B&E - Shaper-Style Exile/Geist (v. 0.1)

MTUCache 59

A week into playing around with Geist and his B&E breaker suite, his apparent weaknesses do not seem to have any obvious solution. While his draw ability is fantastic (particularly for Criminal), his lack of recursion drastically limits what his influence can be spent on (after the Clone Chips and LARLA, you have very little room left for multi-access or solid non-disposable breakers), and his only obvious route-to-victory (to me, at least, an admitted newb) is by stalling the corp early-game with Siphon denial until they become flooded. There is no long game with B&E Geist, since you probably only have enough tools to make a dozen or so runs in the entire game. Since he's not built for the long-game, the typical link-drip-econ setup of Data Folding and Underworld Contacts doesn't seem to make much sense.

Is there a way to reverse-engineer this build into a Shaper deck with all those draw and recursion tools? Seems like Exile is a pretty similar runner ID (draw interactions, same influence and deck size, and even has a link for the cloud suite), and has access to all the tools that make sense.

So, do these B&E breakers become more viable in a long-game build? Does trading your econ denial for a slow Shaper setup make more sense now that you've got far less chance of getting locked out with no breakers left?

I've opted to keep the e3/Overmind combo in this build, supplementing MU with 2xDyson and 1xBox-E (hopefully also acting as flatline prevention). With a full rig out your B&Es are up to S10, and your Overminds are dropping at 7 tokens. Scavenge, Test Run, and Clone Chips all recycle any used-up breakers. Net-Ready Eyes and Helpful AIs can boost your B&E if your rig isn't full up yet.

Without the influence for multiple e3s, Tyson Observatory presented itself as a solution, and allowed me to trim down the permanent hardware (Box-E, Dysons, Net-Ready) while not doing entirely without.

This rig does require quite a bit more money to install than Geist's, and the DF/UWC engine is painfully slow to install, but I'm definitely willing to test giving up that early-game pressure for some late-game access. Against glaciers you're going to have time to build to overcome them, and against FA I'm not sure Geist's original build was quick enough anyway...

What do you guys think?

3 comments
29 Jun 2015 FarCryFromHuman

It's too bad you need all the influence for the B&E set because The Supplier would rule here, as would Career Fair. Ditching the Overmind + e3 Feedback Implants + Box-E set would free up enough for aSupplier + Career Fair or 3x Career Fair but... meh. Not sure that's the right call.

I like that you can use the B&E breakers once before chucking them in the bin and profiting from Exile's heap install draw. That feels like a really efficient use of recursion to me.

You might want to squeeze in some more clone chip synergy, like Clot, Deus X, and/or Sharpshooter. Not sure what kind of ICE you deal with in your meta, but goddamn Janus 1.0 is making a resurgence, as well as Ronin, and NEXT Gold + Corporate Troubleshooter is around. Shaper has the tricks to ignore them.

If you do chuck the overmind suite, you could go for Borrowed Satellite. It gets you hand size and link and lets you get rid of all your singleton hardware as well as your Tyson Observatories and still leaves you with enough to power Data Folding. Plus people will wonder what the hell you are doing. This is terrible advice. Don't do this.

29 Jun 2015 MTUCache

Lol. I guess if it came down to it, I'd much prefer The Helpful AI to the Borrowed Satellite, both because it's cheaper and because it gets me a strength boost if I need it. With 5 sources of link in the deck (two of them tutorable), I'm not too worried about dropping down below 2 link once I have enough breakers on the table to worry about MU.

I like the Deus X and Sharpshooter ideas, although with all the recursion in this deck all of these are really just temporary net/meat-damage soakers. The Box-E gets me similar protection with the extra hand-size, but also means I'm ditching a lot of cards to a Scorch. Perhaps the Deus and a plain ol' Plascrete is a better solution.

This deck is already a little fat, but I feel like it probably needs more draw to make use of multiple LARLAs. Otherwise dropping to one is probably sufficient... and if Blacklist hits? May be a painful few turns while I get the tools to get to it.

29 Jun 2015 FarCryFromHuman

Blacklist sucks regardless. I don't think your deck is especially vulnerable, relatively. Chronos Project just straight up kills you if it's timed well. Not much you can do in either case but muscle through.