The player does matter. I think I was able to win more easily early after H&P but once you got locked into the deck it was a different story. 20% sounds about right, if it’s not even worse by now.
I think the game is decided pretty early on, and RP has way more outs, which is why it’s so tough since once RP stabilizes you have no good options left.
This is what has to happen for Gabe to have a shot
RP has a worse hand than you and can’t keep you out of HQ early on giving you an economic advantage.
You steal at least two agendas before RP can stabilize and make runs on centrals unprofitable.
You draw into cards that help you open up centrals again to get lucky enough to steal the last one or two agendas.
I played RP twice at regionals. First time was in the third round, both of us were 6-0. I had a really strong hand with Sneakdoor, Desperado, Faerie, and was able to run profitably and get lucky enough to score a Nisei and NAPD early. Drew into Parasites and was able to keep running and win pretty convincingly.
Second game was vs you. Double Plascrete in opening hand, mulligan into double siphon. You had Tollbooth + Wraparound on HQ by T2 with money from Hedge and Gifts to rez them, which is probably the best possible start since I need both a Femme and Corroder to get in. Plenty of ice and caprice shortly after and there wasn’t much I could do. However I think you had at 5 points in HQ when you celeb gifted, but I never saw a Sneakdoor and you were able to lock down archives anyway.
Which is how it goes most of the time. If RP sees Ice and econ early you lose. If you don’t see agendas early you lose. Even if you do steal 2 or 3 agendas if you don’t have an econ engine that can afford to make 10cr runs just to see 1 card you lose.
To beat RP you need Kati Jones and some kind of multi-access, and still a lot of luck, or bad play by the corp.
To be honest I don’t play that much anymore, and haven’t played Gabe in a long time, but it doesn’t seem like Tollbooth/Ash/Caprice have gone out of fashion so I imagine the core RP strategy is about the same.
“Hades Shard is a particular favourite of mine in Gabe – Corps want to Jackson agendas away from their hand against Gabe the most (and Hades Shard either gets the agendas or forces them to shuffle them in immediately, letting your time/money be used better elsewhere), but you can replace it with a Quality Time or Feedback Filter if you so desire though. The key to using it is just pretending it’s a 7c Event to access all cards in Archives (that they cannot respond to with Jackson).”
I’ve been migrating back to trying gabe out, and I can say that quality time is humongous when I play it. I find that hades shard often won’t work, but QT will. I found room for 2 quality time in my version and it is huge. You can easily go down to 2 ofs in some unique slots (not desperado obv), and it helps keep tempo as you play 2 events per turn (IJ+ESd). I never have issues playing down to 5 cards either. I recommend QT over hades myself, but I’m pretty sure thats a very open slot.
You nailed it. My favorite fractor package is 1 corroder 1 breach. Breach is not awful, and you can sometimes convince your opponent that you’re on centrals only, but then special order up your corroder for a mild ambush. I believe I cut a sucker for most recent testing, as I’ve been getting more aggressive on shutting down ice, and slow burning medium sized ice, while keeping 2 corroder for efficiency sake. It hasn’t really proved to be a huge difference.
In one top 4 SC game I layed down a finisher trap - installed Breach having Corroder in hand. Corp installed more barriers on a remote and an agenda. Install Corroder, Inside Job, gg.
I’m still wondering if Paper Tripping wouldn’t be a good call - fire all the Siphons, PT (1 click, 4 creds, lose 10 tags) and then go to Kati.
I felt like Lazarus yesterday when I played Gabesucker with 1x Net-Ready Eyes. My special snowflake slot was 2x Medium. If they were 2x RDI it could’ve been a 2nd Net-Ready eyes. I didn’t find myself needing it immediately though.
It performed well, like any standard criminal deck does. The ability to pump Yog and Mimic to 4, and save your Faeries/Passport is massive.
