Who Or What Is A "Grip"

⚠ Warning: jank ahead. ⚠

The central concept here: by recurring Self-modifying Code with Trope you can set up a Maven-based big rig purely via thrillseeking. This means that the consistency of your draws suddenly matters a lot less - to the point of maybe not mattering at all. And if draw consistency doesn't matter... then all of a sudden you can play a giant deck that just has every program you could possibly need.

Assuming nothing about your grip, set-up might generically look like this:

• SMC for Magnum Opus.
• SMC for Dhegdheer and Trope #1.
• Money up while Trope is charging. If the Corp tries to rush behind single-layer ICE, thrillseek out Overmind+Grappling Hook.
• SMC for another Dhegdheer, the other Trope, and Maven.
• Contest stuff with your strength-5 (boostable to 6) AI breaker while Trope is charging.
• SMC for the final Dhegdheer and an Equivocation.

This leaves at least one SMC and two program slots free to thrillseek out random situational tech.

• Too many subs for Maven? Grappling Hook.
• Too strong for Maven? Datasucker.
• AI hate? Cyber-Cypher+Egret, or just fetch a normal breaker.
• Asset spam? Magnum Opus is already probably doing work for you, but you can always add a Paricia.
• Tag spam? Misdirection.
• Fast advance? Clot (ideally with a buffered SMC->SMC so it can be Clot threat).
• Thousand-cuts kill? Laugh all the way to the bank with your giant stack and irrelevant grip.
• Rig-shooter? Laugh all the way to the bank with your 3x copies of everything.

Think carefully before using your last SMC. Sure, some cases will absolutely call for it (, , viruses...) but outside of those, raw thrillseeking is probably fine; you have more copies, right?

Does the deck run non-programs? Well, yes, but every single one of them is here because it'd be nice to have in your opening grip, not because you hope to draw it someday.

• Burst econ cards mean you can get afford to get Dhegdheer #1 out before MOpus, increasing your flexibility (e.g. now you can Overmind+Grappling Hook your way past two ICE at once if you really need to).
• Scavenge is basically extra SMCs - usual Wu stuff.
• For that matter, there's a good 70% chance that your opening hand will have at least one program you need (or a fine substitute for it), which will also save you an SMC. Flexibility!

Once the rest of Kitara Cycle comes out, Reclaim and Engolo might be worth running.