Denial and Destruction

Look out for Excalibur on central. You actually have no answer for it other than an Inside Job if it is the outermost ice. Also for decks like PE, it is really punishing the Runner for running on R&D and Archives. Luckily you won't be accessing any HQ cards due to Siphon and normally PE is relatively poor compared to other decks.

Good job on trying to make an old Gem work though!

is this pretzel from OCTGN? this list looks interesting

No, I only play on Jinteki.net and go by the same username as here

@iceqs Excalibur isn't really an issue. The aim is to still play a standard Gabe econ denial deck. Apocalypse is simply there to reset the board state (essentially give the runner another 'early game'). Besides that, you can simply run the server with Excalibur last and let the sub fire.

Tried it :) .What about Eater or Faust?

@optimizer I'm thinking of swapping out the two Employee Strikes for Faust; it might do more work in this kind of deck (help guarantee an Account Siphon early). I'll have to test it more with the changes.

Although this is an aggro deck, you the sec testing may be cut-off and siphons costly to land when you find them, so my thought would be 2 slot, 1 or 2 Kati's ( -2 strikes, +1 faust, +1 kati?) so you have those big infusions of cash for a click when you want to hit a well defended central(s) mid-to-late game.

@sruman Kati Jones might be a bit slow for the kind of aggression this deck needs. I feel this type of deck needs to keep constant pressure (either by running servers or drawing aggressively to find the pieces you need to establish the headlock). I feel that you should never let the board state really reach that point where you need Kati to get through all central servers. Criminal has enough tricks to make getting through all servers cheaply (Inside Job, Sneakdoor Beta, etc), along with a decent denial game, the Corp really shouldn't have enough money to rez ICE that would be too taxing to get through that Kati is warranted.

Bank Job seems like a much better choice than Kati in this deck.

With Faust in for Employee Strike, this deck is bonkers!!!

This deck is very very interesting .

@desertfox42 Bank Job seems like a bad choice for economy as it relies on a successful run on a remote and we are only running Central breakers.

@optimizer Yep, the switch for Faust over Employee Strike seems to make the deck a lot faster for setting up the Account Siphon and establishing the headlock.

Here's my is idea of what to add to the deck to keep the early game sustained;

-1 Inside Job, +1 Feint. Makes a double iced HQ cheaper to hammer, and with Lamprey, Gabe's ID ability, Desperado and even Security Testing all cheap ass things to set up you have a powerful position after an Apocalypse reset of the board state. Means you can play this card insteead of a program to break the ice in front of HQ. Saves you a click.

-1 Utopia Fragment, +1 Stimhack. When you're playing against a corp that has a faster setup of binary ice, like Quandary, this will ensure that a critical run will succeed for an Apocalypse or to shut down a Crisium on HQ early game for the low cost of 1 brain damage. This is important because once you install an icebreaker in the early game you have no credits to use the breaker you just installed.

-1 Security Testing, +1 Dorm Computer. This will help make cheap runs through the troublesome low-cost ice that exists in the meta, like Gutenberg at 2 credits and Turnpike at 2 credits. It's 0-cost, so you start saving credits right from it's install, just like security testing except to avoid tracer ice breaking or paying to beat traces.

@jumping_down Thanks for the feedback. I've gone back and forth between the second Inside Job and Feint, and ultimately settled on Inside Job after testing. Its shown to be more versatile and drawing into it early helps so much for contesting weak remotes that Corps try to rush early agendas behind.

As for cutting Utopia Fragment, I've found it just too strong of a play to pop it right before the Apocalypse play. You either hit Agendas or ICE with it, and both cases are bad for the Corp. They now either have to dig hard for a Jackson Howard to stop you from scoring those agendas, or they have to dig hard for ICE to defend their centrals from a impending assault.

I haven't yet tested Dorm Computer, but I feel that cutting down to a single Security Testing would be a mistake. A single Security Testing on HQ alone gives Gabe so much sustain, allowing you to gain 5 credits on a single successful HQ run. You want to be drawing into it early to mid game, and having just a single copy makes it hard to do that.

Been trying this deck out on jinteki.net and I just love it. Such a blast to play!

I was just thinking about Gabe and Lamprey during my commute today and find this little beauty! How fortuitous.

Some piloting questions: Do you feel like you have memory limits with Lamprey and Sneakdoor? Are they meant to be played at different stages/you do not worry about trashing your Lamprey for necessary breakers? Since you aren't running Faerie I considered Q-Coherence Chip, but that is a lot of deckspace and you lose them to a purge. Dyson is pricey, other options cost influence, and we wouldn't run anything but Desperado, so I think we have to let it rock. Also, what is your experience with Crisium Grid?

As for cards, I think Faust is great and second considering Dorm Computer, Feint, and Bank Job. Dorm Computer is really useful against the new Raven/Lane method of trashing programs or going through Gutenberg for free. Maybe Plascrete can go if you are reckless. Feint does have many similarities with Inside Job, but it also makes trashing Crisium much easier while saving IJ for another central or the remote. I don't see why both cannot exist here, but it does seem like a 46th card.

If one goes the Faust route, some Fisk Investment Seminar may also help out. It helps out your aggro and if you can keep the corp low-money then they will have to make some bad decisions. Maybe it'd be better in a deck that goes a little less Apocalypse and more general denial (Crescentus).

@Vimes Generally I haven't had any MU problems with this deck. Sneakdoor Beta is usually installed before I have any breakers out as a surprise to get a few more accesses out of HQ and I usually install over it and pressure HQ directly if archives gets ICEd up.

Crisium Grid is definitely annoying. I'd say that its a card that slows this deck down quite a bit. I have no answer for it except for running in and trashing it before the Account Siphon or Lamprey lock. This deck does make a lot of money very quickly so the economy hit isn't as bad as you would think.

I have been using Feint with some success - contesting remotes isn't a strength of this deck, but the Feint, Emergency Shutdown + Inside Job into a remote is a strong play against a remote you must get in now.

Generally, I don't build my decks with Plascrete Carapace (see my Novelist where I got some flak for not including it), but in Crim I feel like its a worthwhile include simply because Account Siphon lands you tags so easily and you don't really want to shake them and lose tempo.

I have also swapped out the two Employee Strikes for a Faust and its been doing a lot of work comboed with Drug Dealers. I've also tried playing with Fisk Investment Seminar as card draw but found it inconsistent. Probably just because I haven't figured out when to play it, but often I didn't want the Corp to draw those 3 extras for free.