Superthief (revisit to classic Keyhole Iain)

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DrunkAlex 329

Until recently criminals have slightly been overshadowed by Anarchs (with good reason). The last 2 datapacks have changed that a bit though, giving a nice wide selection of different cards for different play styles.

This deck is a revisit to the classic keyhole Iain, which stirred some dust, but never really kicked off (at least in my meta). I really wanted to accentuate Iain's ID by getting more advantage if the corp scores. Everybody knows the Logos - Keyhole combo, so I'll only talk about the 2 things that makes this deck IMO better than older iterations.

1) Career Fair+Daily Casts/Earthrise Hotel. A fantastic addition to criminals and anarchs alike. Combined with Underworld Contact contributes to an excellent click-less engine. Symmetrical Visage gives an extra small boost.

2) The main improvement: Gang Sign, combined with Logos and HQ Interface, creates a wonderful 'Damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.' Do you score? Awesome I get to choose Logos and access 1 or 2 cards from HQ. If this leaves me behind, even better, Iain will give me extra drip econ. This helps you close the gap the corp has created for him/herself. In the meantime you are just Keyholing away.

Thanks for your time and C&C welcome as always :).

6 comments
15 Jul 2015 DarkTsunder

Since you have exactly 2 influence left, You may want to look into a single Clone Chip. As a backup in case something goes wrong and you lose a key program, or simply to recur Faerie. As criminals have no in-faction recursion.

15 Jul 2015 DrunkAlex

2 inf left? My screen says I have excatly 10....

16 Jul 2015 sruman

I see 10 as well. But given 3 special orders, swapping out 1 corroder for a clone chip might make sense.

16 Jul 2015 DrunkAlex

Fair point. It's kinda what you prefer. An extra corroder gives better consistency, a clone chip gives better reliability. Even with 3x Special Order, I've had plenty of time I still get things going on time. I guess it's personal taste.

2 Aug 2015 mythbuilder

Currently 4-1 with it and absolutely loving this deck! Had some difficult games against Jinteki IDs as they can snipe one-off cards from your hand. Despite the lack of recursion the weirdness created for the Corp between the Logos - Keyhole combo and the Gang Sign - HQ Interface combo saw me through.

How necessary are the 3 Special Orders? I found that between Earthrise Hotel and Symmetrical Visage I was always running into the breakers I needed. I'm thinking about going -1 Special Order + 1 Account Siphon / Forged Activation Orders / Emergency Shutdown / Dirty Laundry.

I think this deck is really solid and with a few cards it may be quite great. It's a good deal faster than an Iain Connections deck and it's ability to pressure all three centrals is quite useful, especially when you can turn an opponent's scoring window into a free HQ access. Looking forward to seeing future iterations :)

2 Aug 2015 DrunkAlex

Haha, awesome! TBH I left this deck a bit more to the side in favour of my Edward Kim deck (needed a little bit of testing), altough I have made a few changes! Most notably: -1 ZU.13 Key Master, -1 Corroder, -1 Hades Shard, -1 Special Order, -1 Femme Fatale, +2 Cerberus "Rex" H2, +1 Mimic and +2 Clone Chip. The latest version is hardly tested though, but at least now it covers program recursion as wel (although I don't like ditching my Femm). Something that is becoming quite essential. Special order was indeed a little bit of overkill, but when I initially build decks I try to stick to as many 3-ofs as possible. This gives a general idea how badly the deck needs it when I draw it.