I’d argue that Mimic is an incredibly efficient breaker that occasionally sets itself on fire. Criminal killers mostly require at least 2 credits to get up to 2 strength (Garrote and Femme aside, but if you think you can slap those down in the first few turns…). A lot of commonly played sentries are at 2-3 strength–this makes Mimic a clear winner. Sure, sometimes you walk into a Grim and have to spend some recursion, but, hey, that’s not the end of the world.
I’d also say that just looking at the averages on Sneakdoor Zeta isn’t going to give you a great picture of how things are going down–you’re much more likely to see a Wraparound or Ice Wall in a deck than an Ashigaru. Crim breakers seem to be very good at dealing with large, expensive ice, which you can then derez, but a deck full of cheap ETRs can be painful.
It’s interesting you mention the B&E suite as middling breakers. I’m trying out a siphonless Geist, and I’m pretty sure the suite is more like an extremely slow-roll Femme than a full set of breakers. I can get in a couple of times for basically no effort, and then it’s time to shift gears to a central dig. Not sure the deck has legs, but the suite is definitely more complicated than standard breakers.
It’s a sweet deck. Scavenge would be a brilliant add for Faust. Quite frankly I’m getting very sick of Faust, and it’s sad that Drug Dealer is making it the premier uni-breaker in Criminal.
I’m compelled to idiotically put in a Cyber-Cypher as well, but you are absolutely correct on the Levy.
Definitely bringing this list tomorrow, looks too fun to pass up. I’ve always loved TME Ken and slotting Shutdown feels better and better each week. Only unfortunate is that Mongoose does not fit in this deck for testing - but some friend’s proxying it have proven that it is a great substitute for Mimic if you can justify the influence savings. And better in some cases, like where Archers attempt to tax out your Faeries or 5-destroyer HB.
Drug Dealer and Faust aren’t mutually reliant though, and I think Faust is the weakest slot. Dealer is just an all star on its own. I used to play one in PPVP Kate. Any deck that can make it’s clicks worth more than 1c regularly should be playing it.
It’s some jank, for sure. I just couldn’t play the denial game and also set up my long-term econ, so I got rid of it. And then added in Overmind, because apparently I like bad cards.
Strangely enough, Gorman Drip v1 still pulls its weight. Even when the corp is on, like, 30 credits.
@hhooo Is the ROI on the Public Terminals good enough with only 12 run events with costs and SoT?
I think it shows that the design philosophy with Killers is completely off the mark when Alias is far less playable than either of the other central only breakers. If you can’t install the breaker and break the sentry at a reasonable cost, then players are just going to look for alternatives to breaking.
@SyntaxLost Even in the fastest games vs. NEH, the first terminal is comfortably a Sure Gamble, usually better. I basically never install the 3rd copy except against foodcoats, but post levy they’re still nuts like voicepad was.
I’m curious about this. Almost everyone I’ve seen who’s said anything about the card thinks it’s crap, but the numbers are almost identical to SoT (if 1 click = 2 credits), which see’s a lot of play. Understanding that you don’t get MORE event plays with PA, you can get them sooner, like “right when you need them” sooner. The best comparison seems to be of program tutors and recursion like comparing SMC to Clone Chip (you aren’t really replacing one with the other, as they serve different purposes, but the tutor seems just as valuable as the recursion). The credit numbers are identical too: pay 2 + play to tutor, pay play for recursion. With events the tutor is even a little better because it’s one less click.
I always wished the underutilized and underwhelming Criminal exposure effect was better. Hey @Chuftbot, you going to be at Atomic this upcoming Saturday? I wanted to test some NAPD MWL builds for the upcoming SC season and y’ll have a very strong meta and players.
Mongoose appears to be slightly more efficient than Ninja on everything except str 4/5 single sub sentries. It looks like it’s probably the most efficient pumpable, permament, non-Stealth killer that isn’t Garrote- but that really isn’t saying much, given that it’s on average about half a credit more expensive than the 2str/1boost/1break Gold Standard, never mind Mimic. Ninja is just really bad.
(feel free to tell me if you think a sentry should/shouldn’t be on the list; I also bumped Gutenburg to 6 str and News Hound to 2 subs to reflect how they’re more likely to appear.)
(e: hilariously it’s cheaper to just pay the Negotiator than break it with Ninja)
I guess the crux of my hate-on for Mongoose is the one-per run restriction. Sentries are often more common than barriers and in some cases code gates because they’re taxing, awkward to break, and their subs matter. It isn’t uncommon to see an Ichi and an Assassin on the same server, and that’s not even just in HB. How does a Mongoose rig address stacking? If you supplement Mongoose with Faerie you’re only temporarily (albeit very efficiently) solving the problem. If you run a second Mongoose that’s 2 MU, 6 creds for installs, and 2 cards that you have to dredge up. You’d probably rather run Garrote at that point.
Mongoose seems like it’s going to do work against Rush/FA decks that don’t ice up much, but the second another sentry is involved I lose all desire to use the thing.
Either way, Mongoose feels 1 strength off from being decent, which means you probably have to run it with NRE or Suckers. Switching from Mimic to Mongoose does free up an extra influence which could allow you to run a Datasucker. Going Faerie + Mongoose might be ok, especially if you don’t have to burn a Faerie on something like Ichi 1.0.
That’s actually a really good point. If Mongoose had a base of 2 it would solve a tremendous amount of problems and not cost just barely less per-ICE than a permanent breaker.
Yeah my point was that Mongoose isn’t Ninja-tier bad; but it is sitting in a niche that basically doesn’t exist. If you want a cheap early killer Faerie is better, if you want an actually efficient breaker the once-per-run restriction means that you’re likely to need two so Garrote looks less bad, if you want a silver bullet it’s not actually that efficient, if you’re importing from out of faction and are allergic to Mimic Shrike is about as good and has no restriction.
The one thing that I might use it on is Faust Gabe- if they put two sentries that you don’t want to break with Faust on all their centrals and their scoring remote I call that a win in my book. Still expensive to use with Drug Dealers so maybe you still want Faeries? Idk but I think it might be worth a shot.
e: yeah if Mongoose is base 2 str it’s better than Garotte, which is not a bad thing given its restriction.
I think the biggest benefit you get from using Mongoose, or any of the “bad” Criminal breakers minus Leviathan (fuck Leviathan), is that they give you the flexibility to just pay a little extra to break ice which plays into the whole “Crims make more money” flavor.
Mongoose gives early aggression which Garrote doesn’t really provide. It also gives more flexibility with running Mongoose + Femme for the same memory cost as Garrote.
The real problem with icebreakers at criminal is not having AI in faction or helpful tools to help icebreakers (yes, we’re talking about d4v1d, parasite or stuff like that).
Mongoose is ok, but I dont think it’s going to change the overall state of criminal.
