What about playing Utopia Shard instead of Hades. It seems like it’s clearly the best shard (or, er, fragment). Disrupt kill combos, slam them with after they plop down an ice or 2 to build a remote.
Seems more useful at all stages of the game than hades, which according to the article, is best for catching early game agendas dumped in archives.
Hades is the best shard by far in Gabe, and I believe everywhere (as long as Jackson is legal). It has synergy with Gabe’s playstyle - Gabe’s a lot worse when they can stop themselves from being flooded with Jackson - so either you win the game with their dumped agendas or they are forced to cycle them before your turn begins, not being able to dump as many as they wanted to and meaning you don’t have to waste time and money for the same thing. It means they can’t hide their agendas from HQ, where you’ll inevitably access them. Hades prevents this and wins you games if they do try to hide them.
Plascrete is better for this and allows you to go Tag Me, Utopia doesn’t, and you shouldn’t play cards to stop you from dying when they sometimes don’t stop you from dying. Utopia is extremely high variance for an effect you often don’t really care too much about.
In a world where Jackson didn’t exist, Utopia would be (generally) a better card, but in such a world I would most certainly not be playing Utopia in my deck - the slot would be used for Quality Time or Feedback Filter.
I think 1x is viable because it gives you more options when the corp is trying to shut you out and can help you stay aggressive. It can help you stick a siphon when the corp is leaving unrezzed HQ ice, and of course work well with Inside Job. Those are never not going to be good options and both avoid ELP (which was mentioned in your article). It’s similar to cards like Parasite, Sneakdoor, Forged Activation Orders, and Inside Job that protect your programs by allowing you to extend the time you have before they are required to allow you to keep accessing cards.
The reason I don’t really like Corroder #2 that much is because it’s going to be a dead draw more often than it will be required after you’ve lost your first one. If you do lose it it’s rough but it’s not the end of the world. You’ve got Knight, Femme, Parasite, Inside Job, and probably plenty of other servers to run. I’m sure you’ve won plenty of games where you’ve never even needed to install a Corroder. I feel these days the highest risk to my rig would be a Grail codegate trashing my programs, and Knight can help protect against this, although probably pretty inefficiently (I wish there was still room for Forged Activation Orders).
Sure RP can make Knight a dead card (and honestly most runners), but Corroder #2 isn’t doing anything for you in that matchup. You’d be better off with Clone Chip or Deja Vu for more Parasites.
I like the Hades though, I think that’s a cool splash that could win you some games, will definitely be trying it out. It’s also kind of a flashy play to Bankjob a Jackson and then boom Hades Shard for the win 
Great article, and you provide thorough rational for your Gabe deck. One thing I am confused on about is the differing breaker suites between the two decklists you provided. What is it about the second deck that would cause you to use a different breaker suite from the first Gabe deck?
Since you aren’t as all-in on making plays exactly now with the cards you’ve got, you can afford a card draw that you can’t use immediately. Peacock’s good because we can use it to get in centrals and also remotes, Rex is good because it’s more (generally) efficient than Peacock, but if you start using it on centrals you’re going to find it hard to get into remotes. Drawing it hurts your early game and as such it’s hard to justify it in a deck that wants to abuse its potency in the early game (and the first one relies on that more). However, I still feel like having two breakers that you can use on centrals is important, so there are two copies of Passport.
The same breaker suite used in the first would certainly work in the second (and perhaps it’s better? I’m not sure, I’ve not tested the second nearly as much as I have the first), but the second can take advantage of having less wonkily-costed breakers at the cost of making your early game a bit worse because you’re not as dependent on having the early game go well.
Again, the difference isn’t massive, and non-negligible reason it’s there was more of a “look, another good Gabe Decoder suite in a deck where it’s suitable”!
I hate Peacock. Fuck lotus field. They’re going to have to pry Yog out of my cold dead hands.
Thank you kindly for a very solid article.
Do you ever find yourself running into MU issues with your deck? Having only desperado for additional MU in a deck utilising a sentry breaker, a backup sentry breaker, potentially two code gate breakers, parasite, datasucker AND Sneakdoor Beta seems like it could get messy. There’s very very little MU available for your utility programs, of which there are many. Even with a “use’em, then toss’em” mentality I could see myself ending up with problems.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I don’t really run into MU issues at all - the goal isn’t to have everything installed at once, and as Gabe you should most certainly be running before your whole rig is up (which is why it works). Parasites are disposable and you shouldn’t cling too hard to Sneakdoor (and Sneakdoor really hits hardest early on, you don’t need it to get into remotes).
You just kind of… build the rig as you go based on how the game’s going - it doesn’t need everything installed to work and you can get into remotes using 3 MU with just 3 breakers, having the luxuries of Parasites, Suckers, Sneakdoor etc is just something that you don’t rely on but they do help a great deal.
Adding MU into the deck would be a mistake, as they’re dead draws that severely hinder early game if installed.
Has anyone tested Earthrise in Gabe? It’s influence free and as in theory as good a Quality Time.
I’ve not tested it but it could work in the right deck maybe. It has an obvious anti-synergy with being tagged, though.
I’m concerned by tempo. With QT you can QT then do 3 things and have a full hand after it. With Earthrise you need to be using those cards every single turn for three turns like Noise does - those next three turns are going to restrict what you do as Gabe (he doesn’t usually churn out cards each turn like Noise), QT only restricts the turn you use it.
QT is still generally better for that reason, I think, but I can imagine there could be a deck where Earthrise is really good (and better than QT).
I totally agree. The hotel seems more suited for Andy since you want to run your security testing, run a server, install, play something. The hotel gives click economy.
In gabe, from my experience, you run, run, run… Until you are out of steam and then you draw until you get the upper hand again.
Splendid list btw.
The problem is they are VERY different. Even if Earthrise were 3 credits, it would be drastically different. 5 now is substantially different than 2 next turn, 2 next turn, and 2 next turn. 3 credits now is not the same as 3 credits later. Netrunner is funny like that.
I do think there is a gabe build for it, but in my testing of gabe, no, dropping tempo at all is unacceptable, save for QT.
It doesn’t feel to me that earthrise is a must trash resource for the corp. It’s expensive enough, but at the end of the day, you’d rather trash kati, or a fully loaded bank job or something,mrather than take a tempo loss, making the richest runner faction waste a few credits. Especially after a good siphon, the tags are really the last thing you need to worry about against 2 out of 4 factions, and scorched earth is hard to hit with 0 credits.
I’m sure there are most certainly situations the Corp may want to trash something else, but if you’re poor and they’re rich, they’d be foolish not to trash it.
I spent a while playing a Gabe list that was similar to yours. Here’s the delta:
-1 Inside Job
3 felt excessive. This was before Blue Sun, though
-1 Bank Job
As good as Bank Job is, I’d rather not run 3 of a card that is potentially dead
-2 Same Old Thing
I do not believe it’s possible for 3 Same Old Thing to be correct; should be 2 at most
-1 Corroder, +1 Clone Chip
Gabe wants to keep his foot on the gas. I think another Parasite is better than an earlier Corroder draw
-1 Peacock, -1 Hades Shard, +1 Yog
Peacock sucks. I think it’s silly to leave Yog just because of Lotus Field; you have Femme and Inside Job, and the games where they leverage Lotus Field in a remote to win are games you probably would have lost with Peacock anyways
+3 Dirty Laundry
Dirty Laundry is a great card here and I think it’s crazy to cut it
+2 Easy Mark
They are definitely not essential, but I’ve been happy with them
Have you ever played it? Its only dead matchup is sometimes Blue Sun (though it’s sometimes usable against them too) and you’re running 3x Inside Job, Shutdown, and SOT for that matchup. You really don’t need extra help against BS and against basically everyone else that isn’t Tennin/CI you’ll have something to use it on.
I was expecting it to be direct NEH hate when I put it in my deck, but it absolutely wasn’t - even if you click through an Eli for it you basically just used Day Job, which is still pretty good.
I’ve explained in the article why I think 2x Corroder is essential in Gabe. Clone Chip is something I’ve tried (see above) and it was okay but not at all enough to justify cutting a Corroder or Parasite and they are the only options. You don’t want to draw it early on and you should always have 2 Corroder in Gabe in my opinion. It’s okay in Andy but I still don’t like it.
The reason I’ve got two Corroder is exactly because Gabe wants to keep his foot on the gas. You don’t want to have to not run because you’ve not found a Faerie yet or you’re saving up for a Mimic. There are a great deal of benefits you get from running two, and all of those benefits improve aggressive play. I could see running three in Gabe, it’s just that good. You don’t want a slow card like Clone Chip instead.
I don’t think it’s crazy to cut it. I’d always run 3 in Andy because of her turn 1 but in Gabe there are better cards. I used to have 3x Dirty Laundry in the deck and it was a good card, but I felt that other cards were better, I’d always rather have something else like Inside Job, Shutdown, or better card-for-credit economy like Bank Job. I’m not the only one with this opinion either - the reason I tried cutting them was after seeing the list that won World’s cutting them, so I did and it was a lot better.
Not in Gabe. Easy Mark is okay at best in the right Andy deck but even then it’s questionable.
As for Inside Job and most of this - I’ve tried and tested decks with < 3 Inside Job, and with Yog instead and all that, and the conclusion I came to was the deck in the article. I don’t feel like Inside Job is often a dead draw, and its value is made considerably higher with 3x Inside Job and 3x SOT.
I said “-1 Bank Job” which means I was playing 2 of them, so yes, I have played it. I just don’t like playing 3 of a card that is sometimes totally dead. You could be right that 3 is correct (i.e. +EV) even though it is totally dead sometimes, and I am just suffering from aesthetic deckbuilding syndrome.
Clone Chip vs. 2nd Corroder - Gabe wanting to keep his foot on the gas is exactly the reason I’ve got Clone Chip 
Clearly we have different judgments of their relative value.
Easy Mark and 2 Inside Job are also places where we have different taste. I don’t think you are wrong for doing something different, rather that’s what I arrived at based on testing.
3 SOT, 0 DL, and Peacock over Yog are only the places where I think you are straight up wrong.
Dirty Laundry can be a feast-or-famine card for Gabe, since the corp often preemptively ices Archives because of Sneakdoor. And Peacock is pretty underrated. There are actually Anarch decks where I would gladly play it if it didn’t cost influence.
why is it underrated?
It has pretty similar stats to Zu when you look at it on common ICE (barring Merlin and Viktor 1.0) and Zu is a card people do play and splash.
It’s far from perfect, and I’d rather have Zu over it, but it’s really not that terrible for an influence free breaker.