How has everyone updated their Gabe decks after the release of Humanity’s Shadow? My current build is:
Total Cards: (45)
Event (26)
Account Siphon x3
Emergency Shutdown x3
Forged Activation Orders x2
Inside Job x3
Special Order x3
Stimhack x1 ■
Sure Gamble x3
The Maker’s Eye x2 ■■
Quality Time x3 ■
Easy Mark x3
Hardware (5)
Desperado x3
Plascrete Carapace x2
Program (11)
Corroder x3 ■■
Crypsis x2
Femme Fatale x2
Sneakdoor Beta x3
Yog.0 x1 ■
Resource (3)
Armitage Codebusting x3
My build is heavily influenced by [this BGG thread][1] and other comments by Jopejope and Alex (among others). My thoughts on a few cards and their place in a Gabe deck:
• Quality Time: This card is incredible! The amount of clicks I use to draw cards has gone way down, which means more running and more money.
• Easy Mark: This is my “supplemental income card”. Sure, it lacks the punch of Kati Jones, or the annoyance of Compromised Employee, but it is a fine third or fourth click after drawing five cards. Having Easy Mark enables turns of “Run HQ, Quality Time, Easy Mark, other economy card. I’ll discard a redundant Sneakdoor and pass the turn with 5 good cards and a bunch of money”. Your abilty to install Corroder or Sneakdoor and make runs the Corporation thought you couldn’t afford makes the deck more “agile” and gives you an edge that Compromised Employee or Kati Jones do not.
o No Kati Jones: I love Kati, but being forced to worry about tags was to annoying.
o No Compromised Employee: I’ve never been impressed with this card. How often is it better than Easy Mark? How often is it better than Easy Mark if played after turn 3?
• Maker’s Eye x2: I like having access to this card, but am usually interested in playing it zero to one times per game. 2 copies plus the Quality times makes that pretty reliable. My local meta got very Snare heavy for a moment (just before Humanity’s Shadow), which led me to go from 3 copies to 1. After the adjustments to fit Quality Time and a third Corroder I had the room and influence for 2 Eye’s; I haven’t missed the third copy.
• No Déjà Vu: It makes me a little sad not to be able to use the same Account Siphon a second time. I miss having Déjà Vu, but I think 2 credits, plus a card and a click, is too much for the effect in this deck. However, if I was in a meta with more Neural Katanas and Hokusai Grids I would try to fit a Déjà Vu back into the deck.
• Sneakdoor Beta x3: Now that I have Easy Mark to help pay for the install, I’m even happier to see Sneakdoor in my opening 5. You can Easy Mark, install Desparado, Install Sneakdoor, sneak through Archives and be down 1 credit from where you started. When you spread the Corp across all 3 centrals it becomes very likely that they won’t have enough hard-ETR ICE to stop you everywhere. See the linked post for a good discussion of why Sneaks causes NO memory problems.
• Corroder x3: Read the jopejope post linked above and be convinced. 3 copies makes for a lot of openings like this; facecheck HQ and hit Ice Wall, facecheck R&D and make them spend more money, Install Corroder, Run HQ.
• Special Order x3: Three copies means you’ll often end the game with a Special Order in your hand. Great! You probably won that game, right? I’d rather have “too many” tutors than too many copies of Crypsis and Femme.
I’ve played this in a small tournament and a regional to a combined record of 5 wins and 3 losses. (Not very good, but neither am I) I feel like the only ways to lose are; lack of aggression, stupid mistakes, bad luck for you combined with good luck for the corporation. As long as you make them waste their clicks, credits and cards protecting ALL the servers, the corporation can never execute their game plan. After adding Quality Time and Easy Mark the deck becomes much more click-efficient; less clicks for cards and creds equals more clicks for smashing faces.
Future Proof will be here to shake up the metagame any minute, but I think it’s still fun and interesting to discuss how Humanity’s Shadow has changed the Gabe deck. Once Future Proof is released, I’m interested in trying a version of Gabe that is more resource heavy; Kati Jones, Mr. Li and Crash Space? We’ll see.
(some edits for clarity)
[1]: So Cal Regionals 1st place runner deck | Android: Netrunner