I have been running femme without scavenge and it’s been working fine with just Eureka!. I think putting in a scavenge is going to be better overall because it increases the chances you’ll get a discount on your rig and it makes femme more versatile.
I find my full rig setup coming together much, much faster with scavenge in the deck, as a 2 of right now, but I can always use more. For now I’m 2 tinkering 3 eureaka 2 scavenge. With the same influence spread. I’m a bit of a stimhack whore, giving consideration to -1 hostage +1 may +1 stimhack and cutting something.
Is anyone finding any matchups to be quite unfavorable for this build? I have constructed a next design deck that has been eating my g/f’s chaos theory deck alive, and it too relies on test run scavenge. Fast binary ice decks seem like they could, feasibly be an issue.
This is definitely true - Test-Run / Scavenge for a free breaker of the calibre of Femme/Torch is nothing to be sneezed at, and being able to re-target Femme is really powerful. It also helps to hide your full capability from the Corp, which is useful for surprise value. Last night my opponent and I were both at match point; he had a really taxing remote with Grim followed by a Tollbooth defending the winning agenda. I was flat broke from the previous turn’s runs and that remote costs $12 to get into normally. But I was able to use Oracle May for $2, Scavenge the Femme onto Tollbooth and Tinker Grim to be a Code Gate - which means I could access the remote for only $2 (I had BP from Grim), which gave me the win and my opponent never saw it coming.
It’s certainly tempting isn’t it? It’s nice to have extra run events as that helps against Enhanced Login Protocol (which will be popular in RP). The only problem with going this way is that the extra Oracle increases your chance of a misfire by a non-negligible amount and dropping the Hostage costs you $1 per Power Nap (could be as much as $9 over the course of the game).
Jinteki RP, but it’s still close. I could well be playing incorrectly as I’m still getting the feel of it. My trouble with it is that the ICE is very taxing just because of the number of subs on Tsurugi, Komainu and Pup, so you can rarely afford to run twice in a turn, especially if Login Protocol is costing you an extra click. Once Caprice and Ash hit the scoring remote you’ll never steal from there again, which means you’re reliant on multi-accessing the centrals. Legwork and Maker’s Eye are essential there, but I wasn’t getting much joy with Indexing because I couldn’t run enough to be able to capitalise. I think I can do slightly better versus “regular” RP builds by running without a hand and ignoring Komainu, but the guy I played last night had Snares (which are non-standard). A lot of versions only have the Fetal AI threat.
Supplementary question: do you trash Sundew / Mental Health Clinics vs. RP, or just let them have as much money as they like and out-economy them with events and efficient breakers?
I disagree about RP, but maybe it’s just my playstyle. When the problem of ASH + Caprice comes up I make it priority 1 to clear out the server. It’s just that important.
Playing Snare! in RP is something I’ve been doing for a while. Add in a fetal and you can actually flatline quite a few runners. Combos extremely well with komainu too, because even if it doesn’t kill them they will keep their hand size high increasing the cost for access. It’s a win/win.
To answer the supplementary question- I trash all asset economy from every faction. Pacing hits for me are pacing hits for the corp too, so it’s normally worth it, especially when you have an economic advantage.
Edit: Hardest match-up is tied with PE And NEH. NEH is bad for everyone, but this deck can multi-access early and really shit on it. PE is just hard to deal with.
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I might disagree slightly with DJ, but this applies more to my exile build than this one. I don’t trash econ assets, particularly if I have trashed 1 ash or can hit HQ often enough to be sure one isn’t in the pipe. If one makes it to the remote, then I trash the ash. If you remove the corp’s method of converting cash into victory, then if they have 75 credits, its irrelevant. They can only spend cash on ice, which is limited by how much they have installed. That said if ash is alone in a server yes I’d trash him, which can dip my money enough to create a scoring window, which is why I like stimhack. If you have that in hand, and they jam an agenda after you run to trash the ash in the server, stimhack recloses that scoring window, unexpectedly netting you an agenda.
To expand more…If they only have tollbooth, tsurugi and eli on the remote, that only matters up to 8+6+3. After that, the cash doesn’t matter. Also, don’t forget against RP that taking damage reduces the credit tax. The real bitch with that is that this deck suffers from that my exile deck doesn’t, is that losing your levy’s can pretty much kill you, so losing your hand with your levy’s or 1 levy is not an option. Hopefully that is clear, I have difficulty articulating this process in text.
I absolutely agree that it’s super important, but it’s just insanely expensive to do so. The server can cost $10+ to break into, before factoring in the pre-requisitie run on a central which costs 2 clicks (Enhanced Login Protocol) and whatever else you have to spend on the outermost ICE. Once you’re in you have only a 1/3 chance to not bounce off Caprice and you then have to have enough left over to beat the Ash trace plus the $4 to trash the upgrades. Realistically it can cost upwards of $50 to clear that server. You could waste a whole deck’s worth of economy to no effect there, so I feel like it’s more profitable to ignore it at that point and try to win off centrals, no?
Maybe I wasn’t running aggressively enough in the early game to keep the Corp poor from the outset? It feels risky to facecheck early though. As I said, I’m still getting used to the play style.
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who thought about changing this deck into Exile 
So where has this ended up in terms of swaps? I’m trying the same list that DJ posted last with the Femme and the legworks. I swapped out the Net Celebrity for a Kraken and I swapped one test run for a Motivation. Not sure what to do about the Eureka, but they certainly feel really clunky to me. Maybe swap one or two for a Scavenge.
Where have you landed so far?
Exile is super cool, but this isn’t an exile deck! You want to install 3 programs, once each (usually from your stack), and maybe scavenge a femme twice. This deck doesn’t benefit hugely from an ID, it just needs to be green, but I think Chaos Theory is the best one.
This is the version I’ve “settled” on. It’s got everything the body needs
Mother may I? (40 cards)
Chaos Theory: Wunderkind
Event (35)
3 Diesel
3 Dirty Laundry
3 Eureka!
1 Hostage
2 Indexing
2 Legwork
2 Levy AR Lab Access
3 Lucky Find
3 Power Nap
2 Quality Time
1 Scavenge
3 Sure Gamble
3 Test Run
3 The Maker’s Eye
1 Tinkering
Resource (2)
2 Oracle May
Icebreaker (3)
1 Battering Ram
1 Femme Fatale
1 Torch
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I agree. You can find a way to use that last memory (Garotte version uses it, can add deep thought, chakana, something along those lines).
Also @absolution: Kraken is not a bad choice for an add, thought I don’t think I like motivation for this deck. Eureka! is clunky. Use it when you can to save a few bucks on the big ICE breakers, otherwise discard it.
I’ve been thinking about chakana over WitRD, but I’m not entirely sure it’s better. We do hit R&D a lot, and hard, a timewalk would be pretty nice every so often.
I don’t love motivation either, but if I can avoid missing 5 or so oracles each game, it suddenly starts to look decent. Might swap it for a scavenge instead…
Also, do you find yourself paying full price for your Torch/Femme most of the time? I’ve found that I tend to wait to Eureka those out, but maybe that’s not the idea at all. Maybe I should just pay full price and get them out ASAP (Eureka-ing the Battering Ram definitely doesn’t seem worth it).
I’ve had to pay full price for 1 or both of those in a game, and admit that it hurts. I still think it’s worth pitching the eureka! instead of holding it and hoping for the best. Maybe only hold 1 at a time?
I wouldn’t eureka battering ram: the math is the same for eureka -> battering ram and oracle may -> install battering ram.
Well the other advantage to motivation is that it helps the Eurekas out. Suddenly you can Eureka that Torch directly which also looks pretty good. I haven’t run the deck with it yet but it seems like it could be a really good one-of, so long as it doesn’t get trashed with Oracle.
I suspect for every time you find a motivation and it actually helps you, you have an instance of oracling it out for no gain.
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Eureka → Battering Ram is slightly better because you can still use your Oracle draw later that turn.
I like your style, sir. Way to think 3 dimensionally.
I’m playing more or less the same version of the deck as DJHedgehog, but I’ve changed out the Dirty Laundry’s for 2 Infiltration and an extra Tinkering. I find that the deck is rarely low on cash unless I absolutely had to hard-cast Torch or Femme, and it bounces back very quickly as it is. In my games I’ve appreciated the tricks that these swaps give me more than the extra money, and there’s nothing else in the deck that I can combo running with like Desperado, Security Testing, or Datasucker. Infiltrate can also be a lifesaver against Jinteki PE, which is already a difficult matchup for this deck.
That said, if I find that ELP is more and more common in my area, the DL might be a good way of saving clicks (which this deck is often short on with all its doubles).
Finally got to play this a bit tonight and I’ll reiterate what I said earlier. I love it. It’s far and away the most fun to play runner deck I’ve played. I was running it out of Exile solely because I don’t have a copy of Chaos Theory to hand. In four games I used the link one and the draw once - Chaos Theory is by far the better option.
A few picks I made. I went Femme and two Legwork and the bypass on Femme did enormous amounts of work all evening. Yes, Femme’g an Archer you’ve just planted into is harsh, but the benefits outweigh the risk in my mind. And Legwork is huge.
Because I was Exile I was running Kraken and extra copies of QT, Indexing, Scavenge and an Atman. Kraken and Atman were good in theory, but never got to use them in practice and imagine they will be pulled when I switch to CT.
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