How are you fitting in Special Orders? No inside jobs?
Yup. I love inside job but i think Iād rather get the breaker since it raises the b&e strength, too. Inside Job costs 2 credits and doesnāt help you get towards critical mass the way more breakers do. That said, itās a great card and Iām sure it does great work in the deck.
So does this mean that Siphon is finally ābadā? That is to say, enough corps are Siphon resistant and most players know how to play around it? Is it time to move on?
As a Criminal, unless I spend clicks and credits to trash their assets (often double clicks due to Sec Testing) it is hardly as impactful. The Corp losing 5 credits only to gain 2-4 at the start of their turn is certainly underwhelming for what is essentially a triple click to gain 6. Canāt float tags against RP, need your resources. Canāt float tags against NBN, Butchershop is more popular than FA. Can sometimes float tags against HB, but you need your resources to last.
I think Siphon is still pretty good, but weāve entered a period where efficient tag removal is key and 3x SoT isnāt going to achieve much. Even a Crash Space is better than Plascrete for a well-built Crim deck. I frankly think itās the time for LAWYER UP.
3 Likes
Lawyer Up still takes the click to remove tags though. Basically it gives you a 2 credit discount and some cards.
Thatās the problem with Siphon, I thinkāresources are too valuable (and needed), clicks are at a premium, and the impact isnāt as high.
1 Like
Yeah, I have been underwhelmed by siphon in Geist so far. Crescentus recursion plus the B&E suite have been doing a better denial job for me.
If youāre playing Criminal where youāre able to apply pressure anywhere on a given turn, Siphon is a good card. Hitting them for 5 isnāt about making a corp poor forever, itās about limiting their options for what they can do this turn. In Leela, if you play a Siphon when the corp is at 10-15 credits, youāre putting them in a bad spot where they have to consider whether or not to rez HQ ice to tax you, putting them deeper in the hole and possibly making their remote unrezzable. If they donāt rez HQ ICE against the siphon, you get to make a lot of money and can then use that money to apply pressure where you really wanted it to be, either in the remote or RnD. I think the key is to use Siphon as a step-off onto another attack plan, wherever that might lie. If that means you have to float tags for a turn, thatās usually ok. If they trash Kati/Mr Li/Sec Testing, then theyāre giving you even more time to punch them further, and in Leela thatās especially strong since she can curve out towards victory very quickly. Just hold onto extra copies of the resources you care about in hand, or if you think youāre near the end of the game anyway, donāt worry about clearing!
And then thereās tag-me Criminal, which I think is feasible again with Geist B&E. B&E can function as a whole set of non-resource based economy cards, giving you 2-4 credits and a card for each install, depending on the taxing ICE you can break with them. Since they canāt be trashed when youāre tagged, tag-me feels much safer and Siphon again becomes a serious economy card (plus, with Crescentus, a strong denial card). Running the B&E myself, I have never felt poor not running Kati/UWC/Daily Casts. Dirty Laundry, tag-me Siphon, Desperado and Sec Testing (which will net you monies before they trash it and can continue to be played as a tax on the corp after youāre tagged) all make you feel pretty wealthy, and B&E lets you make that money last longer than Criminal could before.
It really depends. If you see Biotic you can go ahead and float since almost no one packs Closed Accounts anymore, due to Criminalās fall from grace. Siphon is really strong in this matchup since you need money quickly and keeping them low on credits is helpful (though not game ending, since they can FA very cheaply).
Against Butchershop, Siphon is still good because you care about the swing, not the net credit gain. Even if you clear tags, youāre not ātriple clicking for 6ā. Youāre effectively triple clicking for 11, which is still a pretty strong econ card.
The real test here for people who are playing criminal: are you honestly not playing account siphon in the early game anymore? Sometimes in the late game if youāre clearing tags and the opponent is rich (resource based Crim against glacier) I can see chucking the Siphons, but everytime Iāve seen Siphon in by turn 3-4 Iāve been glad to, and generally will play at least 2 in a game.
EDIT: I wasnāt playing the game competitively during the Siphon Spam days so Iām sure that Siphon isnāt as strong now as it was then, but I donāt think that makes it a bad card. Would I splash it anymore except in particular denial decks? No, probably not. Would I play 3x in Criminal? Absolutely yes. Itās a super strong hybrid economy/denial card and even if youāre clearing the tags, itās still worth playing well into the mid-game even against corps who can get some taxing ICE up on RnD. Maybe itās not bonkers broken anymore, but itās still one of the best run events in the game.
4 Likes
His posted deck runs 3x Account Siphon.
2 Likes
I know. I was slightly kidding. I think you hit the nail on the head with this.
I tested a few games against RP last night and Siphon just seemed so worthless. I landed a couple early ones, but itās just so easy for Corps to get back up and running. It didnāt help that all of the agendas were in the middle of the deck so all of my early aggression was basically for naught. Sad times.
Have you found room for Kati in your list? Or are you still going pretty aggressive tag-me?
Aggressive tag-me, and money hasnāt been a problem yet. Dirty Laundry is super good when you play it on a run you want to make anyway (say, RnD) and you break for free with B&E.
I think the problem one feels with Siphon isnāt really that Siphon is worse, but that getting the corp to rez ice isnāt good anymore. Corp economies are fast enough and taxing ice cheap enough that itās harder to keep the corp struggling between Siphons by running aggressively and getting them to rez ice, slowing their recovery to hedge range. Heck, Blue Sun makes this positively unhelpful as it even gives them the chance to move ice around if theyād find it helpful.
Consequently, Criminal these days wins or loses by picking the right times to run and the right times to draw, reloading your strong pressure and economy. Thatās part of why B&E and Geist is cool; it letās you be a bit more aggressive because you will be drawing while you do it.
1 Like
Do you feel like you have enough triggers? I think you have about 16 in the most recent list you posted (hence the 16 card monte name, nice touch).
I go back and forth on that. Iāve upped the number of triggers since the last posted list here and I think it was at the highest at around 20, but now Iām down to 17 again. Current list below (I havenāt tested this incarnation with Levy yet. I hit an RP player at league night who managed to turtle hard enough to get me to deck when the score was 2-0, I think, or maybe 5-2. I still won, but there was a lot of clicking for credits and passing the turn near the end of the game that could have been more efficient if I cycled my econ events and breakers back with Levy. Levy also allowed me to drop Mimic as a breaker since if I get into a jam, I can cycle the Faeries back in. I think 10 (plus 4 extra via clone chip if I need it) sentry breaks should be enough for a game, especially since Sentries are delicious Crescentus targets, being expensive for their breaking cost). Depending on Levyās value, I would possibly drop it, gain back Mimic, gain back a Clone Chip and drop a SoT, probably.
Are you watching closely?
Armand āGeistā Walker: Tech Lord (The Underway)
Event (13)
- 3x Account Siphon (Core Set)
- 3x Dirty Laundry (Creation and Control)
- 1x Legwork (Honor and Profit)
- 1x Levy AR Lab Access (Creation and Control) ā¢ā¢ā¢
- 2x Special Order (Core Set)
- 3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
Hardware (8)
- 2x Clone Chip (Creation and Control) ā¢ā¢ā¢ā¢
- 3x Desperado (Core Set)
- 1x Dyson Mem Chip (Trace Amount)
- 1x Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead)
- 1x R&D Interface (Future Proof) ā¢ā¢
Resource (8)
- 2x Bank Job (Core Set)
- 2x Same Old Thing (Creation and Control)
- 2x Security Testing (Honor and Profit)
- 2x Street Peddler (The Underway) ā¢ā¢
Icebreaker (13)
- 1x Corroder (Core Set) ā¢ā¢
- 3x Crowbar (Chrome City)
- 3x Faerie (Future Proof)
- 2x Shiv (The Underway)
- 3x Spike (The Valley)
- 1x ZU.13 Key Master (What Lies Ahead) ā¢ā¢
Program (3)
- 3x Crescentus (A Study in Static)
15 influence spent (max 15)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Underway
Deck built on NetrunnerDB.
EDIT: I havenāt mentioned Bank Job in this thread, but itās real good. Not any better in this deck, I think, than in any other running econ Criminal deck, but against almost all decks itās basically like an influence free lucky find for an extra 2 credits (1 better on the card its self and then 1 from Desperado). I canāt think of any current tier 1 decks that donāt at least sometimes run a bare remote that isnāt Jackson, so you will find time to use it at some point and itās a great cash injection.
1 Like
Nice. Funny thing, right before you posted this I took your 16 Card Monte list and fiddled with it to put Levy in and basically got the exact same list. Iām toying around with the idea of changing the Crescentus to Muertos Gang Member and adding E-Shutdown. Being able to Peddler a MGM mid run seems kind of hilarious. Plus MGM doubles Geistās draw, but then you lose a some control over the board.
I completely agree about Bank Job as well. That card seems to be in a really good spot right now.
Let me know how that goes. Iām scared to use Muertos since it gives so much control over to the corp. Someone used it against me when they were playing Geist and I picked wraparound to derez. So many decks run a mixture of really cheap (Bako, Wraparound, Quandary, Gutenberg, Crick, Ice Wall, even Eli) and expensive (Tollbooth in every deck everywhere) that given the corp the choice on both derez and rez feels dangerous.
That said, others have found it to be a cool card so Iām perfectly willing to be wrong about it. Have you found it to be solid?
I havenāt played with it all as I just thought of it today. Itāll probably end up being worse, but weāll see. Assuming there is no ice rezzed, if you were to install MGM off of Peddler during step 3 of a run, do still encounter the ice or can you just pass it? Or does this trigger in step 2.1?
Muertos has been in nearly every Gabe, Leela, and Geist deck Iāve had success with. It really shines with Parasite, so it can get rid of the ICE you mention. Long as you keep on top of their asset econ, itās live almost all game. You can have some complete blowouts early game with it as well.
Even alone, without any support, it absolutely destroys Blue Sun. Itās such a dirty matchup against them. Basically the Criminal d4v1d, but more silver bullet. With 3x Mueros and 2x Shutdown and/or Crescentus Iāve found it to be a very formidable anti-glacier rig. Then it just depends how you want to break.
I wouldnāt play Muertos competitively without Parasite, but it goes straight into my modern competitive Parasite Gabe.
@Danwarr Unsure. I think it works and they lose their window to rez.
What does it help you do that sneakdoor-shutdown doesnāt? I guess if youāre able to keep their rezzed ICE count low enough then you can maintain a modicum of control over what gets derezzedā¦ but it still feels risky. Anyone got any games with it on stream or something so I can see it in action? I love its theme, so if it could work in a deck Iād love to slot it in.
Nothing filmed, but Iāve got around 16 or so games with various decks with Muertos. Sec Testing is my Archives pressure, no Sneakdoor.
Iām not preaching it as the next sliced bread, but if you want more derez and more aggro, itās a great card if you can find a way to Fall Guy up or ditch tags.
Iāve had games where RP would rez a Pup on HQ turn 1, Iād parasite it, and heād re-ICE. Next turn Iād facecheck it (Gabe) with a Faerie out, and I would respond with a Muertos.
Itās the absolute king of streamlined aggression, if you focus on one server and donāt let assets run wild itās your 4th 5th and possibly 6th Shutdown. Thatās why I love it so much against Blue Sun, since they derez their ICE for you.
In your own Geist deck, it wouldnāt work, since its tag-me. Itās still an interesting trade, you derezzing something (they lose money), and they have to click and trash it for 2c to rez something else. Ultimately not worth it but still very aggro and interesting. Might be something in the future.
Itās definitely a premier Criminal card in an Operation heavy meta, which we arenāt in. If it was an Op-heavy world I would slot in Muertos into literally every Criminal even without Parasite.
Plus thereās nothing like responding to a turn 1 OAI with a Muertos. By far better than wasting an Inside Job for a Shutdown.
Yeah, I can see how it fits in with your kind of aggression. If you keep the number of ICE rezzed down and keep the econ pressure up, Muertos makes the corp take choices they donāt want to.
The fact that it basically prohibits you from going tagme is a shame, though; itās a nice flex option in Criminal to just say screw it and keep the tags from Siphon when you think youāre in the home stretch. Losing your drained Kati and Sec Test is fine, having the corp pay 2 credits and a click to rez Tollbooth is ouchy.