Dream eater V1.1

"I know how men in exile feed on dreams" - Aeschylus

Exile! If you believe the internet, he's just a worse Kate. I do not believe the internet

The Plan

The basic idea behind this deck is to use Shaper recursion tools to bring back high-power, limited-time tools, such as Imp, Cerberus "Lady" H1, and now, D4v1d.

These cards are supplied by a combination of Shaper tutoring coupled with clickless card draw from Astrolabe, Earthrise Hotel and Exile's ability.

The aim of all this is to get all up in your opponent's business and break things, preferably with Imp. Unless you have a particularly good reason not to do so, an Imp is always a good early play. The exact manner of this is up to you; against NEH, I've found that using Imp to crush remotes is a viable play. Other decks do not take well to you sniping combo pieces out of their R&D or HQ using Imp. Literally no deck likes you trashing ICE before it's even played.

A good rule of thumb is that if you have accessed it and have a way to trash it, do so. The only exceptions would be things you actually don't care about; if you've got an Atman set to 4, don't bother trashing Bastion, for example.

Against, for example, Blue Sun, it's really worth making sure you have a way to drag the D4v1d out at a moment's notice; even breaking just one of their bits of OAI'd ICE is a big slowdown for them.

Considerations

Economy

Ideally you want at least one run per turn so you can trigger Imp each turn, but sometimes you'll hit something you can trash easily without a counter, so you need a second run from time to time. Problem is, as it stands the economy is not up to that. Armitage Codebusting and Kati Jones are efficient, but still take I would rather use for running and installing.

Given that the vast majority of what I install is programs, Sahasrara would seem like a solid inclusion. Stimhack has been super-solid, but I could drop that for Scheherazade; between the two, the only programs that would actually cost me anything are Lady and Femme... At this point I realise that despite coming at it from a different direction, I am veering very close to making a modified Dumpster Gamble! Sticking in Aesop's Pawnshop could work well, though. I would not drop the Imp for three Cache, though.

Memory

Despite the burgeoning similarities to the Dumpster Gamble deck, I am still not convinced of the necessity of a fully fluid rig. Since the aim of the deck is to use Imp as much as possible, I need to have enough memory to keep it in play for at least 2 turns at a time. The use of Atman as well as a full breaker suite means I generally need a bit more memory. I suspect this will be even more evident if I move to using Sahasrara. I tended to find that I would do okay with 5, and be fine with 6. I've upgraded the Akamatsu Mem Chip to CyberSolutions Mem Chips to reflect this; I can pretty much run free with just one of them, which saves time later.

Generally, though, you don't need as much memory as you think with these decks. I'm just a traditionalist.

Protection

Yup, there's no net or meat damage protection here. Not even any hand increasing things. It's a massive hole in the deck, but it honestly doesn't come up much. I can put Deus X in for one of the Atman without messing things up too much; recursion of that can sort out most net damage problems. A simple Net Shield would probably be enough to prevent serious problems. Again, though, memory. Meat damage wise, I'm really not keen on Plascrete Carapace. Never have been. A lot of the time I can catch a SEA Source or Scorched Earth in the hand or R&D and trash it with Imp. If I suspect Midseasons, I can use Imp to trash the agendas rather than steal them, which often gets hilarious 'wtf?' looks from people. I suspect a Qianju PT or two might make it into the deck, as whilst they don't directly stop meat damage, they have the advantage that you can use them offensively, such as against a Data Raven.

Breakers

I'm covered. Atman at 4, D4v1d for bigger things, and conventional breakers for smaller things. Still slightly poor against small barriers; they chew through the Cerberus "Lady" H1 counters a little too quickly for my liking. A Snowball might be a better choice, but I'm not convinced.

D4v1d has been the single most effective inclusion in the deck so far. In a heavy recursion deck it is incredible.

Conclusions

The concept is solid, and it is so much fun to trash everything! But the economy is a little clunky still. The level of card draw is pretty much where I want it; between Diesel, Earthrise Hotel you can see 26 cards, and Exile's ability will usually add another 5-6, and Astrolabe will often chip in. Combined with the amount of tutoring, I am rarely out of options. Crucially, the draw density seems about right that you will usually draw into something that helps you draw more, be that a dedicated card or recursion, which helps keep everything going smoothly.

Main problem is the funding, which I will try to address in the next version by switching to Sahasrara and Aesop's Pawnshop.

Comments and suggestions welcome!