Its not limited to one per deck, if that’s what you’re asking and the spoilers are assumed to be correct.
YOLO then I guess. Kids are still saying that right?
Power nap is severely under-valued. In this deck, it does not take long to become a free lucky find. After that, it becomes better. Eureka might be a pile of shit (no contesting that), but it works in this build.
Cronos Project doesn’t completely hose this deck, but it does a good job of hosing this deck. I don’t think the card alone will be enough, but PE scoring this means pretty much GG. If they’re doing program destruction and Chronos Project it’s bad times too. If you’re going to run CT after it drops at least your opponent has to: Draw a Chronos Project, play and advance it out. I think someone said “YOLO”. Probably a correct statement.
Garotte provides cost efficiency over time. Femme provides immediate efficiency and only sometimes costs you enough where it’s worse than Garotte. I’d try out the femme and let me know what you think. It’s worth a 1-2 scavenge with Femme.
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I could see making the leap to get the influence back, but I’m not sure exactly what I’d rather have, especially if I’m dropping scavenge too. I’ll tinker with it some and see what I come up with.
I ran the numbers further up (post 18 in this thread). Femme is cheaper than Garrote for the first “nasty” sentry you need to get through; they break even if there’s two and Garotte only takes over if they have three such ICE - whiich is a pretty unlikely fringe case in the current environment. Throw in that Femme is a skeleton key for early access on any single ICE server (at a cost of only $3 and well disguised with Test Run) and you have a pretty powerful weapon in your arsenal. The fact that she can deal with Tollbooth and saves influence is just gravy.
Caduceus costs you $1 more each time you run through it compared to Garrote but big deal, this deck is made of money. On the flip side, Archer and Tollbooth cost you $4 more every time if you’re playing Garrote, and I see a lot more of those around than I do Caduceus. If you’re that worried about mid-range ICE then include 1 x Atman to cover all bases, that gives you an out against massive strength ICE as well (I would especially do that if I played Morningstar over Battering Ram, which is an option for sure).
While I agree that Femme would be better, your analysis isn’t being very fair. For example, you can’t only count Femme on the “nasty” sentry and also count it on other big things to break, like Tollbooth or Wotan, etc. Furthermore, it’s fairly likely that you won’t be able to actually Femme the most efficient target in a timely manner, or at the very least you hae to run into that nasty Sentry and break with Femme the first time.
So, if there is an Archer present, you will spend 8 to break with Garrote always. With Femme, you will spend 12 the first time, then spend a click and a card (which you might not have) and will then be able to break for 4 every time after that.
Bottom line, trying to math this one out doesn’t tell the whole picture. How the game is played will help tell the whole story, and also gives insight into why there are those that choose Garrote.
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This. Often you need your killer out just to protect your other breakers. Also for hard casting, it’s 2 less, nothing to sneeze at. You’re giving up a lot of utility of femme slapping it on whatever ice. And then using another card, if you have it, to move it around.
The real plus is the extra legwork, at the cost of having scavenges. My way adds 2 indexing…which I’m much more happy to have. it’s not clear cut, but i much prefer garrote.
Yeah, I think the assumption that you will always be able to target the Femme optimally is optimistic. This is your only sentry breaker after all - two big (by which I mean str 5 or higher) sentries on the board and Femme starts to get expensive pretty quickly.
As an aside, I absolutely love the deck. I’m really happy to see Oracle May in a deck that actually works well.
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This decklist up on NDB? Would like to try it myself on OCTGN.
one issue with this analysis is that it assumes you know what unrezzed ICE is. now if femme were any other type of breaker this wouldn’t matter as facechecking into non sentries to determine the type it is is very easy. However in the case of the 2 sentry’s that are feared, (grim and Rototurret) they aren’t rezzed until AFTER you installed a breaker already and then run into them. Grim is the main issue here. For instance imagine this boardstate
HQ ICE Wall of static
R&D ICE Eli 1.0
You test run for morning star, then legwork HQ and run on r&d.
the next turn the following boardstate arises
HQ ICE wall of static+unknown
R&D ICE Eli 1.0 + unknown
the issue is now, if the HQ/R&D ICE is a grim or rototurret then you lose your morning star since that would be a disaster you hunt for femme fatale, now my question is this, how do you know where to place the femme token so that it is on the Grim you fear? This is my one issue with femme. You don’t know where to place your token if femme is your only sentry breaker. meaning that grim kind of wreaks you if you rely on femme as the sentry breaker and you get unlucky with what you put the femme token on. . femme does have useful applications elsewhere but I don’t like how bad it is against Grim relative to garrote, it does do very well against tolllbooth though, and beats every non-grim playable sentry ICE as well as garrote, but the whole grim problem leaves a sour spot
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I don’t really think the Grim problem is that severe, tbh. Grim breaks for 7 for a mis-placed Femme, whereas it’ll still cost 4 on the Garrotte. If you’re particularly concerned, get the extra 3 credits before you run it. Compound this with there being a 50/50 chance that the 3 credit difference can swing in your favour as well, and it’s really not that problematic after all.
I’ve always thought of Femme as Shaper’s own little “Inside Job”. We play Femme better than crims do anyways ;-). Shame not to include such a potentially game changing trick into our decks!
Why would you not run 3 copies of Oracle May if she’s the core of the deck?
Hostage is a double, finds oracle, counts as 3rd copy of her, and doubles (sorry) to find WitRD, and reduces dead draws/bad oracle…ing. Honestly hostage with 1 target was weak IMO, which is why I added woman. Though, 2 hostage makes powernap considerably better. I think the utility of WitRD makes up for the 1 less double in the deck.
I agree that hostage for 1 target is weak. 2x hostage, 1x oracle and 1x woman in the red dress sounds best to me. My problem is that after playing 2 legwork I don’t know if I can go back. The multi access cards are just amazing in this deck, so it’s hard to justify hostage over legwork.
As it stands, I run 1 hostage and 2 oracle may. WITRD is on standby for the next tournament, just not sure how to implement it. Only gaining 1influence dropping a may doesnt get me more than a stimhack, and I don’t like that card for this deck.
Much of the time Hostage would be an Oracle May that costs 1 credit 1 click and 1 influence more. Three Oracle May AND Hostage might even make sense considering how critical she is.
I think you also have to acknowledge that this is one of the most inconsistent decks out there for assembling a full rig. You’ve only got Test Run to search out the three breakers, if you’re lucky you can sneak one by Oracle May with a normal draw. If you need to draw say 3 out of 5 cards potential cards in the deck for a full rig, there’s only a 50% chance of accomplishing that in your first 20 cards. I’ve seen this deck dominate when it has Oracle May and Test Run in the opening hand but then the next game it was just drawing and discarding trying to find an answer to Ice Wall.
A copy or two of Special Order might be the solution.
Before you get a full rig Femme really outshines Garotte allowing you to apply early pressure. If you’re forced to use your first Test Run on a Torch to deal with Quandary you open yourself up to something like Rototurret. I’d consider two copies of Femme, perhaps even Crypsis.
This is what I’ve been running. Currents are big enough in the meta for me (encryption protocol is really really good) to run net celeb. I may try to work in scavenging and woman in the red dress, but really it’s dynamite in its current form. I’m 10/2 last 12 tournament games with this deck. NEh has a chance, but if you have a good hand it’s makers eye and legwork all day long.
I appreciate what you’re saying, and I can see what you’re thinking as far as the rig goes. If you haven’t played this deck please do and see if you feel the same way. The point being that the card draw facilitates either the breakers or the test runs, and economy to do whatever. The games for me have never (30-35 games played with the deck, 12 in a tournament setting) been about getting a rig, it’s been about seeing the multiaccess to lock out a score from fast advance.
This. I appreciate the argument that you can’t always place Femme optimally at first, but with the speed of the deck you get a lot of chances to re-target her with Scavenge. The other thing to bear in mind is that a lot of times you get to Test Run her first, see the ICE she’s targeting and then decide if you want to Scavenge her or put her back to play with Eureka (or at full cost).
I think a few of you are really over-selling how much more expensive things are compared to Garrote. Femme costs $1 more per point of strength over 2, but there really aren’t a whole lot of commonly played ICE in that category. There are some, sure enough, but most of them you won’t see together in the same deck so you will rarely be in a position in which Garrote is the mathematically superior option (once Femme is targeted appropriately). What you lose against a small group of rarely seen sentries you make up for in being able to walk through Tollbooth - which is in seemingly every deck right now. If you’re truly that worried then play Atman for redundancy, but in my opinion Femme is worth it purely for the ability to squeeze in an extra Legwork - I would gladly pay the extra credits (in this deck) to break sentries less efficiently for the utility of having an extra copy of that card.
What about :
- 1 Tinkering
- 1 Dirty Laundry
+1 WitRD
+1 Scavenge
?