Graduate Admissions: Apply Now - A Steve Cambridge Thread

Decklists
41

I find the situations where I prefer Spear Phishing to be substantially rarer than the situations where I prefer Inside Job. Is skipping the outer ice more important than the inner ICE? Completely situational. However, Inside Job always skips a rezzed ice. In a double-unrezzed situation, Inside Job usually comes out on top. In order for SP to be better: (a) they have to commit to rezzing both ice, (b) the innermost must be more important, and © the outermost can’t be painful (because you’re facechecking it), whereas you can still jack out in-between them if you’d like with IJ. IJ might bypass just the outer ice. Or, it might bypass a bunch of unrezzed ice AND a rezzed ice.

Therefore I consider SP to be IJ 4-6, if so desired.

2 Likes
42

I concede the general point. What do you think about IJ v SP with Maxwell James? Still inside job? There may be no effective difference.

1 Like
43

i see no functional difference with Maxwell James. i’d still prefer Inside Job 100% of the time.

@rubyvr00m said it perfectly. you wouldn’t slot Build Script before Deuces Wild. don’t slot Spear Phishing before Inside Job

44

To be the sort of Devil’s Advocate I find really annoying, there are situations where SP is better because the proper way to construct a remote is taxing/program trashing ICE on the outside, ETR on the inside. So if you can’t answer either ICE, bypassing the inner sometimes yields a score.

All that said, SP only shows this value in the late game for a last ditch steal where you don’t care about taxing ICE firing, and there’s lots of really bad taxing ICE in the game now. IJ lets you surprise pressure early which is generally where event bypass effects shine and then can also function as a econ event later. It’d take a very specific sort of deck for SP to be better.

1 Like
45

Yeah, there are a few decks that can break outer ice easier than inner ice (like Kit), but this is off topic now.

2 Likes
46

Getting back on topic:

Thoughts on Apocalypse in Steve? His bypass breakers can be ditched to the bin on the Apoc turn, and then slowly recurred back to hand afterwards, although you should be able to win after the Apoc w/o breakers, generally.

47

Have not played Apoc in Steve. But there are possible good interactions with this plan. Two design questions:

  1. How many Apocs?
  2. Which restricted card to design around?

Decks can look very different depending on these answers. For example you could go with Levy/Fan Site/Shadownet for extra cyling and hedge fund boosters, Aesops for post apoc econ and enhanced Steve ID options, or Clone chip for boosted recursion. Another option could be DDoS, but that might take too much influence that could be used to boost draw/econ.

48

Before rotation hit I was playing Apocalypse Steve in Cache Refresh format. Some thoughts from that experience:

Inside Job and Spear Phishing are totally worth double dipping on. Pretty sure I ran a playset of each and it really helps land the Apocalypse. Running so many copies let’s you semi-reliably give them the choice between any two of them when Steve procs, which just means bypassing more defenses. It feels great to Inside Job HQ, add a Spear Phishing to your grip and then use it immediately to hit R&D.

Aesop’s was a 1 of in my list due to the limitation of the single core, however, I’m fairly certain it’s superfluous. In my experience, the Apoc turn usually involved trashing things like Abagnale for the bypass effect to save credits and often times your post-Apoc boardstate doesn’t have a lot of installed facedowns. If you’re worried about getting Facedowns back in the trash, Chop Bot or even Independent Thinking would probably suffice, without hogging your Restricted card slot.

I think I would probably give more consideration to using Employee Strike as a restricted card, since it’s influence cheap and widely useful. Clone Chip seems like a trap, because I think you’d rather have redundant breakers and more influence left over for high impact run events, extra copies of Apocalypse, and maybe a DDoS or two.

4 Likes
49

Just a quick sketch, but I think this list pulls together some of the ideas in this thread, with an eye to landing an Apocalypse at the right time. Feint seems like a spicy 1-of for Steve, since it’s basically a Deja Vu in this shell in addition to checking the HQ box for Apocalypse.

###[Apocabridge][1] (45 cards)

  • [Steve Cambridge: Master Grifter][2]

Event (23)

  • 2 [Apocalypse][3] ●●●●● ●
  • 3 [Deuces Wild][4] ●●●
  • 3 [Dirty Laundry][5]
  • 3 [Employee Strike][6] ●●●
  • 1 [Feint][7]
  • 3 [Inside Job][8]
  • 2 [Legwork][9]
  • 3 [Spear Phishing][10]
  • 3 [Sure Gamble][11]

Hardware (3)

  • 3 [Doppelgänger][12]

Resource (6)

  • 3 [Daily Casts][13]
  • 3 [Sacrificial Construct][14] ●●●

Icebreaker (9)

  • 2 [Abagnale][15]
  • 1 [Breach][16]
  • 2 [Demara][17]
  • 2 [Faerie][18]
  • 1 [Mongoose][19]
  • 1 [Passport][20]

Program (4)

  • 1 [Sneakdoor Beta][21]
  • 3 [Tapwrm][22]

Built with [https://meteor.stimhack.com/][23]

50

Looks like a good start and I really like the Feint include. Not sure if it’s actually worth dedicating the slots to a console though. I think you’d probably be better off with more economy or additional copies of Sneakdoor.

51

You need something that gives you an extra click, MCA AP is a very common card that you need to have a plan for in Apocalypse decks.

3 Likes
52

I guess you’re right, it just always feels terrible to me to have to play a console in an Apoc deck unless it’s something super cheap like Astrolabe.

53

I mean you have other options, Early Bird or importing Stim Dealer or Pancakes. But Doppelganger seems the best choice for this deck.

2 Likes