Gabe's Perfume Shop v1.0

saracenus 1060

This deck is an iteration of a deck created by TheBigBoy. Yeah, that guy who unleashed Dumblefork on the world. You can find his blog (Run The Net) discussing the original build of the deck here: PerfumeShop: A True Runner Control Deck

I had been messing around with a Silhouette: Stealth Operative deck that put tremendous pressure on Corps and made easy use of High-Stakes Job. Unfortunately, it just could not keep up economically with the current crop of Corps. When I came across PerfumeShop, I felt I had my answer for a small GNK I was co-running at a brand new game store in Portland, OR (shout out to Ryan at The Portland Game Store).

I made a few changes to the basic deck, some suggested improvements by the deck's author (-1 Levy AR Lab Access, -1 Breach, +1 Akamatsu Mem Chip, +1 Corroder) and one change was my own (-2 Faerie, +2 Mongoose).

I sleeved up, did a few draw simulations, and on tourney day unleashed the fury that is Gabe early aggression. How did it perform? Pretty damn good, I went 3-1 for the day in 4 rounds of Swiss.

Round 1: Zach RP Glacier.
Loss.
Maiden play of a new deck and I get one of my worst match ups. I score 6 points in the first 5 turns and then my worst fear happens... cheap taxing Ice on all centrals and he wipes virus counters on my very full Pheromones. Crisium Grid on HQ seals my fate. My second Special Order, my Passport, and my Corroder were in bottom of the Stack. I by the time I get running again I have no econ to speak of and John Masanori has worked against me.

Round 2: Matt E. HB: EtF Glacier.
Win.
Again, my early aggression catches my opponent by surprise and I quickly rack up 4 AP in a mater of turns. Sneakdoor Beta early is punishing. I had a brief moment of panic when Matt rezzed Will-o'-the-Wisp and sent my Passport to the bottom of my Stack. A bunch of rezzed Next Bronze made Gabe's life difficult. My opponent does not respect my installed Same Old Thing and only single Next Bronze with Old Hollywood Grid installed is easy pickings for Inside Job and I had already scored ABT, 6 AP for Gabe. Inside Job kills a second Will-o'-Wisp and I hammer his central servers into oblivion.

Round 3: Matt S. New Angeles Sol.
Win.
Unfortunately, for my new Matt opponent I have been playing New Angeles Sol a lot. His version did not have enough econ to keep up with mine and slapping down Targeted Marketing vs. Account Siphon was a blank because:
A. I didn't draw AS the entire game. B. Even if I had I would have tossed them in the heap. C. Vamp is a hell of a closer card.

Round 4: Alexis - Weyland: BaBW Scorch Kill.
Win.
Out econ my opponent. Put her on tilt when I Emergency Shut Down her Archer on the Archive server. Get to 5 AP by running Centrals like they are going out of style. Close out the game by Keyholing 3 AP into Archives along with a bunch of Econ and all of her recursion. Frantically dig for either my second Special Order/Passport or Hades Shard to close the deal. Hades Shard for the win. Never saw John Masanori which would have helped close this out earlier.

So, what was the take away? This deck is hard hitting and has econ legs that most Gabe decks lack. However, if it stalls, it stalls hard. I also didn't get to play against NBN Rush or 24/7 Kill decks.

I like 3 Mongoose because you need it to protect your Eater from Swordsman, there are just too many decks splashing that card. However, I need more breakers when I need to access a server... I think I will experiment with +1 Special Order, +1 Peacock, -1 Mongoose. Which leads me to another card...

John Masanori was only key in one game, in two of them I din't see him, and in one game it actually cause me to lose key econ cards (Same Old Thing and Security Testing). -2 John Masanori, +1 Symmetrical Visage. Or, I could put Breach back in instead.

Only testing will tell.

25 comments
23 Feb 2016 haywire

Looks awesome :)

23 Feb 2016 internet_potato

This deck is an absolute blast to play. I have recently been trying the original (non-levy) build with a few modifications:

  • +1 eater
  • +1 corroder
  • +1 utopia shard
  • -1 hades shard
  • -1 keyhole
  • -1 akamatsu mem chip

I had a couple of frustrating games where lack of early eater/corroder left me in the dust. I didn't see where else I could spare influence than eathole (and without the 2 MU keyhole, akamatsu was less important). I like utopia shard as another "thing you can do with a successful HQ run other than access cards" (and kill/FA disruption), and had 1 inf free.

All that being said, I have definitely had a couple of games where I squeaked out a slow win in cases that eathole would have crushed.

So, I'm not sure. Slots are really tight.

23 Feb 2016 internet_potato

Sorry, counted influence wrong/mixed up version of deck. Actual changes were

  • +1 eater
  • +1 utopia shard
  • -1 hades shard
  • -1 keyhole
24 Feb 2016 Iron_Soul

Would you consider replacing masanori with drug dealer? The deck seems to make enough money to support it.

24 Feb 2016 saracenus

@Iron_Soul I heeded the advice of the deck's author and didn't fall into that econ trap. Until you zero the corp, if you even can, every credit is precious.

24 Feb 2016 Iron_Soul

That's a reasonable reason. Having not played it yet, wasn't sure if the econ hit was feasible.

24 Feb 2016 kollapse

How would you deal with a breaker being trashed (net/meat damage from hand or shot on the board)?

24 Feb 2016 internet_potato

In my experience, you have to be pretty careful. I added a second Eater for insurance. Hopefully between care, the second eater, and non-breaker criminal tricks, you can get by. If you can zero the corp with a couple of Same Old Thing's on the board, it's really hard for them to get back on their feet, even if you are down a breaker.

24 Feb 2016 saracenus

@kollapse- That depends on the breaker and the corp board state. Losing Eater and another breaker in the early game is typically fatal and a known Criminal weakness (no native recursion, need to import breaker suites, etc.). But even then Criminal can do surprising things. We used to practice criminal tricks by building Gabe decks without a single breaker to teach ourselves how to get in without the Shaper crutch of a full rig, or in this case a rig at all.

This deck is not bullet proof. There are hard counters to it and if you face one in a match you will be a sad panda. On the plus side people think that MaxX is maximum aggression and really have no idea what early game pressure is like when Gabe hits the table. MaxX is more like Andy in that an overwhelming board state is achieved rapidly but they both are a bit slow on the first few turns unless they get a perfect draw, they both have to spend a bit of time setting up.

This out of the gate aggression catches folks off guard and will usually lead to poor Ice placement as they will try and plug all the leaks in their central servers with whatever they have in hand. This becomes deadly for a Corp in the mid-game when you finally have your setup and start hammering their econ and centrals at will with a minimal rig.

In my last game my opponent had all the tools to slow me down but because her Ice strategy had been disrupted I was able to hit HQ with just Eater and Corroder out. HQ had just three barrier breakers on it. One gear check Ice would have stopped my ability to access HQ and made a Crisium Grid viable. All the gear check Ice was either in the heap or protecting archives.

24 Feb 2016 saracenus

@internet_potato - I would put in a singleton Crypsis before I blew influence on a 2nd Eater. Far more flexible, 0 influence, and is a classic partial rig threat.

Crypsis with a single Virus token gets you through low Strength gear check Ice for an access. If you are making your post Keyhole glory run on Archives, a single Virus token gets you through 2 Ice for the win. You treat it like Kati Jones and put a token on it with a spare click at the end of your turn. If they wipe Viruses, then you can still put a token on your turn and run, if they leave it you can either run or put a second token on it and run...

The changes you are making to the deck are moving it away from its original game plan. You are coming at this deck from a Shaper perspective, let go of that and start thinking like a Criminal.

24 Feb 2016 internet_potato

"Think Like A Criminal" is good advice. I've been playing for 8 or so months, and have indeed mainly played shaper :).

I'll try it out again with keyhole + hades shard and see if I can squeeze in a crypsis somewhere as a backup solution. Maybe swap out a mongoose for a crypsis in your breaker suite.

24 Feb 2016 saracenus

My new version of the deck is -2 John Masanori, +1 Special Order, and +1 Crypsis. I am going old school and doing without draw beyond the defualt for 1 card. Really doesn't hurt this deck, if I had room for Symmetrical Visage I would slot that before John.

Check out [Run Express](http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/32291/run-express "Run Express) for a deck that foregoes both draw and Inside Job...

24 Feb 2016 saracenus

My new version of the deck is -2 John Masanori, +1 Special Order, and +1 Crypsis. I am going old school and doing without draw beyond the defualt for 1 card. Really doesn't hurt this deck, if I had room for Symmetrical Visage I would slot that before John.

Check out Run Express for a deck that foregoes both draw and Inside Job...

24 Feb 2016 internet_potato

Interesting changes. I'm going to try with the list published here -1 mongoose +1 crypsis. Maybe I just need to get less dumb about losing my breakers and should change crypsis to a 3rd special order.

24 Feb 2016 saracenus

@internet_potato Its not dumb to fear breaker loss. You are going to lose games because of bad Corp match-ups (Data Raven + Keegan Lane, shudder) and misplays.

Embrace it, you will learn to think on your feet and make use of the tools ya got. If your meta is just too punishing for this build to thrive, then you make changes because you need answers to the Corp questions, or even better, you want to answer with a more problematic question of your own.

25 Feb 2016 TheBigBoy

Nice work. I could never dump Johnny Mass. Just remember not to install him if you don't have Eater access (except vs NEH, install him ASAP vs. them, he's your best card). He draws you about 20 cards over the course of most games. That's totally broken. You don't have to be in a hurry to put him down. Even played late he still pays off.

3rd Special order is fine. I've thought about it myself.

Good to see you enjoying the deck :)

25 Feb 2016 saracenus

@TheBigBoy Thank you so much for the awesome deck to play with! It brought back joyful memories of my first year of Netrunner and my first Regional in 2013. Everyone was using Andy except a few diehards... now everyone is playing Dumblefork or some variation of Cake driven MaxX.
I cannot wait to test CBI in this thing! I will have it for my first playable Store Championship in two weeks. I can't make the one this weekend and I am running the next one the week after. Now I just have to find a Corp deck that I can actually play competently...

13 Mar 2016 mathandlove

What your thoughts on including CBI Raid in this? So tempting, but don't know what to cut. PS - I love this deck, it fits my play style perfectly.

15 Mar 2016 moosecapable

This deck teaches you to make choices with MU. What a great deck. So much fun to play and very powerful.

20 Mar 2016 hutch9514

CBI Raid needs to be in this deck now!

16 Apr 2016 jgoahl

Is there room in here for 1 net shield and 1 plascrete?

17 Apr 2016 konoharaven

@igoahl : Playing around with this, you don't need the plascrete, since you can out money a SEA Source or Midseason Replacements, and you can siphon down NEH to be too poor to score for a 24/7 News Cycle kill, although that might take some luck.

As far as a net shield, influence is super tight, so I lean towards no. Against IG, again, you want to siphon them down to nothing and pick away at their remotes one by one, prioritizing Hostile Infrastructure and Bio-Ethics Association so you don't take a huge amount of net damage over time. You can use Eater to flip archives by breaking one subroutine of something protecting archives (which they will defend after you sneakdoor a whole bunch), which doesn't count as access for Shock! and Shi.Kyū.

TL;DR: There's no room for net shield or plascrete, and you don't need them anyways.

18 Apr 2016 saracenus

Net damage decks are going to hurt you. Period.

Right now I am off playing this deck because it is nearly impossible to keep Pālanā Foods Glacier builds from mopping the floor with you. There is a tipping point where Pālanā will laugh off a Account Siphon and the chance of you sustaining a Vamp is nearly nill.

25 May 2016 jgoahl

How do you feel about Cerberus Rex in here as some extra code gate tech?

25 Aug 2016 Hollenden

How does Temüjin Contract fit in this deck? Do you think it is a straight swap in place of Dirty Laundry or Sure Gamble?