Gabe, The Original ++ (Santa Clara Regional 4th seed/6th OA)

Card draw simulator
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Lightningjak 101

I've been playing Gabe for a while now, but recently made some changes to adjust for what I was seeing/expecting in the Meta.

It ended up paying off since I only dropped 1 game (to Blue Sun) during the 7 Swiss Rounds and lost to a good player running NEH Butchershop after the Cut.

The deck faced 2 RP, 2 NEH Butchershop, 2 Blue Sun, 1 ETF, and 1 Cybernetics.

Like most Gabe decks, you're encouraged to run a lot and make use of your ability as much as possible, so the standard cards that support that strategy are in here.

Here is a breakdown of the more interesting deck slot choices:

I've Had Worse - Outside of losing to John's NEH Butchershop after the cut, I've done very well versus meat damage decks because of this card (for the record, John won through scoring in that game). With a plascrete on the board and this in hand you are typically pretty safe. Secondarily, I found this card very useful card draw versus RP. Running through a Pup without paying can trigger this and save your credits.

Feint - This card is underrated. Crisium Grid hurts Gabe but Feint is the answer to it since you can access cards with Feint when the corp has Crisium Grid rezzed. Hence, you can then trash the Grid. Another fun use case is to put Security Testing on HQ and Feint into it (gaining money) and then trigger 1 or 2 emergency shutdowns for a huge econ/tempo swing. Finally, this and/or Inside Job+Emergency shutdown are great cards for dealing with Blue Sun Curtain Wall+Oversight AI plays.

Atman - a lot of decks are running this now and I think it is critical. RP in particular can be very taxing when it takes 4 to break an Eli with your corroder. Atman (usually @4) is the answer to Eli, Ichi, Lotus field, Cortex Lock, and quite a few other commonly played ice.

Infiltration - still important to keep 1 of these and 1 Same old Thing for the occasional PE match-up.

Final comments - The deck has a lot of tricks, moves fast, and allows for low risk face checking. It's a little light on R&D pressure due to only 1 medium but overall a decent build. Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

2 comments
8 Jun 2015 Chuftbot

I love seeing Gabe in the current meta, glad he worked well for you. I have a couple questions though.

Are you not a fan of Dirty Laundry? I love its synergy with Desperado, and especially if Gabe or Ken are on the table. It seems like you opted for Security Testing over it, but I'm curious.

Atman is fantastic. Since you have it, couldn't you remove one or two breakers? With Datasucker I'm not sure if I understand why you'd need Peacock and Yog.0, for example.

Last note isn't a question, but I had no idea Feint worked that way! I'd practically forgotten it existed. That's a pretty awesome trick!

9 Jun 2015 Lightningjak

@Chuftbot I'm glad you like the deck.

I thought a lot about Dirty Laundry but decided that Bank Job serverd a similar purpose but seemed to be a larger payout, especially in the current Meta with many open remotes. However, vs. central glacier I'd rather not rely on successful runs for econ exclusively, which is why I have Armitage Code Busting for example.

Yog and Atman serve different purposes but Peacock can be redundant. However it is is in the deck in the event that the corp is running Wormhole and other high strength code gates that Atman @4 and yog with a few sucker tokens cannot deal with. It's a good game when I don't have to play Peacock, but I'm glad to have it just in case.