Bad Guy-ette Jes: 1st Place BRGC SC

Ironcache 720

The Tournament

This placed first in a 14 person SC at the Board Room Game Cafe in Halifax, Canada. The tournament format used was 5 rounds of Swiss with no cut.

This deck had 3 wins, 1 timed-tie (4 points each), and 1 loss. This write-up is long enough as is, so I'm not going to go into the match-ups. If anyone has any questions about it, feel free to post.

Its counterpart in the tournament is here.


The Deck

The Bad

The first thing I want to say is that Vamp is a massive trap for Jes, IMO. Every time I tried to make a deck where I could get enough economy to make Vamp viable, I found I was taking too much time to setup, and that Hayley or Kate would be almost strictly superior choices for the efficiency.

I came to conclude that making Jes work is about having high-impact with limited rig (the more setup involved, the more Hayley/Kate efficiency begins to eclipse Jes). Maya and a single Leprechaun proved to be ample memory throughout the tournament with my rig.

As an extension to that thought, I want to talk about the second trap; Code Siphon. In the ideal scenario, you get past a few unrezzed ICE (probably after making them broke from AS). This gives you a tutor at a 3-6 credit discount. That's definitely not a bad thing, but the ideal scenario is not at all likely; you're looking to apply pressure with Jes. Lots of it. They will get the chance to rez ICE on R&D, so the efficiency is going to be lost here. Even then, tutor effects are still nice, but, with this deck, you're mostly tutoring for breakers (again, if you have many more programs than just your core breaker suite, it probably shouldn't be in Jes); Code Siphon isn't going to let you get the breakers if you can't get past their ICE.

The Good

That said, Jes does play very well with Account Siphon and Maya, and, luckily, you can spam Maya enough that Code Siphon and Vamp being lemons doesn't hurt the deck. Maya's effect is two-pronged; letting you dig deeper on future turns, and also denying critical components against non-museum decks. You're ideally making use of Maya every turn, in which case, along with her lean rig, you're more than making up for the efficiency lost from not playing Kate/Hayley. The fact that she demolishes some popular NBN archetypes is just icing on the cake.

The Other?

Outside that, the Panchatantra can be used to get some very efficient breaks with Sharpshooter, letting you Face-check and Account Siphon with impunity, but the majority of cards here probably don't look too surprising. If anyone has any questions about the choices feel free to post.

9 comments
21 Mar 2016 ClubbingSealCub

I like this deck a lot. I just have one question - if you're going to mainly use Sharpshooter with Panchatantra, why not pack 2 Deus X instead? This deck doesn't run AI so swordsman isn't that scary. Is it because of Archer?

21 Mar 2016 Ironcache

Install cost is one reason. Cloaks can boost sharpshooter to high strength levels for free, but this deck cannot mitigate install costs. Another is to provide a wider range of "oh-shit" options (Archer isn't very popular in my local meta, but ichi certainly is).

That said, I definitely don't primarily use sharpshooter as my breaker, but rather as my failsafe.

22 Mar 2016 Krasty

What about to put on "Mighty John n" ? And cut one Professional Contacts? :o)

22 Mar 2016 Ironcache

@Krasty Honestly everytime I saw pro-co I found myself wishing it was Symmetrical. This isn't a hyper-economy Kate or Hayley deck, so dropping 5 credits is a pretty big deal. I'd consider dropping all 3 Pro Co for 2x Symmetrical 1x Johnny M., if you're thinking of changing that at all.

That said, please note that failed runs with John Mas will still result in a tag. A run ends (along with the window that Jes can fire her ability) before it is considered unsuccessful.

22 Mar 2016 ClubbingSealCub

I've been trying this deck out for a while and I think 3x ProCo is a little overkill on the draw but doesn't sustain me well enough economically. I'd try -3 ProCo, +1 Leprechaun +2 MOpus, or maybe, +1 Dirty Laundry +2 Armitage. Also, Scrubber felt super underwhelming unless it came online extremely early, which is unlikely as a 1-of. I just swapped it for a third Clone Chip. I didn't miss the Scrubber at all and with 3x Clone Chips I could pretty much always fish back a Deus X/ Sharpshooter / SMC from my pile when needed. [Symmetrical Visage] and John Masanori(/en/card/08009) also sound like very good ideas for this deck. If I were to add 2 Masanori, which I feel is a good number, I would cut The Maker's Eye and 1 Diesel.

23 Mar 2016 Ironcache

@ClubbingSealCub The deck was originally 3x Clone instead of 2x Clone 1x Scrubbers, but I made the change for the tournament because NRDB was loaded with these asset-spam decks, and this deck just simply doesn't have the economy to keep them in check.

I never ended up playing against any true asset spam decks, but I did play against several decks that were using asset economy suites. Artist Colony can also be used to fetch it (pitching News Team to your benefit is very satisfying). Scrubbers did work in my local meta, but YMMV.

I agree with the majority of your assessment though. I wouldn't replace the Pro-co's with non-draw options; I'd definitely lean towards Symmetrical and John (with preference to Symmetrical, I think).

The deck is economy light so I can understand wanting to suppliment with Armitage / Dirty Laundry. I never experimented on that front; I managed to make due with the economy it has, but in a different meta, again, YMMV. I think you'll find the Armitage / DL options to be better than Magnum Opus, but I'd be curious to hear your findings in either case.

I definitely wouldn't cut the Maker's Eye. The SoT are normally reserved for AS, but being able to threaten it, and threaten to recur it, shouldn't be undervalued.

25 Mar 2016 ClubbingSealCub

After further testing, -1 Diesel, -3 ProCo, +2 Masanori +2 Armitage/MOpus seems a lot better. I went with armitage due to MU constraints, but adding a second leprechaun will let you run MOpus perfectly. Masanori is a massive player in this deck though, try him out.

I also tried to cut both RD interfaces for maker's eye, figured it'd be better for tempo... I was wrong.

Lastly, I added a card to keep asset spam decks in check - Paricia. It's in faction, costs 0 cash and can be fetched by SMC. The only downside is it costs MU, but I fixed that by changing the leprechaun for a CyberSolutions Mem Chip - it has the added benefit of not caring about install order.

25 Mar 2016 Ironcache

I agree with you about John Mas. I went -3 ProCo +2 John +1 Arm and found it performed better.

I also think you made the right call on Paricia vs. Scrubbers. I was worried about the memory situation and upgrades, but, really, if you have to spend a few real credits to deal with San San or something, that's not a big deal (the problem Scrubbers was targetting was asset spam, and Paricia handles that).

I've also been experimenting with a very different paradigm for the deck, merging in the PW Chameleon theme that I caught on from a derivative of Saetzero's Kate deck. It's not refined enough to publish yet, but feel free to take a look if you're interested (my decks should be publicly visible).

26 Mar 2016 ClubbingSealCub

Can't comment on the other deck, so I'll do it here.

If you're going to go Chamaleon, I wouldn't roll with Panchatantra + Sharpshooter, especially with only 2 clone chips and no Deus X to back it up. I'd roll the Chamaleons and a backup suite of extremely efficient breakers for when you need to get through very big stuff. I'd also consider dropping R&D Interface to 2 and get a Sahasrara, since combined with Scheherezade, it'll let you install one Chamaleon per turn for -1 credits. Personal Workshop is a very good idea for this deck. I'd consider running at least one Stimhack, if you can find the influence for it (I really can't not run workshop without a stimhack in the deck, it feels kind of wrong to me, haha). Aside from that, it looks pretty solid.