Chess is Hard v0.3

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Repartition by Cost
Repartition by Strength
Derived from
Chess is Hard v0.2
Inspiration for
Chess is Hard v0.4
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paintner 6

Still work in Progress

So I was itching to make a 'Chess Deck'.

The aim of this deck is to make it costly for the Corp to rezz ICE. Any ICE rezzed will get lowered strength so cheap breakers may pass.

Make it Expensive: - Costly to rezz ICE

  • Reina
  • Rook
  • Xanadu
  • Emergency Shutdown (to some degree)

Make it Weak: - Easier to bypass ICE

  • Datasucker
  • Bishop
  • Ice Carver

Make it Break: - Get past the ICE

  • Knight
  • Yog.0
  • Mimic
  • Corroder
  • Emergency Shutdown (to some degree)

Make it Bleed: - Deny them cards they want/need

  • Medium
  • Imp

Idea is to prevent Corp from rezzing ice while stacking up Mimic so you can access more and more cards, trashing the good ones with Imp. Any good ice they rezz you place Knight on to break or Bishop to weaken for your icebreakers to pass until Datasucker can do it for you.

Hurt their economy with Account Siphon and make them re-rezz ice with Emergency Shutdown in strategic places.

Access HQ through Archives with Sneakdoor Beta, making their HQ ICE worthless while you hurt the R&D ICE with Caïssa.

5 comments
29 Dec 2013 apo

I like this revision. Needs playtesting for sure. Report back when you have some experience with the deck, I'm curious if Reina shutdown version really works :).

There are some cards in this deck, that you want out really early (deep red, xanadu, djinn) but you run only 2 of them. It might be necessary to bump them to 3-ofs after playtesting.

You also might want to fix the description (you don't access multiple cards from rnd via mimic and you don't access hq via rnd using sneakdoor).

29 Dec 2013 paintner

Just fixed the R&D/Archives miss while you commented =) And the Mimic is a confused/tired typo, Mimic/Medium ... BAH! :)

Will play test it after New Year. And I know the 2 of some are a bit lacking, but I somewhat against adding 3 consoles. But we will test and see.

Thanks for feedback =)

30 Dec 2013 x3r0h0ur

Its looking more like my standard anarch, which works very well. Though, you should probably have nerve agent to make SNB sing. I somewhat agree with needing more consoles. I hate to see deep red as the console. You'll have to see if the caissa are actually helping you more than just viruses might. Ask yourself this, is the breaker suite any better than -3 knight -2 bishop +3 crypsis +1 data sucker +1 free slot? If it really isn't then you should be using grimoire and probably surge to blow up ice with parasite, which you would find room for then.

30 Dec 2013 apo

Heh, but then rooks start to get in your way since you don't want to blow up rooked ice. Then emergency shutdown lose much of their purpose without rooks. And then... it is a different deck altogether.

I'm playing in a local tourney today with my reina deck which is similar but covers a few more holes i think. Will report back how it performed.

30 Dec 2013 paintner

x3r0h0ur: I see y our point, but as apo say, that is another deck. I am not sure if this deck is viable, but I want to try to get a Caïssa deck. Not a 'regular deck with Caïssa in it'.

If is main it on Datasuckers, Surge and Parasites I need to have 3 or each of those and then 3 Deja Vu to get the Parasites back. And that is 9 cards extra in this deck or 9 cards removed.

Parasite would be counter-productive with a Caïssa focused deck as you do not want to kill ICE off, even if it can be useful.

Your suggestions might make sense but they transform the deck into another deck, and I am not sure I want that right now. Then it can be argued that Deep Red isn't worth it as a console even in a Caïssa deck, not sure yet.

I need to play test this as it might be heavily dependant on right things to be drawn.