I have been playing Netrunner for over a year and have played many games both casually and competitive and have yet to play against this identity, while I have played it to success in a few different archetypes (toolbox, parasite recursion). When I consider his ability it seems good to get a passive card draw to recur a program off the heap and he synergizes well with some of the best shaper cards (Test Run, Scavenge and Clone Chip). He doesn’t have any influence penalty and even has one base link; so why has the meta passed him over? Is it just that Kate’s one credit per turn is THAT much better than drawing cards? I’ve always considered drawing cards to be a very powerful effect and just as beneficial to any credit gains an identity could offer.
A major problem with Exile compared to Kate is when his ability kicks in versus when hers kicks in.
Kate’s ability is active from turn one, and you can leverage the advantages she gives you on those first couple turns into assets that will benefit you through the entire game. It helps set up pressure on the corp from turn 1 forward.
Exile’s ability needs to be primed. It requires you get things into Heap, and then draw the tools to get those things out. Even if we said that his ability was equal to or better than Kate’s, which is arguable, the fact that it doesn’t reap its benefits until later in the game means that it isn’t as good, especially against corps who are playing an uptempo strategy.
That’s a great point and one that I have not considered. Although having played many games with Exile I can say that I can often use his ability earlier than mid to late game with aggressive drawing and then pitching programs into the heap.
Dirty Hands (example: Store Tournament winner Fort Wayne IN - Dirty Hands Exile · NetrunnerDB) is the only place for Exile at the moment. Even there it’s debatable whether he’s better than Kate. Until we get more good ways of triggering Exile’s ability, Kate will usually be better than him. Also - the Corp doesn’t know what to expect when they see Kate whereas Exile gives a lot away.
Yep, I’ve seen that build and to date, it’s the only Exile deck that I know of that has won any kind of tournament. I’m not trying to argue the point that Exile is better than Kate, I realize her ability is strong. Some thoughts on why Exile is also a strong choice: He gives you a benefit for recurring programs off the heap and is not limited to once per turn. He is the only Runner with a built in draw effect has no influence penalty and one base link. If you play the test run scavenge combo you get some passive draw and is even better if the program came off the heap. With all of those benefits why does this identity so seldom get played? Again I’m not saying he is better than Kate but he is probably the least played runner in my meta. (I don’t play on Octagon). Maybe it’s just my meta.
It’s not that he’s bad. It’s the faction, exile would probably be played more if he was an anarch.
Card draw is the easiest thing to find in shaper. You have diesel, quality time, professional contacts and astrolabe, all of which are good cards, so his effect is not something shapers can’t do well.
That being said, I’ll probably give him a try with the cerberus breakers since I’ll be reinstalling them a lot. (Warning, this will be a janky deck)
db0 has had quite a bit of success with his “Homeless Kasparov” deck. He won a store championship with it and has archived quite a few games of him playing it on his YouTube I highly recommend checking out the videos. It’s amazing to see that deck in action.
Recursion is one of my favorite mechanics as a player, and as a result I think Exile is awesome. I haven’t played him a ton, but I would love to see Exile become tier 1!
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Cool video, thats the first time I’ve seen that pawn combo. Once it got going it was really good.
I run a lot of Travis’s dirty hands exile, and I can say that there are times where I’m 100% sure exile is the right choice, and other times I’m so poor that I wish I had that 1 cr discount. Of the 14 games I played in the stimhack league I ran him I think 6 times and won 4 with him (I think).
Really the distinction is how fast the corp is pressing me to run, and my draw consistency. Ideally the deck wants to seed heap as much as possible and get what you need with the flexibility, making runs efficient (I’m sure you can see all of this)…so when you can get that going, exile is clearly the better choice. When you’re doing opus for money and run and never drawing, kate looks so much better for her discount. I agree with the thoughts herein that Exile is always overshadowed, or challenged by kate.
The only up and coming build I’ve seen that exile seems like a pretty good fit for is the cerberus breakers builds, and those are completely up in the air if they’ll be good.
Other candidates are LLDS flicker type builds, pawn-engine (overpawn and street chess), and atman-sucker with heavy femme scavenging/test running, and that isn’t even a thing really, so that tells you how effective Exile seems to be . For now he’s great for fun and small tournies IMO but not regionals+ level competitive.
Great write up. What do you think he needs to help differentiate him from Kate and thus see him played more? Do you think the printing of Chronos Project means that the designers are going to give us more recursion and possibly a console for Exile?
I think really the program suite just needs to expand to encourage more of a flexible rig like Dirty hands does. We have all the tools we’re going to likely get save for a sprinkling of 1-2 more cards over a long period of time that might interact with the heap. We have test run, scavenge, clone chip, retrieval run, and to a non-exile extent deja vu and same old thing. I think potentially 12 cards that use his ability should be enough to make the ID good right?
Events won’t be the fix, its the utility you get out of the events (program switching/summoning) that will drive it. Also, in a normal game with Dirty Hands I get about 8-12 uses out of his ability, how many times do you use kate’s ability? About that? If that? So its also not about number of times it triggers (if a card is worth 1 credit then they’re even). I can’t conceive of a console that would be specifically good for Exile except maybe like gain 1c when you install a card from anywhere but your grip or something.
It is possible stuff like cybsoft hardware that gives 1 credit during installs might also be a step in the right direction. If most of your expenses are program installs, this essentially gives you kate’s ability, offsetting your ID choice for additional card draw. That said, DH runs lots of hardware…
And finally on Chronos Project, fuck that shit, hate we did not need. Shaper collateral damage is what it is.
But hey, he has a link too, so thats good.
Edit: also, I’m currently testing 2 inject to save the click freelancing, find hardware/events and seed heap all at once.
I think the biggest problem with Exile is that almost all times that Exile fires, Kate would also fire. While Kate’s 1c is not quite as good as Exile’s 1 card, she also fires all the times you install programs or hardware the old fashioned way as well. Even if you spend inf on retreval run you have a maximum of 12 triggers per cycle through your deck and you have some setup time. The street chess style builds are probably the best right now.
Duggars might help some, but it’s 4 inf…
Inject probably helps a lot, but you’ve got Diesel and QT for no inf, so it’s tough to justify. Inject does do exactly what you want it to do for Exile though (programs in Heap, recursion tools in hand) so it’s gotta be worth a try.
That said, all Shaper IDs suffer from the not Kate problem in the same way that all HB IDs suffer from the not ETF problem. 1c for doing something you have to do anyway is really really strong and lubricates every build just a little bit. You don’t have to try to get that benefit. So if you’re not going all in on whatever it is you’re ID says you should do, you’re probably better in Kate.
As for inject, my testing with 2 copies is pretty positive, drawing into RDIs and test runs is amazing. I tried a few times with modded since drawing econ with draw+econ is very good. Nothing felt better than injecting 2 programs and drawing modded+RDI. 2 actions, RDI installed and 2 programs in heap…very solid. I’d like to have 3 inject, but cutting the program suite really hurts the build IMO. I’m curious if Lady can replace corroder, and let the influence go to inject. For now I cut 1 corroder and stimhack + crescentus to try inject, sometimes I’m really hurting for both. Maybe there are better cuts, I’m not sure.
Do you still have freelance coding contract? Are you running a similar list to your Tournament winning deck because looking at that, I would cut fairy and replace with another Deus X or sharpshooter to save influence for inject. I think lady will be really good in Exile and it will probably replace Snowball in my deck.
I think the fact that Diesel and Quality Time are both in-faction for Kate makes Exile less valuable in comparison.
As it stands I actually have 2 freelance and 2 inject with 3 diesel. Last nights testing showed that I still want Quality time. I was trying to resolve the econ issues by upping modded and taking out quality time. This, of course, slowed seeding heap…so maybe swapping diesel for inject is the next experiment. I know everyone loves diesel, but I think it merits testing.
Faerie is one of my most installed cards, due to the 0 install cost. Getting a corp to rez a komainu/tsurugi when I have no money and then later femming the komainu or parasiting down the tsurugi is a very cheap way of dealing with that BS. I can’t see cutting faerie, especially since I cut mimic (which is also very sketchy a lot of the time).
So you can see how I’m currently experimenting with inject heres the list (keep in mind this is just to see how inject feels)
Exile: Streethawk (Creation and Control)
Event (17)
3x Diesel (Core Set)
3x Modded (Core Set)
3x Test Run (Cyber Exodus)
2x Freelance Coding Contract (Creation and Control)
3x Scavenge (Creation and Control)
1x Levy AR Lab Access (Creation and Control)
2x Inject (Up and Over) ••••
Hardware (9)
2x Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead)
3x R&D Interface (Future Proof)
3x Clone Chip (Creation and Control)
1x Astrolabe (Up and Over)
1x Akamatsu Mem Chip
Icebreaker (9)
1x Corroder (Core Set) ••
2x Femme Fatale (Core Set) ••
1x Deus X (A Study in Static)
1x Faerie (Future Proof) •••
1x Atman (Creation and Control)
2x Cyber-Cypher (Creation and Control)
1x Sharpshooter (True Colors)
Program (10)
1x Parasite (Core Set) ••
3x Magnum Opus (Core Set)
1x Nerve Agent (Cyber Exodus) ••
1x Paricia (Creation and Control)
3x Self-modifying Code (Creation and Control)
15 influence spent (maximum 15)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Up and Over
paricia is a meta call since I play so much RP, and it has been awesome. It used to be imp before inject took that slot (-2 inject -1 paricia +1 imp +1 crescentus).
I feel like I can never have enough draw. I can see doing 3 diesel 3 qt 3 inject even…but again, the influence 
Have you tried out Ice Analyzer in Exile. I actually really love that card and it works so well with Clone Chip or SMC. Inject could be the card that boosts Exile into more mainstream playability. I’ll have to experiment with it once I get that new pack but like you, I don’t know where I’ll find the influence.
Precisely. I think ice analyzer is not really my kind of card, I imagine that like half the time 5-6 ice are all the ice that get rezzed over the course of the game, typically 2 on the runner’s first turn. If you don’t have it in your opener, its a waste…to get it in your opener reasonably well you need to run 3. 3 slots of a card that gives you a minor benefit is pretty lackluster IMO. Maybe with aesops… I do see what the concept is though, you’re outclassing ice with femme or good breakers and forcing the corp to either install new ice and then rez it, or just pay the install cost of an ice on top, either way, it’s in your favor. Its just that slotting enough to make a difference feels meh.
Slots are at a premium here, the deck is so amazingly well tuned by Travis that the play in the influence is super tough. There might be another, less toolboxy version out there, but I don’t think I’m the guy to make it lol.
Ice Analyzer is pretty high variance in that when I see it early, my game is so much easier. I do run Aesop’s so in a pinch late game its a delayed Easy Mark. I see why some people shy away from it though.
honestly in your build the savings of installing opus and the gains from aesops antiquated programs, your econ is probably better, and with aesops, drawing it later, yea gives you an easy mark which is okay.
Your aesop’s interaction with daily casts and armitage gives you a little more flexibility in your clicks too I’d imagine. Unless you’ve changed it much from what you have posted on NRDB you seem to have a striking lack of R&D multi access, which probably makes NBN hell for you. How do you cope?
On another note, I’ve knocked around the idea of a more sahasrara based exile that may or may not run opus for econ (unless its a late game solution). Sahasrara can be scavenged for parasite and other nice programs, and using another sahasrara to pay for up to 2 more install cost…I’m curious if now that leprechaun is out, there is a way to get a very dynamic (but with more fixed parts) rig going being paid for by rara. I actually played a fairly effective exile using that type probably a year ago, I’d be interested in seeing that build…