Derailleur (Halifax Regional Winner)

Snake Eyes 4639

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This deck took me to 5th place in Swiss, and was undefeated in the cut.

This deck is intended to run only a single remote, while having a solid 19 pieces of ICE to protect centrals aggressively. An ideal ICE placement for the remote starts with a Little Engine that could to act as a massive paywall, followed by anything beefy like Assassin, Ashigaru, Eli 1.0, etc. To speak more of ICE placement, Enigma is a nice code gate. Ideal placement for it is either as an early ETR for a central, or further from the root of a server than an Eli 1.0 is. It is probably a misplay to allow the runner to spend their last clicks breaking the eli subs so that they don't have to break the lose a click sub on Enigma, whereas placing the Enigma on top makes it so that having the click to spend on Eli is more costly.

The ICE suite in this deck was chosen to be as punishing to Faust and D4V1D as possible, while being balanced enough to deal with conventional breakers, and tricky enough to foil anyone's plans through the use of Psi upgrades. A fully loaded Ashigaru costs 6 cards to break with Faust. A Little Engine costs 5 cards to break with Faust (then they get 5 credits), or 2 D4V1D counters. I even put in a couple of Rainbows as both Silverware protection and as a sturdy ETR that, at str 4, is resistant to Parasite, and gives the runner an inefficient break cost for most breakers. (eg. 2 cards to Faust, 3 credits with Corroder). Having an Assassin or a Cobra on your scoring remote is beneficial too, since Marcus Batty will permit you to trash a key program right they encounter the last piece of ICE before they get access to the server.

If the runner's game has changed to Faust, and they ignore credits, using cards as their currency, than you as the corp need to consider your ICE costs in terms of card-cost to break. Eli 1.0 is another example of this, at 3 cards to break, or 4 credits with a conventional Corroder.

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Cerebral Static was a late include. I cut a 2nd Crick and my 3rd Rainbow for 2 copies of it. It was there largely to de-randomize the chaos that Noise can cause, and to cap the shenanigans of meta-popular Hayley. It didn't really do a whole lot of work for me all day, but I felt safer including it.

The agenda suite is chosen to allow for both tonnes of economy, lowered point potential for the runner (Global Food in Palana Food feels like a must, thematically and for the Glacial practicality) while giving it the ability to Never-Advance. Choosing between Nisei MK 2 and Corporate Sales Team took a little planning, but in the end I decided that I'd rather have the additional stream of revenue.. Your mileage may vary between the two, but I recommend that sweet sweet credit trickle.

Once the runner sees a Braintrust scored, they start questioning every install in your scoring remote. Installing a Jackson Howard there has definitely triggered many a run. Installing a simple Batty did great work too, considering that you can wait until the very end of the run on the server scoring tower, only to catch them with their pants down by playing a Psi-Game.

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I'll see myself out.

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4 comments
31 May 2016 Ironcache

This deck list has put me back on to Little Engine. A solid card for dealing with the majority of decks in the Halifax meta. Little weak to stealth suite but that doesn't see much local play.

1 Jun 2016 dormio

I think the choice of 2x Caprice and 3x Batty is pretty interesting (instead of vice versa). Care to comment?

7 Jun 2016 Snake Eyes

Hi @dormio!

The reason for 3x Batty/ 2x Caprice is that Batties can stack (eg if you lose the Caprice Psi game you can still rez/use your Batty at will, multiples even)..

But that's if you're using Batty in desperation. The best place to use Batty here is to program trash your opponent's means of breaking the Little Engine or Cobra right before they encounter it, as they're either taking 2 program hits at that point, or paid a boat load of money to get deep into your single server, only to be hit by a massive paywall at the end of the server.

7 Jun 2016 Snake Eyes

@Ironcache Hi man!

Glad I could get you on the Little Engine train. I saw one of your weirder Roll Call posts in the Halifax grid and thought you might have been on it already!

There are definitely a few weaknesses to Little Engine, but I think with Navi coming out in the next pack, that Little Engine's power is about to increase.

Little Engine is definitely a little weak to some shaper tricks. Cyber Cypher effectively gets in for free (but they need the 5 credits upfront).. Stealth generates a profit (although could tax Ghost Runner credits at least).. Atman 7 is possible, although kind of ridiculous. Against some shaper builds I end up just tossing the extra little engines and hope to draw into Elis/Cobras/Assassins.