Seraphim v1.0 (copy)

Echo_Chaser 30

First version of my Val deck.

2 comments
25 Nov 2015 FarCryFromHuman

Could you share your reasoning behind the Deep Red + Bishop kit? That's 6 slots that I just don't see pulling their weight out of Val. Knight is good enough on its own; it doesn't need the support from DR and will get you past any ICE that manages to get rezzed before you Parasite it. You could do some weird Parasite + Bishop off of double Clone Chip combo to kill strength 0-2 ICE on approach but that just seems like a waste of chips.

25 Nov 2015 Echo_Chaser

@FarCryFromHuman Yeah it's a weird choice for sure, certainly not traditional and probably not optimal. This breaker suite is really my attempt to create a hybrid cassia/classic rig that's cheap and functional. Something different really.

As for my reasoning, well Bishop is a replacement for the more traditional Datasucker in the Mimic, Yog.0 and Datasucker combo. According to Sneekdoor) Zeta there are a total of 6 sentries that mimic can not break while at what is effectively strength 5 when paired with Bishop. For Yog.0 there are 7 code gates it cant break at 'effective' strength 5. Any thing they cant break D4v1d or Knight can.

The main benefits of Bishop over data sucker are that it doesn't need tokens to function and can be clone chipped + deep red onto just rezed ice mid run for zero clicks and credits. With a D4ivd installed, a clone chip and a mimic you can pretty much run on any sever and not be afraid of sentries.

Now one of the downsides to Cassia stuff is that the hosting ice can be trashed with an ice install action. The crop installs ice on the outermost spot in the sever, but trashed the host ice first. That's a tactic that's often used to trash knight. In the case of bishop no body is gonna trade a 0 cost to install program for a piece of ice that can tax the runner credits. They do it for knight because people hate that card.

As an aside for knight, there are only 5 ice in the game it cant break. Orion, Janus 1.0, Swordsman, Wotan and Curtain Wall if it's installed on the outermost server. Knight is so much hotness.

As for Deep Red, well other than mid run clone chip installs (I've installed knight on a freshly rezed Archer more than once that way) it provides the extra memory needed to keep the Cassia ice on the board with out too much program trashing. And it saves you the initial click for each Cassia program, that's only 5 total clicks but that's a turn and a quarter, so it's not nothing.

As an aside the prototype for this deck originally ran Itinerant Protesters and Vigil with Investigative Journalism to pump up bad pub.

I played some matches with it and found that I just didn't have the memory I needed. That version also had Dijin, data sucker and one more parasite.

Now all that being said this deck still has issues. It doesn't have memory problems, but it dose have speed issues. It's economy is good but it's draw strength is low. It has no way to tutor up ice breakers on demand, and that slows down early game running.

Fan Site and Frame Job are both insurance cards to make sure I don't end up getting bad pubed wiped. However in retrospect any deck that's running cards that wipe bad pub probably generate it as well, so they are kind of screwed either way.

I might just kill those cards, lose a black mail and add in some draw efficiency like Earthrise Hotel, Wyldside, Adjusted Chronotype. Mayabe just keep one Frame Job just in case I steal some 1 pointers I don't mind burning.