Doctor Strange - The Way of the Weird

CodeMarvelous 20021

"Forget everything you think you know"

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This is a solid Tier 2 deck. It is fun to play and Reaver gives professor the kick he needs to get going.

So on a dare I made a professor deck that utilizes Baba Yaga and the surprisingly good Reaver and Aesop's Pawnshop draw engine.

The premise here is to mulligan for Reaver and Aesop's Pawnshop in the opening hand and then just keep drawing and selling to set up more quickly as professor.

Popping a Clone Chip or a Self-modifying Code on your opponents turn also triggers Reaver.

Get set up with the Baba Yaga ultra rig of boosting 2c for 4 strength, breaking code gates and sentries for zero.

Sacrificial Construct is there to protect Scheherazade from Best Defense. You need Scheherazade down pretty early to get the engine going. Sahasrara helps but isn't required.

Technical Writer is so elegant in this deck, I really can't stress enough how quickly they fill.

Other than that it's the normal professor toolbox. Rebirth target is usually Hayley Kaplan: Universal Scholar really early or Kate "Mac" McCaffrey: Digital Tinker. Late game its always Ele "Smoke" Scovak: Cynosure of the Net for the run money.

Enjoy!

26 comments
15 Dec 2016 pinkj

slots Swordsman in all Corp decks

15 Dec 2016 MrAaronSA

Either Datasucker or D4v1d seems like a good slot for Turing on remote. Right now it seems your only out is Parasite or 3 clicks.

15 Dec 2016 CodeMarvelous

Yea I could add Datasucker. or Black Orc. either one works.

15 Dec 2016 Leviathan

@pinkj Swordsman would cause only a small hiccup. Even though Faerie is hosted on Baba Yaga you can still use it on its own to break swordsman, then clone chip the Faerie back onto Baba Yaga. It's true you'd have to parasite the Swordsman to get it out of there, but it wouldn't destroy the runner's whole rig or anything.

15 Dec 2016 x3r0h0ur

You can still use faerie even if its on baba yaga.

15 Dec 2016 pinkj

@LeviathanForcing the runner to use their Faeries and Clone Chips to break is still significant, isn't it? I wasn't inferring that Swordsman was going to stop everything.

15 Dec 2016 LynxMegaCorp

If Swordsman becomes more of a thing than it needs to be, Mongoose will happily fill in the gaps.

15 Dec 2016 CodeMarvelous

Or I could just parasite it. If they purge every other turn I will probably win anyway.

15 Dec 2016 Leviathan

@pinkj For sure! Don't get me wrong, Swordsman is badass. As a main Jinteki player I love it. As a matter of fact, I respect it so much I'd probably stick a mimic on the side in this list.

It was just this morning that I realized swordsman wouldn't bust up the whole Baba Yaga. I wasn't sure if you'd been under the same misconception I had been, haha.

15 Dec 2016 mawa

Alternatively, MKUltra deals with Swordsman when necessary and can go infinite value with Sahasrara, pawnshop and Scheherazade as long as you keep bumping into sentries.

15 Dec 2016 Leviathan

@RubbishyUsername Oh, now that is a nice thought! :)

15 Dec 2016 CodeMarvelous

@RubbishyUsername That is a really good idea.

15 Dec 2016 pinkj

Yes, MKUltra is a great idea!

slots Ark Lockdowns in all Corp Decks

15 Dec 2016 Leviathan

@pinkj 3 Swordsman, 3 Ark Lockdowns, 3 Turing... now we're getting somewhere! ;)

15 Dec 2016 magikot

@RubbishyUsername``@CodeMarvelousthat would also make Exile a viable rebirth target for more card draw.

15 Dec 2016 CodeMarvelous

@magikotthe Jankening is upon us.

15 Dec 2016 Ino209

Swordsman poses a problem to Baba Yaga, but not an unsolveable one.

Will-o'-the-Wisp on the other hand...

15 Dec 2016 ANRguybrush

@Ino209 If someone would hit my Baba Jäger with Will-o´-the-Wisp, I would buy him a drink.

15 Dec 2016 Pinkwarrior

@CodeMarvelous Got to say I'd been experimenting with Reaver in Prof 2 and it seems very strong.

Have you thought about using Scavenge's allowing you to turn your Cache/Harbinger into an extra Clone Chip or allowing you to shift a breaker onto Baba Yaga so you don't have to have Baba Yaga down first?

15 Dec 2016 CodeMarvelous

@Pinkwarriorsure but what to cut?

15 Dec 2016 Pinkwarrior

@CodeMarvelous Id want to cut Misdirection with New Angeles City Hall Film Critic & a strong econ am not sure it's of value. Maybe the Progenitor how much use you getting out of them?

15 Dec 2016 manveruppd

That's PROFESSOR Strange to you!

16 Dec 2016 EnderA

If Will-o'-the-Wisp becomes a real problem, just slot Councilman. If they pre-rez, you can just use normal breaking to get in. It also sort of counts as Sacrificial Construct #4+ so you don't facecheck a Marcus Batty/Keegan Lane without one. However, I don't expect that to be a problem any time soon.

Potential changes I could see:

-1 Film Critic, -1 Misdirection, +2 New Angeles City Hall. Film Critic doesn't do much other than save NACH right now, while NACH does tons of work by itself. Just reinstall a new one after you steal. Misdirection is really only worth it if you have 3+ tags, which means either Hard-Hitting News (2 clicks and 4 credits versus 8 credits for NACH) or they already had a chance to punish you. Preventing Breaking News is the important part, and Misdirection doesn't help.

-1 Progenitor. It does nothing by itself, and not much even with Medium or Imp.

+1 D4v1d or Datasucker. Gives you an answer to Turing on a remote, plus other value.

-1 Symmetrical Visage. Sure, it's beneficial, but I think other cards do more for you, especially once you have Reaver out. Realistically it takes 5 turns to start paying out. (2 credits, "click" to draw, click to install is about 4 credits worth of cost.) Kati Jones and Daily Casts would be better includes IMO, if you want more resource econ. But that isn't the focus of your deck.

Debatable whether you need the full 3 Sacrificial Constructs. How good is Harbinger for you? Sure it gets you 6 credits over 2 turns with Aesop's Pawnshop, but is that enough? You could also swap it with MKUltra, which is free to install with Sahasrara and can be reinstalled forever, and covers for Swordsman.

I agree with @Pinkwarrior that you should really be looking at Scavenge. That way you can install things slightly out of order, and it provides recursion, basically Clone Chips #4-6.

So in total:

-1 Film Critic, -1 Misdirection, -1 Progenitor, -1 Symmetrical Visage, -1 Harbinger, maybe -1 Sacrificial Construct.

+2 New Angeles City Hall, +1 D4v1d or Datasucker, +1 MKUltra, +1/2 Scavenge.

16 Dec 2016 Lemonbrick

really love the look of this deck , loads of fun, I will try some thing similar I think after when Im done with my current prof deck. I never thought to use Reaver in this way

17 Dec 2016 IonFox

Have you considered a Sharpshooter for the excellent credit to strength ratio? It could easily replace the Symmetrical Visage.

18 Dec 2016 EnderA

@IonFoxBreach already gives the same ratio (albeit in multiples of 2), along with barrier breaking, so that would only save 1 against strengths 2, 6, and 10. (1, 5, and 9 can just boost with Faerie once alongside Breach.)