Kasparov's Revenge v1.0

My love for dynamic complications led me to avoid simplicity when perhaps it was the wisest choice.
-Garry Kasparov

I used to have a dream of being a chess hustler in Washington Square Park. I bought a lot of books and studied tactics and got good enough to win a few dollars every once in a while. But eventually I moved on to other things and becoming a chess hustler became less important.

When I got into Netrunner, which was only a few months ago, and I found out about the Caïssa breakers, I immediately was attracted to the idea of a chess deck. Only recently have I gotten up the nerve to try and make a deck without looking for inspiration elsewhere. This is the chess deck that's been tumbling around in my mind.

The highest art of a chessplayer lies in not allowing your opponent to show you what he can do.
-Gary Kasparov

With this deck, you the runner takes command. You are making the corp react to you, not the other way around. Playing this deck is about setting up difficult choices for your opponent and being prepared to move forward based on whichever decision they make.

This deck is built to have a-game-within-a-game feel. You have to set up, and then play some chess. The chess game you will play is going to highly dependent on the board-state at any given moment. A lot of the joy I've had in testing this deck has come from figuring out its secrets. Those secrets only show themselves if your opponent gives you the opportunity. A lot of the strategy is putting them in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situations.

Attackers may sometimes regret bad moves, but it is much worse to forever regret an opportunity you allowed to pass you by.
-Garry Kasparov

• Pawn - A hidden economy gem, as well as recursion. Installing a Pawn on Scheherazade and then on ice nets you +1 credit. Also, if you Pawn in any chess piece onto Scheherazade and then onto ice, this is another +1 credit. I find one good play with Pawns is if your opponent just hid a bunch of stuff in their unprotected archives, ready to Jackson it all out again. Throw a Pawn down on a central for your first click, then run the archives to not only get the Jacksoning done with, but also throwing a Rook or a Knight in depending on the circumstance. Then run that newly Caissa-ed server click 3.

• Rook - I like the following play: Click 1 Xanadu (Paige Piper the other 2 from your deck). Click 2, install Rook by way of Scheherazade (net -1 credit). Run server. If they rez, clone chip in your knight (uninstalling rook as you install knight on Scheherazade, then throwing Knight on the de-rooked ice) to take care of whatever's there. Not only did they just pay an extra 4 credits, but it didnt even keep you out.. and in fact the whole turn cost you 5 credits (3 if you have multithreader out).

• Knights - A huge part of this deck is making it so your opponent can't or shouldn't rez ice. In the case that they do, Knights are doing the heavy lifting. I like to always have one in the trash that I can clone chip out if I hit ice i wasn't expecting, or to Pawn out if I am expecting to need it. On 3-iced servers, i like to have a rook on the innermost, knight on the outermost, 2 knights in the trash (from paige piper), and either 2 clone chips out or one clone chip and a pawn. If they rez the first ice, knight it. If they can afford to rez the second ice, clone chip in the knight (if you havent Pawned one there already). Then make a call on the third ice based on their money and if you have anything else you can clone chip in.

• Then you have D4v1d for emergencies and Mimic for Swordsman and more efficient breaking (when it eventually shows up).

General Concerns (Feedback encouraged!)

• Chronos Protocol - Letting your opponent score one of these will ruin your day. The only thing I've been able to do is do my best to get all the pieces out on the board when its scored. Any suggestions here?

• No Levy AR Lab Access - This actually has been way less of a problem than Chronos Protocol and I keep going back and forth one whether one is needed.

• Fast Advance