Cyrano Nisei 2.0 - First place undefeated July 2016 GNK

Maerik 241

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THG Game Night Kit on Acoo

This deck is a ton of fun. It played against two Sunnys, a Leela, and a MaxX day of and went undefeated. One game it won on kill (Dedicated Neural Net into a Snare!), two games it won on scoring, and the last game the opponent conceded because they'd run out of deck and knew I was holding a mitt of net damage.

The idea behind Cyrano Nisei is to keep the runner poor. When the runner is poor, they have to play your Psi games. And we love Psi games.

Also, if they're poor, Fetals, NAPDs, and Future Perfects protect themselves so well. Unless they have a dirty Film Critic, which is why we have two Voter Intimidations. FOR MORE PSI GAMES.

Early versions of this deck started with every Psi ice (and also Cerebral Casts and Scorched Earth), but the power of Upayoga could not be denied.

At 3 to rez and 4 strength with two subs, this is a beast of a card for anything to break. And if they don't want to break it? You can tax them with its first sub and mess them up with its second. In the early game you just ping Upayoga twice, but later on I'll use a Chetana to tax the hand (and threaten the Georgia kill if they leave, the Fetal/Snare/Shock if they continue) or I'll just use the Snowflake for another Caprice.

Hudson is some fun remote tech that, if unbroken, protects Caprice and Georgia if the runner gets all the way through.

Just be aware that there are a lot of impactful code gates here. Be aware of stacking code gates against Gordians. That's no fun.

In my games, I found Cobra wasn't doing much work. It wasn't much of a tax once rezzed, and it died so easily to instant Parasite. I've been testing Ichi 1.0 in that slot now.

Also the Mamba was never rezzed. It's just too expensive. I'm now testing Mother Goddess in that slot--another card that's amazing with Upayoga.

Plus, after Nationals, I'm testing one copy of All Seeing I (dropping one Voter Intimidation).

"But Maerik, why no Hyoubu?"

Because I'm cheap and I don't want to use my ice to protect it. I'd be willing to try it out, but I feel like it would spread me too thin.

I'm also planning on trying two Aiki in place of the Bullfrogs.

Have fun!

7 comments
12 Aug 2016 clydeiii

For the Cobra slot, what about Aiki instead?

12 Aug 2016 HolyMackerel

Really like the deck. Might not work in my meta, which is very Geist-heavy since he is filthy rich and can draw cards mid-run.

Have you tried Hyoubu Research Facility? It seems it could make you hella cash.

Also, how did you put the GIF in there?

12 Aug 2016 Maerik

@clydeiiiThanks for the comment! I really want to get the trash program stuff through Batty, so Ichi was a pretty obvious choice for something that would let me trash programs while also taxing Faust, Gordian, and Zu.

I really want to try Aiki, and I think it'll fit best in the Bullfrog spot since Bullfrog is so positionally annoying. You sort of want it on your scoring remote, but then your scoring remote is more expensive to build because when it actually procs it moves away and you have to put another piece of ice out almost immediately. But if it's the only ice on a server (say R&D), then it moves away and you're unprotected.

My trouble with Aiki is that it is so Yog-able, but at least it's only 1 rez. Plus most of my local players don't play Yog these days.

12 Aug 2016 Maerik

@pang4I think Hyoubu would stretch me a little thin. I plan to try it out, but I didn't want to take it to the tournament. If I can save a Snowflake for it, it's not bad, but I just don't have the ETRs to protect more than one remote.

That being said, I love the idea of always bidding 2 on Psi games to bankrupt the runner.

If you click the markdown syntax at the bottom of the page, you can see how to add images and GIFs. Uses this:

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Remove all "~" to make it work.

13 Aug 2016 Eji1700

I came to a similar conclusion with my psi deck (keep the runner poor and suddenly psi games matter) and went for a tag/closed accounts/marked accounts with mushin strat.

However I still had a lot of trouble dealing with resource spam/sticking a tag and runners would usually outecon me. I do feel that Palana > nsei. I run fewer psi games, but I felt the money gained being only for psi games wasn't half as good, and vs decks that just setup and then run when the econ engine is going, your ability is basically blank, while palana nets you the all important credits either way (and if the corp is too poor psi games don't matter again).

Anyways two thoughts if you feel like testing it:

  1. Mother goddess you already mentioned, but i'll second it. Having the option to fire a hard ETR on uypayoga is so obnoxious for the runner, and every now and then you get a good start with it in your opening hand and can score out a few points.

  2. Pop up window is really really good, and maybe what you should put in place of bullfrog. It helps jinteki with their weak econ, and more importantly, can make sure you always have money for psi games. Something as dumb as pop up window, nesei is always, at best, a 50/50 for the runner even if they siphon/vamp you to 0, because barring a few exceptions the pop up firing gives you the 1 credit you need to play the game.

13 Aug 2016 Manadog

My Nisei deck personally is a FA/Rush mix. It doesn't give them time to set up ideally. Psi ice is very cost efficient in terms of strength.

15 Aug 2016 Maerik

@Eji1700Good rationale on Palana. I've run spiky Palana in tournaments, and I just found it to be a Jinteki-flavoured ETF. Definitely excellent, but just sort of predictable. I went with Nisei for fun, as I really like the ice choices I get to make in this build. Also, I've played some games with Mother Goddess and it is so, so good. Pop-up is also a great suggestion, I'll try that out. Thanks!

@Manadog What FA tools are you using?