One Break

jared.saltz 13

The idea here is simple--you can save money and make the corp waste money by only using one icebreaker. This is possible due to paintbrush, which will trade clicks to make more efficient runs. The best icebreaker for this is Gordian Blade--it's in-faction, keeps strength for the entire run, and is relatively cheap to get up and running.

Having made this decision (foolishly?) the rest of the deck is based around having a lot of other possibilities for getting programs (both tutoring through Self-Modifying Code and Test Run, and recursion through Clone Chips and Ar Levy Access). This does a few things: first, it allows you to run only one copy of Gordian Blade, since it effectively has 7x copies when searching for it the first time, and four copies that the corp must trash to stall you out--something that will be difficult to do since you will not face-check anything you can't break thanks to paintbrush. Similarly, the two copies of Replicator make this deck FAR smaller than it appears, since you can go and get the second copy of anything you want after it's installed, making it a smaller deck than it appears.

Having provided a way to both get and retain the two crucial tools--Gordian Blade + Paintbrush--the deck has two other main supports: 1) making runs cheaper, and 2) making runs more profitable.

Making runs cheaper is seen through the obvious: two data suckers and 3x personal touches. Each of these provides huge dividends over the course of the game. Similarly, the choice to run The Toolbox also gives clickless, recurring credits to fuel the one large run each turn, given even if the corp somehow gets 3x thick, non-code gate ice. To help facilitate this not happening, hold Escher in your hand to re-arrange ice where ever needed--this is huge as it can save you multiple clicks per turn.

Pressure comes through HQ Interface (looking at 4x cards per is awesome), Indexing, R&D Interface, and Keyhole. These combined together provide pressure to both HQ and RnD, giving two very easy ways to provide pressure and keep the Corp from defending the remote servers too heavily, allowing for easier snipes.

Economy comes from the obvious: clickless econ from daily casts, the awesome kati, and the no brainer Sure Gamble. The additional econ comes from Professional Contacts if you need to dig deep, otherwise card draw + econ comes from Motivation + Oracle May, or Post-Test Run + Oracle May--getting a card + 2 credits is huge.

This deck hates being tagged, so be careful of that. It may need some plascretes or something else thrown in, but you should be rich enough to beat traces if you play this right--remember, most runs will be free!

6 comments
7 Aug 2014 jared.saltz

Honestly, Kate might work better here since there are so many programs. It would also be interesting to try this with Nasir... CT's extra mem is nice, but her low card count is a total waste!

7 Aug 2014 Oneiro

Hm, i think that this deck might just be too slow. You can't really facecheck until you have leprechaun, gordian and paintbrush out. Furthermore your economy is really click heavy with pro co, opus and katy. To utillize paintbrush you will probably only be able to run every two or three turns in a best case scenario (although sure gamble and daily casts might help out a bit)

I also think that playing oracle may + motivation, proCos, opus and katy might be a bit of an overkill.

7 Aug 2014 x3r0h0ur

Kit would like a word with you.

8 Aug 2014 mastergamer

"you will not face-check anything you can't break thanks to paintbrush"

How do you get them to rez the ice then if you dont face check it?

12 Aug 2014 jared.saltz

@x3r0h0ur Kit loves this idea, but I found the loss of influence very difficult to cope with. I've also found that Kate does like this better than CT and that Morningstar might be a better breaker than good ole GB thanks to the number of next ice w/ a billion sub routines I'm seeing. This will depend on your meta, though.

12 Aug 2014 jared.saltz

@Oneiro If the deck required all of that out to function, you'd be exactly right. However, it really just a needs a few pieces to get rolling. Sure, Lep + Paintbrush + MO is awesome, but all you really need is Paintbrush + Breaker, both of which are super easy to get out and running.

The econ is mixed enough that I haven't found it to be overly click dependent, although it's true that if you don't have some of your clickless econ up and running quickly enough that you'll have to spend a few clicks for money @ 2x each. It's mostly to give you options and, obviously, your mileage may vary! However, from my testing the main issue is what programs to run; seems like there's a lot of possibilities here.