The brunt of my “vs. NEH” testing will take place on thursday (so far I’ve mostly played against “insane ICE” decks, mostly out of HB and Weyland), we’ll see whether any adjustments are needed. My guess is that the matchup might require some judicious mulliganing (namely, for a QT), but should be fine otherwise. Using Parasite as your Quandary breaker and D4v1d to walk through Wraparounds is a totally legit way of delaying the Yog and Morning Star, btw Mimic is the only breaker you really need fast in that matchup, because you know, Architect is a goddamn pain in the ass.
In the words of my opponent, the honorable @ryanbantwins, “Can’t do anything against those breakers”… but in reality, it was the MemStrips putting the squeeze on him. Without being able to keep two Suckers, a Medium and a Nerve Agent in play, I’d be nowhere near as dangerous (and would probably end up locked out of the game due to all those Wormholes).
Because if you find your Djinn late and somehow already have your stuff out, but need the memory again, then do you uninstall all those viruses with existing counters? Also Djinn is still taking up 1 of your memory, strips will add to the total.
Short version: because Djinn has to hit the table before anything else, in order to provide a benefit comparable to MemStrips. And that means tempo issues, economy issues, timing issues and increased vulnerability to destroyers.
As it is now, I won’t hesitate to slap down a Medium or a Nerve Agent with my opening credits, then run around a bit, putting pressure on. Worst case scenario, my Medium is useless for a while… but since I’m running Lucky Find, I can bounce back from 2 credits easily, and since I’m running MemStrips, I’m reasonably confident that Medium won’t need to get trashed just because I want to actually Parasite something.
If I had a Djinn, I’d have to spend 5 instead of 3, it would cost me another action, and if I hit a Rototurret I’m doubly sad.
Trust me and give the Strips a try, you won’t be disappointed. My upload is way too horrible to be able to stream, but if you like, I can record some of my games and upload them to Youtube, to give you an idea of what the Strips do for me that Djinn could never do.
I find that the combination of Quality Time, I’ve Had Worse, Lucky Find and Sure Gamble/Armitage tends to get me there just fine
p.s. and to the previous Djinn vs. Strips debate - Djinn’s pseudo-memory can’t be used for Parasite. That’s a huge downside by itself, and was easily one of the main reasons why I didn’t run Morning Star before.
Maybe I need to give it a crack with I’ve Had Worse and Lucky Find. But I’ve played Anarch big-rig before, and I’ve generally found it a frustrating experience against anything but slow glaciers that can’t rush due to porous ice.
I suspect Ed’s ability also plays a large part. If they leave a central open to rush agendas, they risk losing critical Operations and it lets you dig better.
I did some thinking, and I actually kind of like the econ package now. You run very efficiently with with breakers, and I’m beginning to think drip economy is the way to go. Daily Casts is possibly my favorite econ card in the deck, as it lets you gain money with which to apply pressure without needing to spend clicks, which is fantastic for Kim. Maybe just don’t run 3 Day Jobs?
I think I’m going to try 2x Vigil and 1x Memstrips. I really only need to see one or the other, and I think under most circumstances, I want to see Vigil more, if only to have the possibility of having Sneakdoor out alongside my breaker suite.
SanSan was the card I used Imp on most, outside of a game-winning Medium dig where I trashed an ice to see another card. I feel like, while it’s a nice card to have out, it’s not essential for the operation of the deck. It also loses a bit of value if we are switching to a Vigil/Memstrips package for memory.
I’m still working on an updated decklist, I’ll post here when I come up with something.
I got a tweak on my ‘Gravedigger and Cutlery’ style of Ed Kim
I’m cleaning up the memory issues and making the economy more high impact, less ‘great over time’
Its at 46, but all the things are at values I don’t want to cut down on. The 3rd Kati is the easiest cut, but I want to see it as fast as I can. I want my economy rolling asap since Crypsis is likely to be my early breaker.
gonna play this tonight at my local casual meetup. the old list mostly worked well though. threatened a LOT of mill wins, but injected my breakers away VERY often and i wanna see if this cleans that up do i dont need to dig for deja vus.
easily would work as whizzard for remote assault… or reina to slow them down a lot. I am doing kim to enhance the HQ assault and give me 1 clean target to cutlery to hell and back. and if hq is open, killing operations is aces. thats the logic.
2x quality time
2x lucky find
3x forked
3x knifed
3x spooned
3x i had worse
2x deja vu
3x sure gamble
2x stimhack
multiple medium digs in a turn with showing off seems pretty insane. see a few, trash an operation. show off. head back in, see a few new cards due to the trashed op slot and new counters.
if you had just one counter to start, thats a total of 8 accessed cards in three clicks.
@Bahram: There’s no excuse for not having at least 1 medium in this list. I don’t think you want all that cutlery either. Same old thing is more flexible. -1 F/K/S +3 SOT I think. You forgot your datasuckers! Parasite is often better than Forked, sentries typically have pretty low strength.
Edward Kim without multi access is simply wrong. You aren’t capitalising on his ability except for the occasional free Imp shot.
I think you’re right that this list can work out of Reina. I guess it could work out of Whizzard, to get cheap extra Gravedigging using your recurring credits.
You know that Grimoire pays for Sneakdoor’s memory, right? You can also host it on Djinn. I’m actually thinking that Grimoire is the correct memory enhance with maybe Memstrips as backup. Vigil has one fewer MU.
Our meta here in Wisconsin plays heavily with Crisium Grid so the Imps have been useful in clearing the way for Medium and Nerve Agent at times. I doubt I would go fewer than 2 Imps ever. I cut Crypsis and one Imp to make room for 2x D4vid. Next, I need to find room for hopefully 2 Knights. Constellation ICE and Grim see some play here.
there is totally an excuse for no multi access. its still proof of concept. i need to see how strong gravedigger is at its maximum, then i can dial back and see where i wanna go.
1 medium and 1 nerve agent would go in almost for sure.
datasucker is not in by choice. 1 because of memory, 1 because i dont wanna make a purge look any better than its going to already. parasite is the same issue of low memory. its a 5 mem rig, djinn (hosting all 3 grave) and all the breakers installed at some point.
maybe im over estimating, but im trying it bare bones and so far ‘to the point’ that i can see if doing gravedigger/cutlery is worth pursuing.
you make a point about SOT though. i didnt really consider that, i just put my mind for deja vu… i’ll think about that.
and why does ed kim need multiaccess. i agree it helps a lot, especially considering how his ability works… but im trying from the angle that his ability is a free pseudo-multi access in itself. and i can use more card slots on other kinds of aggression.
i think the real sweet spot will be toned down and more well rounded. less cutlery, less wanting 3x grave in play, more regular cards.
but going all in to see how far it goes, and how well it does… why not right? people tried that with noise, and learned to dial it back… seems like a good way to tone it out.
I find it difficult to see using gravedigger without backing up your cutlery with parasites and/or imps. If you’re going to not include multi-access to increase the value on your runs why not include more trashing options to increase the value of your runs while supporting gravedigger? Hopefully it all works for you.
Certainly you can just drop one of those Kati’s and replace it with another money card. That way you have one less mid to late game dead draw and you still have 2 late-game econ options in the deck.
gravedigger cutlery alone in the old build… i would kill like 5 ice a game minimum… usually with 2 gravediggers on the board, so thats 10 mills… ignoring any assets and upgrades.
never used my parasites in the old build to kill anything
add more is easy to say… but what would you change to do it? its money, gravedigger, breakers, and cutlery with a lil card draw. there isnt a bulk of useless cards. i would love more, but its hard to figure whats the easy cut to get more.
Everyone needs multiaccess. Otherwise you just lose to Fast Advance, but aside from that Ed Kim wants to access an operation every single turn. You won’t, of course, but you want to maximise your chances. More than this, if you’re Kim, it’s slightly harder to R&D lock your opponent, because you can clear out the operation on top, and let them have the card that’s second on R&D. Dragar’s right, if the Corp is purging counters, then you’ve got another turn to make sure they’re thinking hard about doing it again.
Mimic is the only breaker you really need fast in that matchup, because you know, Architect is a goddamn pain in the ass.
