So I have recently been fooling around with the Headlock Reina archetype out of criminal. After some builds out of other IDs I found that I needed the additional 2 influence afforded by Ken. I’m posting it up here to see if anyone might have some suggestions (I know the first one would be go back to playing Reina).
Headlock Tenma 1.0
Ken “Express” Tenma: Disappeared Clone
Event (19)
3x Account Siphon
3x Dirty Laundry
3x Emergency Shutdown
3x Express Delivery
2x Special Order
3x Sure Gamble
2x Vamp ••••
Hardware (7)
3x Clone Chip ••••• •
3x Desperado
1x Plascrete Carapace
Resource (14)
3x Daily Casts
3x Earthrise Hotel
1x Hades Shard •
2x Kati Jones
3x Same Old Thing
2x Symmetrical Visage
Icebreaker (1)
1x Eater •••
Program (4)
3x Crescentus
1x Keyhole •••
17 influence spent (max 17)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Valley
Decklist published on http://netrunnerdb.com.
1 Like
What are all the Clone Chips for? Crescentus? That seems like a lot of overkill for a deck that also runs 3x Emergency Shutdowns. Seems like an easy place to free up influence. Maybe go full headlock and cut them for Lampreys? Heck, you could even run Early Bird and Doppleganger and go all-out!
Either that or cut them for another Keyhole and another Eater. You only have a single of each and three Special Orders. EDIT: GOOD LORD IT ONLY HAS TWO SPECIAL ORDERS!
Also, uh, how does this deck make money? Clicking Kati? Maybe replace the Babies with Security Testing?
Keyhole has to be found naturally, too. Can’t Special Order for it.
Yeah, I thought about suggesting two more Keyholes because of that, but getting the Eater consistently is probably more important.
Probably. I was just trying to as a one-of and no way to search for it, you should only really expect it late, if at all.
In other news Brits are from England. Who knew? 
Looking at the cone chips they aren’t as necessary without lamprey, so I could cut them in favor of a keyhole and switching to Gabe for increased money flow. I choose to use a third express delivery over the third special order because it can also find me the keyhole. Security testing was in one of my first builds and maybe correct to put it back in.
Needs something to act as the Knights in the original headlock. 3x Inside Job probably.
1 Keyhole is fine, and so is 1 or even 0 Vamps with Siphon. Could cut the Vamp and the Hades for a set of Lampreys.
Forged Activations could act as the Parasites.
I was just tooling up a headlock-ish deck on NRDB yesterday during lunch. I ran lamprey though. I feel like you’re going to be mostly powerless with strictly keyhole, which is an odd choice in a faction with okay non-influence central only breakers. I’d include at least something to have remote game, if even vs a corp-turn rezzed ice like OAI’ed or Bootcamped.
@kenobob if I go the route with Lamprey’s should I be keeping in some amount of clone chip and throw in some HQ multi -access?
Deckspace is tight, and ideally you’re hitting HQ repeatedly with Desperado/Lamprey, so HQ multi-access seems like a luxury you can’t afford.
Honestly, the idea of Headlock in Ken will probably be bunk. Ken adds Siphon, but Headlock Reina worked because of her resource-based wealth. The days are over when Criminals had unerring run-based riches. Even Andy’s consistent early Desperado/Sec Test is more of a gimmick to pressure archives than a reliable econ engine.
I want Ken’s janky Public Terminal/Early Bird/Three Steps Ahead/Sec Test to be a thing, but there’s too much good, cheap early Ice for it to be viable.
Without that you’re left with Kati and Career Fair-ed Casts and Earthrises I guess. You probably need to splash for some kind of econ, meaning no influence for Clone Chips.
Sorry for the long answer, but you have Shutdowns to act as extra Crescentuses, and I guess Forged to kill pesky Ice.
I’ve added so much to your original list there’s no way it will fit without hard choices. Start by cutting the Express deliveries I guess, and then begin the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Okay, after some sleep I see some other issues here:
If you stick with Eater, you’re going to need a Faerie or Alias and a Passport or you basically just lose to Swordsman/Turing. I would also definitely look into adding a single Sneakdoor to help deal with Crisium Grid.
You only have 8 run events in your Ken deck. You could add Inside Job (and probably should anyway because Inside Job), but I’d look into switching this to Gabe or Andy.
If you’re keeping that many resources, you should probably find a way to fit Career Fairs.
Maybe a couple Crash Space instead of Plascrete? You have too many resources to float tags.
Perhaps switch the Vamps to Quest Completed? It can be easier to land in Criminal than Vamp and deals with Caprice on a scoring remote almost as well.
The reason for selecting Ken initially was not so much for his ability but his being the only criminal with 17 influence which allowed more leeway when splashing. It may be better as Gabe, I’m going to be hitting the drawing board at work today to see what I can do with some of the suggestions here.
I have been experimenting with a similar shaper build, and there is a one card counter to any headlock deck. Wraparound on HQ. 2 cred to make you spend 6 cred is an insane trade.
Which is what Knight is for.
Wraparound is little more than a speedbump for headlock Reina.
In this deck? Yeah, Wraparound would be utterly atrocious to play against.
That is exactly why I like it better in shaper because you can opus + vamp them as well as get inti on command.