Hi all. I’ve been tinkering with a KHAN criminal deck for a while now and am having trouble with card draw (particularly, finding my breakers). I looked through some articles and forums and didn’t see anything addressing this topic, so I thought I’d ask here and see what you think.
So, in case you’re interested, here’s my current deck: KHAAAAN!
I have 2x Golden, Peregrine, and Saker, as well as 2x Special Order.
So I’m curious: what other methods to folks usually use, particularly in criminal, to get cards faster than clicking for them?
If there’s an article or established place where I can find the answer to this, feel free to call me a n00b and post the link.
So there’s a couple topics that talk about Engines, those sometimes will talk about card draw for the factions.
Still, it might be useful in the future to catalog the current draw engines that Criminals use…
Earthrise Hotel: Good, especially synergizes with Career Fair. Limited use.
Drug Dealer: Passable, usually have to have a plan for 0 money. Most often seen with Underworld Contacts or other drip econ (Daily Casts).
Sports Hopper: Technically exists, but usually only Geist treats it as a real card draw option.
Mr. Li: Relatively poor, but it does get you through your deck faster than click-to-draw. (I personally believe there could exist a Professor-like list in Criminal where you have a bunch of singletons that Li helps you to find whichever you happen to need… But I’ve been unable to realize it as of yet. Consistency is very important for tuned Netrunner decks.)
Blockade Runner: This one exists. I believe it’s poor, but others speak highly of it. I have not personally used it, but its benefits are its cost to install being very low. The downside is that it doesn’t actually get you any more cards than just clicking to draw, so it ends up being comparable to Mr. Li.
John Masanori: Good, with potential downside. John’s very good at synergizing with runs, which Criminals (currently) are set to use the most, and get the most value out of. Just watch out for the tag.
Those are pretty much the only options. Diesel, Quality Time, and Patron are technically there, too, but those cost influence and don’t really count as ‘Criminal’ options for Card Draw.
Crim doesn’t have the greatest in faction draw of the runner factions but there is a pretty standard package that gets run in most lists. This list isn’t in Khan but it’s a pretty standard current take on Andy and it runs
3 Earthrise Hotel
1 John Masanori
as direct card draw (note John Mas synergises very strongly with the rest of the econ in Desperado and Temujin as well as with Citadel Sanctuary and Power Tap if you do get tagged). It also runs
3 Career Fair
2 Special Order
as a support plan. Combined with Andy’s opening huge hand that should draw you into a lot of what she needs in the early to mid game then a bit of clicking to draw for certain tools late game.
Other lists have experimented with things like Mr Li and Blockade Runner but those tend to just be too slow compared to Earthrise and not synergistic with crim run based econ so that sort of package is pretty standard these days.
A common theme in Criminal decks these days is 3x Earthrise Hotel, coupled with 3x Career Fair to help ease the cost. Obviously a third Special Order is probably nice if your main problem is finding breakers, and you’re only playing 2. Right now, looking at your deck, it seems like you’re trying too many tricks before your deck fundamentals are in place. For example, you say you’re having issues finding your breakers, yet you’re running 2x Astroscripter, which is a card that is only useful once you have programs to use it with (and enough money that you’re able to bounce your programs back to derez ICE, which might be another issue) before you’re running enough card draw/tutoring to actually see the required breakers. Yeah, it’s a fun card, but if what you actually need are breakers, it’s just cardboard in a deck.
But, like, you’ve got duplicates of your breakers, right? 2x of each bird? Surely the second bird you draw is a ‘dead card’? Autoscripter is unique, and you’ve got two of it.
Thanks, everyone! These are very helpful!
I’ll probably start with trying Earthrise, as I’d prefer not to have to run to get the card draw benefit.
@Saan, absolutely I take your point, and will have to evaluate it. At heart, though, I live in Janktown, and what I really like about this deck is getting my saharasas in there and then using all that expensive ice rez/derez stuff when I make runs. The Astroscripter makes that more economical because I can use the extra click that I get when I reinstall (for free b/c of Khan ability +2 saharasas) to get more money.
I’ll agree it has a big downside, particularly when playing against combo-corps that are digging for their pieces (though these are also often the corps most hurt by Account SIphon)
But it’s a Criminal Diesel that has the added benefit of punishing a flooded corp and setting up for game-winning Legwork. You might already have a Temujin on Archives anyway, so they know you’re going to check there, and Political Operatives or Councilmen limit their ability to recover with Jackson (assuming you didn’t go all the way and splash for Rumor Mill)
I wouldn’t rely on it as your only draw, but as a supplement to Earthrise I think it at least deserves a mention…
In one of my several shit Ken decks, the ppvp one, I’m running both Fisk investment seminar and express delivery. I prefer the latter in most cases. It’s not a great card, but usually when you’re clicking to draw you’re looking for something and express delivery accelerates that enough that it feels valuable.
Of course the best is 3 career fair, 3 earthrise, 3 temujin as a core criminal draw/money engine. Very weak to tags, but if you can avoid them it’s very efficient.
In terms of playstyle though, you might just want to get used to drawing more. Crims tend to click to draw a lot even with draw cards.
I haven’t been playing too much with it, but I’ve had the most success with Blockade Runner in decks that run lots of duplicate breakers and uniques: 3 desperados, 3 temujin contracts, 3 earthrise hotels, etc. Getting cards that are currently dead out of your grip is handy. That said, the fact that you shuffle the card in makes it more likely to come up again than tucking it away with Mr. Li – I’m not a fan of the increased variance when you need a particular card from your deck.
Oh that’s interesting, I would have thought the shuffle is a benefit. If you, for example, draw too much economy and need to find breakers it means you can send them back but still see them again.
It’s a Criminal Diesel with a massive benefit to the corp 95% of the time. If there was actually a decent Criminal mill strategy it might be worth playing, but right now the best mill decks are in Shaper and Anarch.
i think runners can turn into a downside if the runner’s whole plan is to continuously pound HQ for accesses (and Gauntlet kind of synergises with that), but that said, it’s probably pretty difficult and still helps accelerate the corp to find any combo pieces, economy, defenses, etc.
it’s also a good way to flood the corp with agendas, but as long as Jackson is around, even with Fisk as your ID, it’s really difficult to leverage that
I think FIS will gain a lot of value when Jackson rotates. Forcing the corp to draw more also scales exponentially in power; I don’t think we need too many more similar effects to make Fisk with FIS become a serious deck.
Sometimes it is, like in the early game, but when, say, you’re at 15 cards and digging for your last Account Siphon, you might keep seeing the same cards you shuffle back in.
