Pawnshop Nasir

Crunchums 369

A Nasir deck that isn't overly reliant on Personal Workshop! Pawnshop + Armitage is a stronger econ engine than Magnum Opus (with the downside of not being searchable).


There are only a few cards here that I would consider changing:

1 Refractor, 2 Lockpick

Refractor with Lockpick is clearly the strongest option for your second decoder, but you could free up slots by doing something else. I like them because 1) Nasir loves recurring credits 2) Gordian is often too expensive to SMC for 3) any ice that Zu or Gordian needs to pump to break is unpleasantly expensive to break 4) Ghost Runner credits are precious 5) Cyber-Cypher loves it if the corp tries to counter Refractor by stacking code gates

1 I've Had Worse, 1 Legwork

It may seem a bit opulent to be spending 2 influence on IHW for Scorch protection, especially in a deck capable of productively using a dead Plascrete Carapace. I've got IHW over Plascrete because there isn't else that I want to spend that influence on.

Legwork is a good card. I think 2 HQ Interface would be better, but again: +2 HQI +1 Plascrete -1 Legwork -1 IHW -1 ...?

Nerve Agent looks nice on paper and is SMC-able but sucks in practice.

1 Test Run

Test Run is great, but it's definitely not essential.


This list is the culmination of months of honing. I hope you enjoy it : )

5 comments
30 Mar 2015 voltorocks

Great looking list - personally I'm borderline religious about El-ad's "Solidarity" list, but this is certainly a fresh take on a similar concept.

Do you get much use out of atman? I find it often has bad synergy with Nasir since off a PW the tokens need to be paid for in lump-sum.

have you tried -1 IHW -1 legwork -3 lady +1 HQI +1 corroder +1 plascrete +2 earthrise? lady is strong, no doubt, but Corroder's the king for a reason, and freeing up deckspace for more draw seems sound to me (plus even one HQI is better than legwork here considering Nasir often gets to install his for "free").

Well, I won't go on and on - I'll probably just end up asking why you don't change every card to the way I have my deck - but mad respect for crafting such a smart swiss-army Nasir that's truly distinct from El-ad's list.

30 Mar 2015 Crunchums

@voltorocks

Atman things:

  1. It gives you a way to break high strength sentries. You don't have Femme or D4v1d, and you only have 4 pieces of recursion for Sharpshooter.
  2. It can break barriers. Sometimes they will try and run you out of Lady counters (usually by stacking R&D with barriers); Atman makes life easier there. It's also useful against NEH - set it to 0 to break Wraparound so you can save the Lady counters for Eli (and it'll break Quandary too).
  3. The tokens needing to be paid in lump-sum does make post-encounter installs annoying, but between Ghost Runner and Cache you can sometimes get around it. But I would say most of the time I do not aim to install it post-encounter.
  4. Sometimes it's just another breaker when you happen to need a breaker. You can't SMC for everything.

Cutting Lady for Corroder seems crazy. I can't Pawn it and it breaks everything more expensively (paying 4 to break Eli? yuck!). Never running out of counters is not worth all of that.

It's definitely possible that HQI is better than Legwork here. Completely blanking Crisium Grid would be a cute bonus as well. Earthrise Hotel would be nice if there was room (side note: I do not understand El-ad's list running 0 Diesel).

30 Mar 2015 Pinkwarrior

@Crunchums I would want to run Cyberfeeder's in here as it reduces the costs of your viruses like Cache or makes the cost of your runs lower all for only 1 influence and can be brought in with PW.

I also ran Grimoire too but i was more virus focused with my Atman build and the extra MU was helpful i found.

30 Mar 2015 voltorocks

@Crunchums well, you definitely sold me on the one-of atman. It plays a similar role to femme (as you mention) but without influence.

I also didn't think of the aesops-lady interaction, which basically makes her free. very cool. I stand by the HQI though; just one turns HQ into a sieve!

The first time I changed my deck to look like El-ads I kept my Diesels instead of the Earthrise Hotels, but time and testing showed me their strength. Nasir doesn't like to run with money in the bank, and he can't always play the cards he draws right away. Earthrise lets you trade in those unused credits right before a run you need to make in exchange for a mountain of perfectly-timed draws. Anytime I'm spending moeny i would've otherwise lost to an ICE rez, I'm basically thinking of it as free money (and man does nasir get a lot of it in some games) and Earthrise is a robust way to invest it if you haven't drawn into your rig yet. diesel might go in if there were room in the deck, but since I've gotta choose, one click for 6 cards is my preference by far.

30 Mar 2015 CJFM

@voltorocks Well... sort of. He likes to run with enough money so that he can spend that money on SMC/CC/PW to build his board when the corp rezzes ice.

@Crunchums Pretty cool build here. I think there are two ways to go with his breakers: 1) Atman with suckers and Inti (and Lady), or 2) Cyber Cypher and Zu without suckers and Scavenges for Lady. You're kinda hovering in the middle of these two things with the Atman + Cycy + refractor, no suckers, and no Inti. I dunno, I like Inti with Nasir since it's a cheap answer to Wraparound, NEXT Silver, and crap like Paper Wall (if anyone in your area likes to play NEXT Design Rush decks... :( ). This is just a cursory observation, keep what's working for you.

Not running Plascrete with Nasir seems suicidal, even as much as I love IHW for him.

The rest of the deck, I'm on board with. It looks incredibly solid. I don't personally like Earthrise Hotel with Nasir either, but I like to draw aggressively. :D