Drug Addict Burglar Andy (NAPD approved)

Quicksilver 87

Notes
Andy has fallen on hard times. Getting dispossessed is no joke. Being a Ristie is, well... Who knows? The other Andy Ristie is doing alright though.

Drug habits are expensive to sustain. So our Andy grabbed a handy bag of tools, some fake cash, keys and a few daemons. And not to forget friendly fairies and some, ehm, glue.

Any half decent criminal has somewhere to hide, some unsavoury contacts and, ehm, loves taking notes. Also in order to make fake stuff and shake the heat, forgeries can come in handy. Glue helps with that. Probably.

So Andy just shows up at some corps HQ or R&D or remote and takes their stuff. Breaking in is cheap if you have a bag full of crowbars. Sometimes she drops in multiple times. And when she runs out of knives she quickly drops into uni to get some more.


Actual Notes
It might be obvious, but just in case it isn't: this was an attempt at an Armand deck called 'Geistwriter'. It always looked OK on paper, but in reality it set up too slowly. Adding more draw then needed more money. And more money reduced the number of programs and it turned into a different deck.

Who's got 1 and sets up fast?
You guessed it, everyone's favorite galaxy. What to mulligan for then? Scheherazade is very important, or Andy quickly runs out of cash. Clicking for 1 should generally be avoided. The other two pieces of the puzzle are Forger and Drug Dealer. Inside Job is pretty amazing too.

How does the deck play then?
The plan is to install programs onto Scheherazade for free or for profit. At the same time Technical Writer accumulates . Poke servers and run where the agendas are. Use up at the end of turn, let Drug Dealer draw some cards, then refuse to pay up! Then pick up from the underworld. Beautiful -less and -less draw. Every turn.

Scheherazade is nice, but be careful.
Don't install everything onto the daemon just because you can. Keep a Faerie or Shiv handy to protect from Power Shutdown. Don't put your permanent breakers on. Seriously, it's not a good idea. Watch out for Archangels, those well known daemon-haters!

Having 10 breakers is cool, but be reasonable.
Sometimes Forger is great for dodging tags (I'm looking at you Data Raven/Sync) but you don't want to lose half your breakers. Sometimes filling up your is good to avoid getting Cortex Lock'ed.

Crash Space vs Plascrete
Crash Space is better here. With Drug Dealer you should rarely be below 5 cards when the corp's turn starts. 5 cards and 1 Crash Space are enough to survive a double Scorch combo. Sometimes you can bait the corp into SEA too early if they forgot about Forger. Crash Space also let's you remove tags cheaply, which helps a lot when you're poor. Which you are most of the time.

No Account Siphon? Bad deck. Well...
Actually, I tried it, but it just doesn't fit. You don't want to overdraw (Drug Dealer doesn't stop just because you're being a thief). You (usually) don't need the . Most importantly, you've got a limited number of breakers. Use them to steal agendas.

Corroder and ZU.13
Have been best buddies in criminal decks for a long time. Of course they are used for breaking small ICE like Wraparound, Quandary, Wall of Static, etc. It's fine to use the disposable breakers on small ICE in the beginning if it means you get a The Maker's Eye run in. I don't normally burn them for single access, unless it's an advanced card in a remote.

(In-)Flexibility
There are some flexible slots. I've been wondering how to get a third Drug Dealer in, just for consistency. The problem is the program density needs to stay high or you end up having your hand clogged up with events and resources.

Paricia is a bit of a gimmick, but it fits the bill fairly well. It's cheap and, ehm... It's cheap. Also, I just hate accessing Jackson or Ash and not having the to trash them. That influence is free to use though.

Crescentus is another flexible slot. Most of the time you just don't care if the corp has big ICE out. Derezzing a Tollbooth or worse can be nice. If you like more money you could slot in Gorman Drip v1.

Cache is pretty awesome here. I wouldn't take it out. It keeps your safe from Drug Dealer and it often nets you 4-5 for 1 . Not bad. Careful around fast advance corps, Virus Suite is not a friend.

I toyed with the idea of Mass Install. In Geist it didn't really work. With Andy it could be good in the opening hand. Drawing it later could leave it dead in the hand. Also, it's not a program.

Autoscripter is decent in this deck. Usually you have to wait until midgame before installing it, but then it sticks around. A free is nice, and you get a delayed discount from Technical Writer. Also good for using up creds at the end of the turn.

Underworld Contact must stay. Starting the turn with 1-3 is important because it let's you continue installing programs and enables your run events. Also good for switching on ZU.13 and Corroder.

Match-ups
I've beaten most things including Foodcoats, Blue Sun, Argus, NEH and Haarp.

Jinteki.
You've got Levy and Drug Dealer, so just run aggressively. Have some Killers out though. Be wary of Chronos Project. Ough.

Weyland
Probably the easiest match-up. Drug Dealer and Crash Space make you hard to kill. Glaciers don't really keep you out.

HB
Not seeing much HB lately. Usually similar to glacier Weyland. You can't really contest protected asset economy, so don't try. Unprotected assets can be trashed with Paricia.

NBN
Well, it's hit and miss. Getting into R&D is often easy, so sometimes you hit the agendas and sometimes they hit the agendas. Not seeing a lot of SanSan Grids at the moment thankfully. They are tough to trash. Remember your Forger has some value and their servers tend to be porous! Don't be afraid to Levy early to get your Maker's's and SOT's back.

Give it a spin!
It's a fun deck with quite a lot of tricky decisions. In the beginning I felt uneasy about being poor, but then I started taking drugs. Maybe this is what Nasir feels like most days.

14 comments
19 Jan 2016 sod_timber_wolf

Why Paricia instead of Scrubber? Just because its a programm and a bit cheaper? The latter might be nice to get rid of upgrades you otherwise might be too poor to trash..? Otherwise, I will give it a shot just because its so different from my "normal" andy decks.

19 Jan 2016 Saan

I see what the Levy is there for (disposable breakers gotta come back somehow), but I doubt you'll go through enough of your deck most games for it to be useful, simply because there's no card draw to speak of. Replacing Geist with Andy gives the deck some oomph from that first turn, but then the game slows down drastically, I would think.

19 Jan 2016 lolpaca

Not convinced by Cache here. Even with Scheherazade, Cache is only as good as Easy Mark. I know you've got Technical Writers, but you need to install them (and Scheherazade) before Cache to get the real value out of them, which hurts consistency.

I see your thinking and no doubt it's good when it pays off, but I'd probably just stick with boring ol' Sure Gamble for that slot. It's more a personal choice though, nice deck!

19 Jan 2016 bubbathegoat

@lolpaca I think the problem with Sure Gamble over Cache is the up-front credit cost. This deck is designed to run on very few credits (often 0-2), which would make the 5 credits to play Sure Gamble a tempo hit. I run a Faust Noise deck that has the same issue.

But I do think Easy Mark over Cache makes sense here.

19 Jan 2016 Quicksilver

@sod_timber_wolf Yeah, pretty much it's a 0 cost program. It often nets 2-3 to install. Scrubber is probably a decent choice for the influence too. I could totally see that.

@Saan I use Levy in more than half of the games. Sometimes I used it just to recur multi-access and economy, not necessarily just breakers. Actually this was a Geist deck. But it just never gets going without adding draw. I often keep a Drug Dealer in hand in the opening. I will probably a third. They draw a lot of cards.

@lolpaca The deck just doesn't often have 5, so Sure Gamble is out. I thought about Easy Mark and I prefer Cache. The main reason is because I can store money on Cache, to keep it safe from getting spent on drugs!
You can install Cache and only take 1 to turn on a run event. Then end the turn, pay nothing to Drug Dealer and have enough on it for another run event next turn. Easy Mark doesn't let you do that.
Also I don't think I've ever only gotten 2 out of Cache. With 9 cards it's hard to miss Writer and Scheherazade. That said, I wouldn't say Easy Mark is a bad choice. Just less synergistic.

19 Jan 2016 lolpaca

One more thought is maybe an Access to Globalsec or two? That would let you trash Forger to avoid a tag without fear of losing your lovely cloud rig.

19 Jan 2016 Quicksilver

That's a nice suggestion. Could run 2 Forger / 1 Globalsec or something like that. 1 is cheap. It doesn't get refundede by writer, but oh well. It also doesn't reduce the access to the previous 2nd . Thanks!

19 Jan 2016 Quicksilver

Man I wish I could edit comments.
*refunded
*precious

20 Jan 2016 wompa164

Finally a Forger deck!

20 Jan 2016 wompa164

Also, finally a Mass Install deck!

20 Jan 2016 falseidol

A single Dyson is pretty nice with Forger (admittedly, better with Geist since he has more incentive to pop his forgers) this turns your forgers into super decoys around the mid game, and you can actuallyuse them without losing your whole rig. It also opens up the option for data folding if you wanted to go that route.

20 Jan 2016 Quicksilver

@falseidol I've actually done
-1 Forger
+1 Access to Globalsec.
Dyson Mem Chip is a bit expensive (although Technical Writer gives a delayed discount) and isn't an issue for this deck.

20 Jan 2016 bubbathegoat

I certainly agree that you need a way to protect your link. I played against a Geist deck that used Forger as its only source of MU. I got him to his Shattered Remains, which allowed me to trash his only link, and therefore most of his rig was lost. He never recovered.

20 Jan 2016 Quicksilver

I just had a Batty/Grim-combo trash my Scheherazade with most of my stuff on it. My own fault of course. I even knew he was in the deck. Thankfully it was on the winning run and Grim doesn't actually stop anyone.
I was considering to add something like Sacrificial Construct for that occasion. But I'm not keen on silver bullets in a deck without tutoring.