[Nerdrunners] Cloud Heist Geist v1.1

Dyson Mem Chip is an interesting choice for the cloudbreaker suite - have you found yourself using the benefits of this card in addition to the Forger link and free MU from cloudbreakers?

So far I have. The extra link from Dyson Mem Chip means I don't have to worry about trashing Forger if I need to avoid a tag, and the extra MU from it means I don't have to worry about Data Folding turning off from installing the central breakers or Grappling Hook.

"and I have walked away alive from a double Scorch play with Mr. Walker thanks to his ability" .

I maybe missing the point of the ID ability, but how do you draw when hit by Scorch ? I guess if you have placrete, does that count as trash ability ? or even when you trash a card from hand due to scorch, you get to draw another?

@Huafen You can sac a Clone Chip, Fall Guy, Forger or Street Peddler to draw back out of Scorch range after the first one hits.

@Huafen Yup, @rage has it. I used a Street Peddler and 2 Clone Chip to draw back up (and I'd already trashed a Forger since the Corp had to double tag me with a Breaking News to make the tag stick).

@rage @markusfriend oh ok. All those cards with trash abilities !

@markusfriend I really like the bones of this but I'm a bit curious about the grappling hook with no e3 Feedback Implants? It seems like at that point its only use is 1) breaking additional barrier subroutines for 1 credit cheaper with Breach, and card draw (in which case you're essentially just swapping drawing the Hook itself with whatever other card you may want. Have you considered Crescentus instead (same draw ability but with an additional useful effect.)

I'm glad people are enjoying Criminals new breaker suite (so glad Shiv was costed at 0) I wonder how using a few of them will work out in other Criminals. Like Spike as a solution for Eli 1.0 or Crowbar for remote Code Gates.

The less Criminals have to spend on breakers the more fun they become.

@rage I know, I've been thinking about including it too. Grappling Hook helps with early face checking when you're still getting the cloud breakers set up - the really nasty ice tends to have multiple subroutines and only letting 1 instead of 3 or 4 of them fire can be a life saver. Since nothing else in the deck really benefits from e3 Feedback Implants I decided to leave it out (an early draft included it as well as 3 Overmind instead of the central breakers). I have been thinking about Crescentus too. I might swap it in for a few games and see how it compares. Also, I have Grappling Hook is in there to round out the breaking and entering theme :-)

Can't argue with keeping the theme consistent! As far as nothing else benefiting from e3 Feedback Implants, I think it actually pairs nicely with the B&E tools for ICE with more than 3 subs (which granted is not a ton.) But then again, at this point I've yet to play with Mr. Geist yet so this is all purely theoretical. I would be interested in hearing back after your experimentation though!

@rage Yeah, I think at the moment the few times where you would need to break a 4th subroutine (and not just let if fire because it doesn't end the run / click though it if it's a bioroid) definitely isn't strong enough to make me include e3 Feedback Implants to support the cloud breakers. But as I play more with Geist the deck will evolve, so e3 could easily end up in a future iteration.

This is the first Geist deck I've seen that doesn't go the Siphon-TagMe route, which I find very interesting. Obviously this is the only way to get your DF/UWC econ functional. I like it, I'm just not sure how many viable runs you need out of your B&Es to close out a game if it goes long.

Theoretical question on setting up your econ: With all this card draw, it seems very likely that you'll have one or more of your econ-resources in hand at all times (at least at the start of the game). Do you feel it would be worthwhile to swap Career Fairs in for something (maybe even gasp Gambles?)? What about a Hostage/Supplier mix to get your UWC setup on the cheap asap? (This would also work with RDIs if you decided to include them over the Makers.)

I'm having a real hard time limiting myself to choosing between a Crescentus build and a Grappling Hook/e3 build, since I can't manage to shoe-horn both in there. I think you may have convinced me to go the Grappling Hook route with your thoughts on protection from early sentries (using them to break the painful subs, not so much to get all the way through the ICE).

Last thought: I'm really leaning heavily towards including a Lemuria Codecracker into any decks using B&E and Central-Only breakers, simply because I don't want to be wasting my disposables going after traps or bluffed assets, which is obviously going to be the corp's Plan A.

@MTUCache I've not really had many games go long yet, but The Maker's Eye and Legwork tend to help me get the last few agenda points I need without having to make too many runs and trash too many cloud breakers to close out a game.

Career Fair is a nice idea, but I found that when I played a variant of the L4J deck that waiting on getting both cards at the same time to play them out in the combo was a bit of a set back compared to just having the money ready to install the resource. I guess with the accelerated draw in this deck it could work a bit better though.

Hostage and The Supplier make for an interesting combo, but I like the flexibility that I have at the moment of installing cards straight away rather than ensuring I have another card installed first to get the benefit from a combo. (I know that you need 2 link before Underworld Contact will start paying out, but you can install them so they are ready to turn on while you keep drawing to find Forger or Dyson Mem Chip). But then again, the speed at which you can draw though this deck might really help if playing with cards that trigger off other cards.

I hadn't thought about Lemuria Codecracker, that could be a really interesting include. Although I've found that the card draw you can get from using the cloud breakers and Clone Chip / Street Peddler during a run almost makes up for it if you don't access an agenda. Do let me know if you have any luck with Codecracker though.

And glad to hear you've decided to go for Grappling Hook :-) It's got me out of a few sticky situations already!

Have you thought at all about Mass Install? It seems like some click compression would be really nice, because you want to install as many breakers at once as you can, to up the strength of the cloud breakers. With so many cheap programs, I wonder if a 1- or 2-of would be helpful in getting up and going more quickly.

Also, have you tried Muertos Gang Member at all? Could be a decent alternative to Crescentus, maybe. Cheaper, no MU, but swapping flexibility for specificity (meaning the corp may have choices in what they derez with Muertos but you get to slap it down anytime, vs Crescentus being specific, but also having a specific window of usage). Plus Muertos gets you 2 cards for 1 trash. :)

Haven't seen anybody use Gang Sign yet either...

Street Peddler does seem very cute for pulling off Shaper Bullshit tricks (definitely my style), but I'm almost wondering if switching those out for 2x Scheherazade isn't a better option. You're probably installing thirty programs over the course of a game, right? Maybe not needed with your resource econ, but interesting.

Play tested this vs tier one NEH and HBEF.

Grappling hook was first to go... Crecentus replaced it but didn't help out a ton so far. Works great with street peddler. Main issue is whether or not you get econ going early. Also caprice servers will annihilate you.

We were discussing -3 Forger -3 grappling + 1 dyson +2 logos +3 account siphon

Overall I'd say it's a feasible deck to play just with maybe a little too much variance.

I wondered about Logos too, since you are sort of sitting back and waiting for your rig to get setup. Forger's link is pretty nice though, especially if you don't see a Dyson Mem Chip early. Adding one may be the way to get around that though, as you mentioned.

I felt like playing Underworld Contact and Data Folding is a big tempo hit, and feel like Career Fair is a great idea, as someone else mentioned before me. I wondered about replacing the Sure Gamble as the same person said, or maybe swap out some combo of Same Old Thing, Fall Guy, and Street Peddler, maybe? I guess an alternative would be The Supplier, too, instead of Career Fair. But he costs money to get out, and ends up leading to dead cards when you get multiples of him. But you don't need to have him at the same time as your resources, which was @markusfriend's complaint. I also considered just swapping the Folding's out for Armitage Codebusting. More bursty, less long-term economy, and then you could consider dropping a Dyson or two for something else, maybe, because you don't need the extra MU for DF.

I'm playing the deck as-is for now though, to get a better feel for swaps. I trust the OP's original thoughts, and want to play with it for a while before making any changes. :)

@mjortman I have indeed been thinking about Mass Install (as well as Autoscripter). However, as gaining credits and card draw don't really require using clicks in this deck it leaves you free to spend them installing programs. It could be a good add though, especially if the Corp thinks they are safe and you drop 3 cloud breakers in 1 click (which you can do with Clone Chip and Street Peddler on the board at the moment) and suddenly you have the strength to get in where you need.

Also, Muertos Gang Member could work really well, but I like the fact that the Runner is in control of the derez with Crescentus and not the Corp. I'm yet to play with Muertos Gang Member, so my thoughts could change once I've had chance to actually use it in a game.

That's a good point about the deck using fewer clicks than some to gain credits and cards. I hadn't thought of it that way.

@MTUCache Gang Sign does seem pretty cool. I wonder if it will start making Corps think twice about scoring out if they have another agenda in hand at the time.

Haha, I definitely feel like I've been pulling off some serious Shaper bullshit with this deck so far! Scheherazade wasn't on my radar until you mentioned it, but I like it. I don't think I'm getting as high as 30 installs yet (I think I might need to up my game :-P), but Scheherazade would definitely pay enough to fund all the program installation and could mean you could sub out either Underworld Contact or Data Folding for something else.

@doublebogey If you are expecting to face a lot of NEH and HB:ETF then subbing out Grappling Hook makes sense since their ice suites tend to consist of a lot of single subroutines and clickable ice respectively. I'm not overly convinced on Crescentus for this deck either, but maybe it works really well in a different Geist build.

There have been games where I've not drawn in to Data Folding and Underworld Contact early, but since the cloud breakers cost either 0 or 1 credit to install and don't cost any money break up to 3 subroutines then I've found that I can still install breakers and make runs even when I'm still waiting to draw my drip economy.

I've not played against Caprice with this deck yet, but I'm usually terrible at the psi games anyway. Maybe next time I should bring some protection.

@mjortman Let me know how it works out for you, I'd love to hear your experiences with it.

Dammit. You beat me to it. This is exactly the deck I planned to build... oh well.

I love this deck, as soon as i built this i knew it was awesome! I found though adding e3 Feedback Implants is a great addition especially against Blue Sun: Powering the Future since it allwows every breaker they have (Janus 1.0, Curtain Wall, or Hive) to pretty much be at its knees to this set up. Also I noticed you don't have Account Siphon, is there a reason why or do you not even want to bother with it.

Have you ever lost your one Levy AR Lab Access by hosting it on Street Peddler? That would be devastating if you needed to recycle your Clone Chips and cloud breakers.

@raouldukelives He also has 3 Same Old Thing, It doesn't become a problem since you essentially have 4 different times you can play the card, even if it's in your heap.

@wizzogomex11True that. I didn't notice the SOT

@wizzogomex11 Account Siphon was in an early draft, but I didn't want to risk losing a link to avoid/remove a tag with Forger and then end up being over my MU limit. I guess it's not so bad now that I have Dyson Mem Chip, but since this deck needs every successful run to count with the cloud breakers then I prioritised accesses over credit denial. It did feel weird to publish a criminal deck that didn't have 3 Siphons in it though!!

This description is pretty amazing with the Cloud to Butt extension. :)

(https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cloud-to-butt-plus/apmlngnhgbnjpajelfkmabhkfapgnoai?hl=en)

That seems good. But how would you work out what to do if someone was playing it against you in a Tuesday night session?

How about -1 Grappling Hook, -1 ...something, maybe data folding, +1 Inside Job, +1 Account Siphon?

The situation where the Corp just has more money is problematic.

An All-Nighter in this deck could be really interesting, actually.