After some test games with Mr. Ed, I’m starting to warm up to him. The ability is definitely good, especially since the only real way to turn it off is to keep some ICE in HQ for him to hit with accesses.
Minor nitpick - Reina’s ability doesn’t cost you credits, it costs you successful runs that you can’t stop because you’re one credit short to rez the necessary ICE 
I played this list at my FLGS O&C release event :
Eddie SMASH
Edward Kim: Humanity’s Hammer (Order and Chaos)
Event (22)
3x Day Job (Order and Chaos)
2x Déjà Vu (Core Set)
3x I’ve Had Worse (Order and Chaos)
2x Inject (Up and Over)
2x Knifed (Order and Chaos)
3x Lucky Find (Double Time) ••••• •
2x Special Order (Core Set) ••••
3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
2x Wanton Destruction (Order and Chaos)
Hardware (10)
2x Archives Interface (Order and Chaos)
1x MemStrips (Order and Chaos)
2x Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead)
2x Prepaid VoicePAD (Second Thoughts)
1x The Personal Touch (Core Set) ••
2x Vigil (Order and Chaos)
Icebreaker (6)
2x Corroder (Core Set)
2x Mimic (Core Set)
2x Yog.0 (Core Set)
Program (11)
2x D4v1d (The Spaces Between)
2x Datasucker (Core Set)
2x Djinn (Core Set)
1x Medium (Core Set)
3x Parasite (Core Set)
1x Self-modifying Code (Creation and Control) •••
15 influence spent (max 15)
49 cards (min 45)
Note - this is an experimental deck, which will probably be trimmed down at some point. A second medium would not go amiss, for example.
The play style I built and piloted around reminds me of late Genesis Gabe, more than anything. There’s a few key differences though.
The first is how strong Kim’s R&D lock threat is, even without multi access. The effect that surprises most people is that if you trash operations, steal agendas, and trash some assets/upgrades, they’re going to lose a lot of chance to draw econ cards. That really only leaves them with ice, and not enough money for it (usually). It’s also hilarious to lock a Weyland player out of their scorch combo, or a pitch a tagstrom’s Midseason’s, or remove all the fast advance from the game. .
While most Gabe decks usually use credit denial with Account Siphon to maintain tempo, this deck instead attacks your cards directly with Kim’s ability, wanton destruction, ice destruction, and trash costs. Archives Interface lets you permanently remove dangerous (or 1x) cards, allowing you to further limit the corps options (or disable archives traps, which is nice).
I get the temptation to play more passively, but honestly the once/turn limitation led me towards a more aggressive plan.
Without Levy, isn’t it possible you don’t get full value out of PP? Especially with only 2
I mean, theoretically any event-econ driven deck (pre-paid or otherwise) could do with a Levy, the question is if you’re going to need it enough to spend influence. However, partially due to weaker Anarch draw, this deck is a bit more compact in terms of it’s econ events, using Day Job over Dirty Laundry, and the pre-paids help with all the non-econ events as well.
How often am I going to burn through my deck outside of the PE matchup? Especially in a tempo/early pressure focused deck, how often can I burn through my deck, and Levy, and still be in the game?
Thus far, it’s not been a problem.
My initial thoughts with Kim were to go the Eater route and use Cutlery. I felt his ability plus the ice destruction would be disruptive. I felt I needed a real rig as backup for Eater and that Eater would be my face-checking tool as well as cutlery delivery system.
I assumed I would be using Cutlery and Wanton Destruction. As such, I wanted a reliable rig and good econ, so my initial influence was spent on 3x SPecial Order, 3x Lucky Finds and 1x Gordian Blade. I then looked to complement my events with more event econ and Prepaids and thus was built the first
Dinner at Kim’s:
3x Day Job
3x Sure Gamble
3x Lucky Find ******
3x Dirty Laundry
2x Knifed
2x Spooned
2x Forked
3x Wanton Destruction
3x I’ve Had Worse
3x Special Order******
--------------------------27 events
3x Prepaid Voicepad
2x Spinalk Modem
----------------------------5 Hardware
1x Kati Jones
3x Same Old Thing
----------------------------4 Resources
3x Corroder
3x Eater
1x Crypsis
1x Gordian Blade
1x Mimic
----------------------------9 Programs - all Icebreakers
Discoveries:
All of the disruption events are strong. The cutlery helped remove htings like Eli, Tollbooth and Kumainu. The Special Orders + money often got me surprise value by getting into a remote that people felt I couldn’t reach because they thought I was a typical Eater/Keyhole deck.
That last part is significant.
I got way more mileage out of having legitimate accesses than running Eater. All Eater did was act like a Faerie for me - protecting me from nasty Sentries and sometimes delivering a Cutlery if I didn’t find my proper breakers.
The Prepaid Voicepads were very very MEH. I often drew them late enough where they were dead draws and even drawing them early required playing 3 events just to break even.
Having a lot of money and a fairly reliable list of breakers was solid. I triggered Ed’s ability often because I could access important servers.when I needed to. And I was able to deliver Wanton Destruction at very opportune times. Granted - I didn’t play against enough NEH to see how good the disruption was.
That said, I hated the Prepaids and often hated the Eaters because they weren’t cheap. I’d have rather had real breakers
The Dirty Laundries were also very subpar. With no Desperado and no Datasuckers, these just turned into very expensive conditional Easy Marks. The deck felt fat. Ed needed some salad in his diet of cutlery.
I also felt that the lone Kati Jones literally won me games by herself. That said,
Dinner at Kim’s with Salad:
3x Day Job
3x Sure Gamble
3x Lucky Find ******
2x Knifed
2x Spooned
2x Forked
3x Wanton Destruction
3x I’ve Had Worse
3x Special Order******
--------------------------24 events
2x Spinal Modem
----------------------------2 Hardware
3x Daily Casts
2x Kati Jones
3x Same Old Thing
----------------------------8 Resources
3x Corroder
2x Cuj.O
2x Crypsis
1x Gordian Blade
1x Mimic
2x Medium
---------------------------11 Programs
I removed the Dirty Laundries and replaced with Daily Casts - guaranteed money and more of it. The 3x Eaters and Prepaids also came out and I added another Kati, more breakers and the Medium for some multiaccess.
I won some games with just Medium and cutlery on R&D but those were not as prevalent and regular as I had hoped. I found that Cuj.O was awesome against Weyland (Archer, Grim) and good against Architect but awful against Kumainu and Tsurugi. I lsot a lot of games to RP decks packing a fair number of Enigmas and Quandaries when I simply could not find one of my Special Orders or a Gordian Blade.
The deck felt like it really needed more trashing. To be fair, in one game, all I saw was econ and the Spinal Modems vs RP in the first 17 cards. Literally no breakers or Special Orders. A scored Nissei really makes Wanton Destruction very bad. But it’s better than Legwork in that it often forces the use of the token at little cost.
I started thinking that Imp and Parasite would really complement Ed’s ability nicely. I would kill ALL of the ice I could. Now, when random access in HQ and R&D reveals ICE, Imp is scary because it’s complemented with cutlery, Parasites and hte Same Old Things bringing back more cutlery.
This version of Kim just trashes everything it can.
Trashy Kim Eats Sliders
2x Day Job
3x Sure Gamble
3x Lucky Find ******
2x Knifed
2x Spooned
2x Forked
3x Wanton Destruction
3x I’ve Had Worse
3x Special Order******
--------------------------23 events
2x Grimoire
----------------------------2 Hardware
3x Daily Casts
2x Kati Jones
2x Same Old Thing
----------------------------7 Resources
3x Corroder
3x Parasite
2x Crypsis
1x Gordian Blade
1x Mimic
3x Imp
---------------------------13 Programs (7 Breakers)
This version feels much more disruptive to me. A turn-1 Imp can go to town with Ed’s ability and really forces ICE to be rezzed. The Parasites really help to complement the Gordian Blade because cheap, dinky code gates are what usually slowed me down before. Another possibility is to find room for a Yog.0 but I liek the Parasites so far.
The Imps also perform a similar function to the Mediums from before but theyr’e cheaper and just more disruptive. They’re also very resilient to silly Crisium Grid which is in every deck these days. the only card affected by Crisium Grid in this deck is really Wanton Destruction and that is a good selling point.
I cut a Day Job because I found myself hating to draw into one when I was digging for other things. It’s a pretty bad feeling when you go “Click 1 - Draw … Day Job” and realize that you won’t see those credits for at least 7 more clicks.
The Special Orders are strong. Running 3 Corroders is also something I will not budge on. In fact, I wish I could make more room for a second Mimic. Crypsis is, sadly, your big-sentry breaker. It also acts as backup for the Gordian Blade. It’s not ideal but it’s there to deal with the big problems you may face and usually you will end up Spooning/Forking something with it as well, so the up-front cost isn’t as bad as it might look.
The deck makes a ton of money, too. I feel that’s important because there are so many nuisances to deal with that can only be handled with real money (San San, Ash, Caprice, Daily Business Show, etc).
Early game, you try to threaten multiple trashings with Imp and Ed’s ability. Midgame, develop your rig. Endgame, Parasite and Cutlery your way into getting lots of accesses for cheap. Wanton Destruction along the way to slow the corp down.
It is by no means a complete work of art. I may need to adjust the ratios some more. But I think this gives decent game against the meta. Between Ed’s ability and the 3x I’ve Had Worse, you have good game against flatlining decks.
I think Day Job is really at it’s best if you can draw and still have 4 clicks left. While there are a few clickgain cards that could help, it’s really non-click draw that makes the card good : MaxX, Earthrise, Vigil, Astrolabe, Chopbot, etc.
I am tending to agree with you. I even considered replacing the Day Jobs with Armitage Codebusting as a result.
Day job is for decks that are amping up/stim dealing, or (possibly) joshuing.
Continuing on that vein, due to the number of operations possible you will favor big wanton destructions runs and/or big r&d medium digs.
But in either case, if you are running big wanton runs, you are not using Kim’s special abilities.
Interesting aside.
Couldn’t valencia make an IJ/LarryFlynn HQI runless deck that could get 4 card acces to the corps hand every turn?
Toss in Talia to use another card thats never used?
What’s this card LarryFlynn everyone is talking about? #rhetoricalquestion
Cmon, put me in a deck Commander Shepard.
I’ve found that in practice, too. Many times the Wanton Destruction is taking an operation with it. If I freed up the Wanton slots, I could add some multiaccess which synergizes with Kim’s ability and the new include of Imps.
Maybe replacing the Lucky Finds with some other form of influence-free economy would allow the addition of some interfaces and make the deck completely not care about Crisium Grid.
Personally, I would look at a hivemind hosted on a progenitor. Feed it with a vbg, and run nerve agent /medium.
Hivemind will let allow you to accumulate tokens on both NA and med - and force the corp to defend both.
Two clicks (vbg) gets you gets you minimum of four card access to either hq or rdi, at the cost of a single run.
The big downside I can see with this plan is versus Trap heavy Jinteki decks (or supermodernism) where WD can be used as a Snare! defuse kit.
the identity should be modified to read “all natural”
I wish there were more than one “like” buttons. You made my day.
Data Folding is one of the worst econ cards in the game.
Like, you’re better off trying to get UWC going.
Lol no kidding that’s why its in my totally janky ed Kim deck that is running sage.
I basically ran the latest version of Hannibal’s deck at store champ yesterday in Humble, TX. My version had no mimic, no Kati jones; included 3 déjàvu and 2 djinn to help tutor for parasite, imp and my 1 copy of medium.
It went 1-2 on the day with 2losses against NBN NEH. The first loss was 7-4 and the 2nd loss was 7-6 after leading 6-0.
It needs 1 additional breaker and something to help with multi access. I think Kim may end up being tier 1.5 with current card pool but I hope that San San cycle gives him a few other tools to work with. I like the fact that the corp has to worry about any card in hand being trashed with an imp on board. K’s ability only fired a few times but the NEH guys were constantly worrying about losing combo cards. I enjoyed it enough that I will probably keep running him and tuning it rather than go back to boring Andysucker