Hi guys, I’ve been playing Exile pretty much since he came out and experimenting with lots of different variations (although my atman build was an abject failure, due to what I’d like to call "Not-being-Kate-itis). Currently, I’ve settled on this current deck as I feel it plays to his strengths, but I’d love any advice I can get.
Total Cards: (45)
Event (24)
Diesel (Core #34) x3
Freelance Coding Contract (Creation and Control #33) x2
Levy AR Lab Access (Creation and Control #35) x1
Quality Time (Humanity’s Shadow #87) x3
Scavenge (Creation and Control #34) x3
Sure Gamble (Core #50) x3
Test Run (Cyber Exodus #47) x3
The Maker’s Eye (Core #36) x2
Retrieval Run (Future Proof #101) x2 ■■
Escher (Creation and Control #31) x1
Hardware (5)
Clone Chip (Creation and Control #38) x3
Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead #9) x2
Program (11)
Deus X (A Study in Static #66) x1
Self-modifying Code (Creation and Control #46) x3
ZU.13 Key Master (What Lies Ahead #7) x1
Corroder (Core #7) x1 ■■
Crescentus (A Study in Static #65) x1 ■
Faerie (Future Proof #104) x1 ■■■
Femme Fatale (Core #26) x2 ■
Imp (What Lies Ahead #3) x1 ■■■
Resource (5)
Kati Jones (Humanity’s Shadow #91) x3
Same Old Thing (Creation and Control #54) x2
Aesop’s Pawnshop (Core #47) x1
I generally play by face checking servers early, before drawing to find econ (getting Kati out asap is really important) or answers (using SMC to find corroder/zu for small ice and using test run to find Femme Fatale for big ice). The key thing is to get the most efficient breaker/program for the job at hand (such as imp to thrash a sansan). Freelance coding is used mostly as a combo enabler, to get FF into the heap where she can be cheated into play by Retrieval run but in a pinch you can test run her out of the deck as a pseudo inside job. With scavenge, the test run becomes another way to cheat her in. When/if the corp manages to ice up a remote to the point where getting in is hard, hit them with escher and move the ice you know you can break onto it.
The disproportionate amount of recursion allows for aggressive running and helps consistency, but its really important to not be greedy and overdraw too much, especially in the hopes of using a freelance contract (which I’ve found is unreliable at best). The deck works better with a measured game plan, building your board while always threatening the corps servers. Corroder and zu are cheap to fetch with SMC, and as such help you get into early remotes while saving you money to play your test runs and quality times. The tech cards - Imp, Deus X, Faerie and Crescentus are your ideal targets for your SMC’s / Clone chips, so try to save the clone chips for their recursion.
Against most corp archetypes the deck does well, but in my meta midseason/scorched decks have become popular and those have been giving me fits. I have a feeling that the losses are due to play errors rather than card choice (although Kati really doesn’t help the tag allergy), but any suggestions would be welcome.