overmind counters, and e3 to save additional counters is a huge boon, in faction. Full stimhack decks want pumpable breakers so they can’t ever be shut out. This is a situation where cujo works.
The point is, you need to play a completely non-traditional anarch, which might not be better than classic datasucker/virus overwhelm style that anarch is very, very good at.
The other place I’ve used it is in my dogDECK with dino, breaking archetect for 1 and 1 counter kicks ass, or when my console is spinal modem (currently testing both). It’s fairly good, but it is not my only killer in that deck (femme).
In shaper cujo is fine, since shaper has awful all-purpose sentry breaking (deus and sharpshooter are good, but rely on recursion and tutors, which could be better served elsewhere).
@MadmanMSU I would think Forked works better in combination with Parasite rather than replacing it. Plus it doesn’t cost MU. You can play Forked on a server the same turn your parasite finishes off a piece of ice, immediately creating a big hole in their defences. Double parasites are not as suited for creating that kind of pressure.
Aside from the install cost difference of 2 credits, for repeated breaks Crypsis will cost at least 1 click per ice + 1 credit per subroutine more. With the commonly played Sentries being multi-sub (Grim aside), that’s not an insignificant cost for repeated breaks (unless you’re playing Noise Cache then $$$). I would say neither are suited for repeated breaks and on a limited-use comparison Cuj.0 wins on cost.
personally I’m already plotting a sageasaurus-memstrips deck. as this build already has synergy with e3, I think cuj.o (plus forked, maybe?) might be just the thing for silver-bulleting those hard to deal with sentries with an in-faction card… I dunno.
As a flexible short-term solution to get troublesome sentries rezzed so you can parasite them? It’s great.
As a long-term solution to dealing with sentries? I’ll defer to the people who say it’s horrible.
I find it to be a support breaker, not a main breaker.
I think this is where it’s at. if you are running ICE destruction and de-rezzing (a very powerful combo right now I think) Cuj.0 is a passable in-faction way to cover your butt against the odd archer or komainu or what have you.
It would have been a good card if mimic wasn’t in faction. Even in criminal, if you felt like investing 7 creds and two memory into a garotte, you would still have the nagging question if a mimic wouldn’t have been better.
So now you have strong competition in faction and need to fit a particular deck to it, probably one which isn’t planning to break low strength sentries all that often.
Exactly - you provided the most convincing argument for why Cujo isn’t wallpaper that I’ve seen to date. Come to think of it, it was the only convincing argument I’ve heard so far
If I’m expecting to parasite everything and the three most commonly encountered Sentries in my life are Rototurret, Pup and Komainu, Cujo might make sense.
The question remains, though - what do you do vs. Architect? Do you just resign to hating life and/or accept a hard limit on the number of runs you can make on Architect’ed servers? Do you let the Cujo situation eat into your “parasite recursion” budget? Do you just break Architects with Crypsis? Or do you run Knights for this situation?
Seems to me like all of those solutions are pretty bad, though. Any others I’m missing?
But honestly, if you look at all the factions what do they have that’s so much better to deal with Architect? Faerie? Switchblade? Atman at 3? Dagger? When it comes to dealing with Architect, Mimic is the best across the board.
Long term my solutions to Architect are Darwin and Knight. Both of which are equally mediocre. However I can mitigate Architect’s effects through efficient runs and gameplay.
1st of all if I’m going to face check an Architect I try to do it early, that way the corp is more likely just installing ice, rather than recuring pieces I’ve already killed.
2nd if I have Cujo out, I will 100% use him to break the Architect on the rez. Cujo’s job if to protect me from the early sentries while I get set up, and setting up is a matter of time not runs. I mean most decks that are running Architect aren’t also running Tsurugi/Komainu. But even if they were, by the time the 3rd or 4th sentry is up, I should be able to insta-parasite.
3rd So now it’s late game, Cujo’s gone and I have to break Architect with Darwin/Knight/Crypsis, so I have to make those runs count. I get those Mediums/Nerve Agents out and access 2+ cards for those 4 credits. Also I’m installing less in the late game so Cyberfeeders can switch over to assisting the breakers.
4th The nice thing about Noise is that not only do I naturally pressure all 3 centrals, but I can fairly efficiently switch my pressure. So if I hit an early or mid Architect on R&D and have no way of dealing with it, I start focusing on HQ until a solution to R&D presents itself.
Finally I’d say that the only other thing about Architects is that they can’t protect remotes. So as long I can keep them from creating a scoring server, the agendas will simply just overflow in HQ. (Against NEH? eeeehhhh you do what you can)
Oh also if you see an Architect in R&D install whatever virus you possibly can to mill that sucker.
I think the corporate ice suite has become diverse enough (even if we’re only counting the good corporate ice) that any runner is going to have some unfavourable encounters. You do what you can to mitigate, but you’ll still probably be running that server 3/4 times tops.
The problem is that it trades away situational power for versatility. It’s just not good enough when it’s good, and it’s not good frequently enough.
I don’t think it’s a bad card, it just doesn’t fit anywhere. There are just better short term solutions to big problems, and better long term solutions for frequent problems.
I could see it being okay if you ran Crypsis and Cuj.0 as your icebreakers. But I’m just not entirely sure that set up is a good one to begin with.
Mimic, Parasite, D4vid, and Datasucker do everythink Cujo does cheaper and better. Cujo’s only saving grace over Mimic is that it can be pumped. The only time I would have liked Cujo in an anarch deck was early Spin cycle when HB FA/rush with 3 Grims and Supermodernism with 3 Archers were the best corp decks. D4vid solves all those problems.
Unless they release a str 4 Sentry version of Lotus Field, Cujo is garbage.
Sure, but what competitive anarch deck isn’t playing d4vid, Parasite, and Datasucker right now?
Mimic is the only questionable piece, and since Architect has been released with its no trash clause, it’s replaced Corroder in my noise and “anatomy” decks. I can’t see a use for cujo. I guess it does better face checking Komainu and tsurgi, but most anarch decks only run 1 killer as support. Not usually dropping this early.
Right, likely even @erinrockabitch’s deck uses at least Datasucker and Parasite, but makes good use of Cuj.0 to get targets for those Parasites.
We may have to wait a month to get other examples, but they may eschew Cuj.0 for the Eater for the same purpose. But if the deck is focused on early pressure they may want those early access that the Eater doesn’t give them.
Architect is the reason Cujo isn’t viable yet. It’s likely you’re going to have run through it in over half your matches. And Caduceus is also common in blue sun.
The 3 ice Cujo deals with well, Komainu, Tsurugi, and Lancelot, are priority parasite targets. If you smell archer, then d4vid usually hits the table before any damage is done.
