Exile(d) ... in the dumpster

Last couple of weeks I've been playing around trying to make an Exile deck. My n0ise deck can't benefit currently from any more tweaks and since it's a competitive powerhouse, I turned around to play something a bit more different.

I'm not gonna lie, a big part of picking up Exile is because he is one of the most underplayed identities and I wanted to make something cool, fun and that works. I've found myself with really great deck, which I believe with the right finishing tweaks might even reach competitive level.

While brainstorming I came up with a bunch of cool and original decks that use a lot of H&P, including a Overmind with Oracle May, Motivation - connection deck, however after I'm done around 80-90% with the deck I realize that if I simply switch Exile for Kate the deck won't work any different except being tons of more efficient. It's just so hard to make a deck that's catered towards Exile, before any other Shaper.

In my mind currently there are only 2 decks that it makes a difference if you play Exile, rather any other Shaper. The first one is with Pawn+Deep Red+ Scheherazade combo and the second one is like this one, where the heap becomes your hand.

Now with this big intro out of the way, we can start!

General Mindset()

The deck relies heavily on a couple of card interactions and ideas and it's very important to master them if you want to use this deck efficiently (even I'm still getting used to them)

Diesel+QT+Freelance

• If you ever want to play Freelance coding, this is the correct way to do it in my opinion - with a lot of programs and a lot of draw. Your first couple of turns, you would want to chain card draw into programs into free lance, while leaving in hand test run+ scavenge , memory and clone chips. I feel the only dead condition for this deck is if your 3x Freelance are stuck together somewhere in the mid/bottom of your deck. So make sure you shuffle your deck properly!

• A normal starting hand for you will be either Diesel+ QT+ Freelance (optimal), or Diesel/QT + Freelance, or Diesel+QT (double draw) .... often another draw will pop in those cards and you most likely want to play it if u dont have free lance drawn yet or/and 5 programs.

If you end up with a hand of 10-to-15 cards on your turn 1 or 2- you are doing stuff right!

Note: If I had the opportunity I'd play with 20 programs rather than 18. I feel 17 is the absolute minimum for an efficient Freelance Coding deck. If you have 15 (which is still a relatively large count in normal decks), that means that you will have only 3 possibilities to chain Freelance for 5 cards. Exactly 3x5. The chances of that happening are very low. With 20 programs though, I'd hit 2x Freelance for 5 cards easy. However, AS is just too much of a strong card and it makes big impact in the deck, so I had to make room for it and sadly there isn't much else to go.

Test Run+Scavenge

• Now once your programs are in the heap/dumpster you would want to test run+ scavange for your expensive breakers or magnum opus. Now here is where Exile shines over Kate for this type of deck. After all the Diesel and the QT are done and Kate doesn't have her Memory items or Clone chips (about that read bellow) she might need to spend 1 or 2 complete turns going for 1 card per click draw. Exile, however, gain on instant speed 2 cards each time he TR+S combo, which makes the deck a lot faster and helps him finish up his rig sooner.

• When the pace of the game allows it (to spend 1 entire turn without running) TR for Magnum Opus, gain 4c and scavenge it at the 4th click. That's pretty efficient install, considering it lowers the install cost by 2, Magnum Nets u 2c on Freelance coding it, you immediately net 1 more than the install cost(with 2nd and 3rd clicks) and with the scavenge on 4th click you leave it in play. Oh yeah, because you are exile you gain 2 cards on instant speed as well. Pretty efficient, 'aint it! =)

Clone chip+MU

• Your rig is very MU expensive. I've tried a couple of variation with Akematsu Mem chips and having programs that trash themselves after usage like Cresentus and Faerie, however I didn't end up liking them. So last week I decided to go for the big guys from CyberSolution Mem chips and it turned out to be a great fit for the programs that I wanted to run.

• Your rig would be something like Magnum (2MU), Keyhole (2MU), 3 breakers (3MU) that's alread 7 MU gone and with the rest 3 (considering u have all 3 chips in) you can/have to setup 2 Femme's and 1 Nerve agent. Or some AI breaker that gets you efficient somewhere.

• Clone chips are important as well. Use them to recur programs and that's why there are cheap breakers in the mix as well like sharpshooter, mimic, gordian , corroder ... because tempo is very important for this deck( gonna explain bellow), sometimes you can't wait to TR+S a femme/torch and u need to get past that quandary ASAP! Also you can recur Deus Ex before hitting some Jinteki traps and you can Sharpshooter into any scary destroyer (once SS is in the heap). They are a big reason for your heap literally being your hand, because you can fetch any solution at instant speed, once you've already Freelance-d it.

Late Game Goals

• If you reach end game, there is almost nothing the corp can do. You have sustain econ (Magnum Opus), you have all breakers, you have Keyhole for R&D and archive pressure, you have Nerve Agent for HQ pressure and you have Femme's that can get you anywhere.

Certain Card Choices()

Keyhole and Nerve agent

• These are my late game tools. I wanted to spread the pressure as much as possible and I have the MU to do it.

Account Siphone

• The deck without it and with it is very different. Not only it will help you get some critical money while setup your rig, but it will also slow down the corp.

Escher

• This is another great late game trick and not many people will expect it. Can make a huge difference for end game Keyhole/Remote finisher.

SoT

• It is a great card for the deck. Not only it makes you stop dreading the possibility that a random net damage can discard your Levy (which you will be using for sure), but it also allows you recur Escher which you didn't have the possibility to play or to AS spam. Something even I'm getting used to atm is using it to Freelance when I get really unlucky drawing a 2nd one during a chain.

Overmind/ Atman/ Omega

• Are generally program fillers.You need a high amount of programs so u have a good % to chain free lance for 4-5 cards. I like have 1 of each, instead 3 of 1, because in certain situations one will be better than the other and you can call up any1 of them from the heap.

End()

The Biggest challenge with this deck is learning the tempo. In many cases you won't have the luxury to sit for 2 turns and chaining combos, or if you get unlucky with the draw. That's when your decision making and skill as a player comes in. You have to know when to cut and what.

The deck is extremely difficult to play, simply because you have too many options at all points of time. Anyway, I wouldn't say it's competitive strong (yet), but will do some work and it's bound to catch people off-guard, which is always a good thing.

P.s. It's 3 AM currently, so I'll fix up and add some stuff tomorrow afternoon. Hope you find it a good read!

P.s.s. Before I get asked against fast advance, Mimic + 1x Femme -> 1x The Source + 1x Program , seems like a good fix to me. With so much draw you are bound to get The Source out in the first couple of turns, but 17 programs might lead to low consistency on the Freelance. Something to think about ;)