I can wire anything directly into anything!

kwind 187

I've been playing since May and decided to make this the first decklist I'm publishing. I've been playing different versions of this for about six months, and it's become my favorite casual deck. I thought since the professor is gaining popularity post MLW, it might be a good time to put my version out there for people to try, even if it's not exactly groundbreaking.

To some extent, this deck was born when a player on Jinteki.net kicked my butt and told me not to use the professor. I took it as a bit of a challenge to make the deck more competitive.

The problem was it's slow and needed ways to save clicks. Modded, personal workshop, astrolabe and more recently multithreader were parts of the solution. PW is great because early game when you're not set up with enough memory for everything, you can just throw breakers on it, run and install the one you actually need while the rest tick down, also saving clicks.

Basic gameplan: get magnum opus out first turn. Aside from drawing magnum opus, there are six other cards in the deck that can make that happen. You have about a 46% chance of getting one of the nine cards you need. If you have one of them, don't mulligan. If you don't have one, mulligan and you should. If you still don't, it's not ideal but you can often still manage to make it work.

From there, the way you play depends on how quickly your opponent is playing, and pacing yourself is just a matter of practice depending on matchups. Against slower glacier decks, I like to get incubator out early and charge it up for a potential knockout punch if the corp leaves it unchecked for too long and doesn't have a cyberdex virus suite available. Think of it as your doomsday machine, or death clock. Sometimes when people try to rush, test run/femme fatale can be an expensive version of inside job to keep the runner in check a little longer. It's important to balance rigbuilding with leaving enough cash available to not leave obvious scoring windows. Cards like modded, stimhack and test run can also greatly mess with the corp's math and cause him/her to underestimate your ability to get in where you need to.

The deck has a number of silver bullets, but not all of them. I used to neglect plascrete carapace because I figured with Mopus, I shouldn't be losing trace wars. Now with 24/7 news, the deck should probably have two, but deck space is tight. I often try to use nerve agent and imp away scorches in those games, but that tactic obviously has its limits.

A lot of people would probably question the lack of parasite, levy, datasucker, sneakdoor beta and other cards, but you can't have it all. I took a lot of cards I really like out of the deck in trying to make it run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. At the same time, too many virus cards can make purges more painful than you want them to be.

I've had solid success with it, although I chickened out at the last second last month when I almost used it in a tournament. Sooner or later, it's going to happen!

Anyway, try it out and feel free to let me know what you think. Have fun!

4 comments
14 Jan 2016 Artbroken

YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD.

14 Jan 2016 kwind

Glad you like it :)

PS. www.youtube.com

15 Jan 2016 Simone Suka

Sneakdoor Beta could be a good add no?

15 Jan 2016 kwind

In theory it could pair quite nicely with nerve agent. It's one of the most powerful non-breaker programs in the game in my opinion and can really spread the corp thin by forcing the player to ice archives.

I've used it in this deck, and the problem is it never tested well in practice. Nerve agent and sneakdoor together cost 7 credits to play and eat up 3 MU when 2 MU are already dedicated to Magnum Opus. I've also given strong consideration to Keyhole, but it's problematic for the same reason.

Usually if you're at a point in the game where 4 credits to plop down sneakdoor and the 2 MU isn't a big deal, it's a "win-more" condition in my experience... but it can still outright win you the game and break a mid-game stalemate.

If this build were more more invested in the anarchist suite with datasucker/parasite etc. it might test better because if you can force the corp to spread his ice thin and then destroy some of the ice, it could be a major problem.