I guess the meta has long ruled her not worthy of attention. So much so that Silhouette has no thread that I can find dedicated to deck building for her.
Well, here is one.
She may not be as good as other Criminals, but I find her smaller deck and expose ability make fast starts easier.
My current deck looks like this:
Silhouette is my go to criminal for jank, but Andy rebirth just kind of makes my mind go elsewhere. No other ID for blackguard though at least until someone figures it out.
I think she’s an underrated rebirth target in a lot of games if you’re slotting it.
High Stakes Job and Deuces Wild are my favourite cards to play in Sil.
I really like this!
Does it make any sense to slot a Sifr to cover some of the strength costs of this ice suite if they go to glacier, or is the econ engine here covering it?
Sifr might be a substitute, although I find the Desperado credits crucial in fighting asset spam and helping muscle through bigger ice. The option I’ve thought about for dealing with big ice is to slot some Emergency Shutdowns to make the cost of rezing all that ice a problem.
When she was the only 40 card criminal you could just show up with her and all the early Agro crim cards and just win especially during the rush meta a few years back. The Id never did anything though. I think even in jank now she is pretty bad. Maybe if they gave her a new console that did something good.
I suppose it is because I am still learning the game and the common archetypes and what cards they run, but I often find her ability helpful. I cannot quantify the value of this information compared to the benefit I would get from Andy or Gabe, but I have found it helpful.
I see what you mean. I can’t help thinking there is some utility to this ID in a meta (at least a Jnet casual one) that’s full of bullshit net damage decks and Mushin guessing games. I keep meaning to try playing Silhouette to help me play the spot-the-unrezzed-Bioethics game, but ultimately I feel like I will just be better off powering up on econ, ice destruction, or some other strategy…
Some of those decks will pack a psychic field occasionally. Be warned.
I took this to a GNK and went an unrespectable 2-3 yesterday.
Has some big consistency issues but is extremely oppressive if it ever gets going, which I suppose is not surprising given that one of the combo pieces costs 11.
I think just massive Criminal econ is the best way to enable Blackguard, rather than Eureka combos, which are all well and good to get Blackguard out fast, but what do you do once Blackguard is out and you still need money?
Run Amok onto HQ with a Blackguard out is hilarious.
I like a lot of the changes. An extra Peace in our Time is certainly welcome, even though the influence cost is steep. The deck has some amazing late game once it gets set up, so accelerating the corp is not that huge of a deal. I was always happy to draw it.
I’d certainly miss the Medium. It was my one and only tech card vs. asset spam and prison. I know Vamadeva isn’t a great fracter, but between Vamadeva and Breach, I’m really tempted not to shell out influence for Corroder.
Peregrine vs. Rex switch is defensible. I really enjoy the relatively low install cost of Rex. The derez ability on Peregrine has some good utility in this deck specifically. To the point that maybe I should even be thinking about Saker.
The Blockade Runners didn’t do enough work for me and I’d probably cut them for Express Delivery or maybe even Earthrise Hotel. I like that your list has gone up to three Career Fair, making Earthrise even more palatable.
One option I might explore to save influence is cutting one Run Amok and playing some number of Planned Assault.
An interesting interaction with Blackguard that not many people consider is Drive By
The expose takes place and the corp is forced to rez (paying its cost) and then it is trashed for free. Should help with both econ denial and fighting asset spam.
Whether it is worth the deck slots is something for better deck-builders than me to consider. (Though I’ll probably mess around with some iteration of this at some point)
I had tested Drive Bys in my deck and cut them because I felt like they weren’t doing enough work. Maybe I just need to get better at using them?
I love the Blackguard + Drive By interaction, and I think it is hilarious, though I don’t think it elevates Drive By very much. It’s certainly nice to have the corp pay a few credits for their asset/upgrade on its way out. It can occasionally backfire on you if you are trashing Hostile Infrastructure (if you consider forcing the corp to pay five to do a net damage backfiring, which depends on the situation).
Which is not to say Drive By is bad in a Blackguard deck. Just to say that it is only a slightly bit better than Drive By in any other deck.
How good is Drive By in any other deck? I think that depends on your meta.
My current Silhouette deck. It is not terrible. It is has very little secret spice. Just trying to build a good deck that can adapt to different opponents.
Silhouette: Stealth Operative (Honor and Profit)
12 influence spent (max 15, available 3)
40 cards (min 40)
Cards up to Quorum
I always feel good using Drive-By. I find it particularly good using it against HB. It suffers from a 46th card syndrome and “game 2” syndrome.
It’s like playing a Siphon deck with Interdiction vs. a Crisium Grid deck. You’ll get them good on game 1, but less so in future games.
The card remains a good splash as a singleton or pair in high stakes scenarios like tournaments, especially against glacier. If your meta is HB-upgrades and Palana Grail or even Sol glacier, it’s never a bad card. You just can’t run 3 copies.
For fun and to try something different I played Silhouette in the casual lobby for a couple of days which culminated in sleeving a deck for casual night. It was fine. Pretty decent. It does significantly alter the strategy of corps playing Mushin games and spamming out unrezzed cards.
I also really loved doing Forged Activation Orders on ice I knew the corp couldn’t rez! If anything I wish I had the deck slots for more shenanigans but was determined to stay as close to 40 as possible. I will definitely play Silhouette again.
EDIT: something else I was thinking about which may sound heretical is that I think… maybe… Desperado is overrated. (I never play criminal so using this card is new for me.) I found myself thinking that making three runs just to pay it off and start profiting was not the magical console land I had been promised. This thing can come off the MWL, as far as I’m concerned.
Silhouette: Stealth Operative
Event (17)
3x Account Siphon
3x Career Fair
1x Emergency Shutdown
1x Employee Strike ●
2x Forged Activation Orders
1x Levy AR Lab Access ●●●
3x Special Order
3x Sure Gamble
Hardware (4)
2x Desperado ★★
2x HQ Interface
Resource (13)
2x Aaron Marrón
3x Daily Casts
2x Earthrise Hotel
1x Kati Jones
1x Political Operative
1x Same Old Thing
3x Temüjin Contract
Icebreaker (6)
1x Breach
1x Corroder ●●
1x Gordian Blade ●●●
1x Mimic ●
1x Mongoose
1x Passport
Program (1)
1x Medium ●●●
13 influence spent (max 15-2★=13, available 0)
41 cards (min 40)
Cards up to Quorum
Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.
This is the deck that used to be called #BlackmailMatters but some people on nrdb got mad and the deck got deleted. It’s a bit out of date
One really important question to ask yourself if you are playing Silhouette, IMO, is:
Am I playing this ID because I really want the ability?
vs.
Am I playing this ID because I want to jank it up and picking a non-standard ID is the best way to do that?
vs.
Am I playing this ID because it’s fun to expose stuff?
I think it’s fine no matter what your answer to those questions are, but it’s important to know what you are going for.
The reason I bring this up is that Silhouette can reasonably support a very standard Criminal deck. You can take most Andy lists, shave a few cards, and have a good Silhouette deck. You could also play the deck out of Gabe.
Then the question is:
Is my Good Stuff Andy list better or worse than my Good Stuff Sil list?
If you are just playing Silhouette to play Silhouette, the answer to the question doesn’t matter. But if you are trying to really justify playing Silhouette, the answer is important, and I don’t think Silhouette can compare to Andy.
I don’t mean to be dismissive of your list, @FightingWalloon, but at the same time I’m not sure it wouldn’t be better out of Andy, even though it looks really, really solid!
But there are justifications to be playing Silhouette. A non-exhaustive list:
Of course, Silhouette is also powered up by things outside of deck construction, such as how much of your meta is playing Mushin No Shin.
I don’t want to fall into the trap of building too much around the ID and ignoring just solid deck construction, but can anyone think of other cards and strategies that Silhouette can lend a hand to?
I feel like some combination of these cards is the main way to get Silhouette out of the binder.
Thoughts?