Gabe's Aviary is Hidden at the London Library

tonybluehose 290

The question Gabe is trying to answer is...what do you do with these damn birds? While he never thought of himself as a "bird person" (he's definitely more of a cat person), ever since Khan showed up in his life, he figured he should see if they were worth his time and money.

It turns out that launching them from the London Library is a pretty good two-for-one ability. First, you don't have to pay the high install cost, second, the birds return to the hand so that is pretty good, and third, if there's nothing to steal, Gabe can spend some time reading Moby Dick.

17 comments
12 Oct 2016 FarCryFromHuman

It's also really nice to install Paperclip from grip to London Library for free and use it a few times before it gets binned, then pay the install cost when you need it once more. LL + birds is pretty cool!

12 Oct 2016 tonybluehose

@FarCryFromHuman, I never even thought about doing that interaction. I'm taking this to Open Play tonight (no tourney, just casual play) and I'll definitely give that a shot. I'm just wondering how much of Ark am I going to see...that makes my lone barrier breaker sad.

12 Oct 2016 FarCryFromHuman

Some further thinking: for the first time ever I find myself considering whether Lemuria Codecracker is worth a slot. My main question is if it would be useful whenever you draw it, since running more than a single copy would be a huge opportunity cost. It does let you really optimize your bird breaker plays against new ice, and you already want to get into HQ every turn so free clicks can go to exposes and next turn planning.

12 Oct 2016 FarCryFromHuman

Oh and I might trade out the Mimic for Mongoose and use the last influence for The Turning Wheel.

12 Oct 2016 tonybluehose

oh man, I didn't even think about mongoose; that's a great idea. If I do that, then I can have all pump-able breakers. Maybe drop the data suckers then? Then again, Datasucker is always good.

12 Oct 2016 FarCryFromHuman

I think I'd keep the Datasuckers for a bit, they make your bird plays a lot more affordable and might prompt a purge, which would be amazing tempo gain. If you find you don't need them, replace with TTW imo.

12 Oct 2016 IanArbitraria

Femme Fatal is essential to making this deck good

12 Oct 2016 IanArbitraria

sorry for the wording got a little excited

13 Oct 2016 Friff14

Multithreader. I'd replace datasucker with that, mimic with mongoose, and throw in a Femme somewhere.

13 Oct 2016 tonybluehose

All good suggestions. Playtesting went pretty well last night, I got to send old Golden and Peregrine 4 times to do their job. All the while saying, "I CALL FORTH GOLDEN!"

That said, this is a first draft for a fun Birds of Prey shell that has tons of room for tinkering (but, hehe, not Tinkering). I think a one of Femme sounds good, one thing I've noticed with the Datasuckers is that memory gets kinda of tight when I've got both on the board, plus regular breakers, plus preparing for throwing one of my birds out of my hand.

13 Oct 2016 tonybluehose

@FarCryFromHuman, I do think that The Turning Wheel would be a good add since the only mulit-access is Legwork. If you happen to try a variant of this build, let me know how it goes!

13 Oct 2016 mawa

I tried playing this and I immediately ran out of steam when the open servers dried up and Caprice Nisei kept me out of HQ. Political Operative? Kati Jones?

14 Oct 2016 tonybluehose

@RubbishyUsername, Poli Op sounds like a good play--what do you think of cutting? There's probably some wiggle room in the events of the deck to do that.

2 Nov 2016 dawspawn

Box-E might work in this deck. Extra memory and hand size for holding your birds.

4 Nov 2016 Friff14

@dawspawn I think you're right. This is a case where we actually want both benefits of Box-E. You need 2 Datasucker and/or Multithreader to deal with the cost, plus your suite of breakers, plus a bird. Also, BOOM! is a thing, and the birds (if they are anything like grail) take up too much space in your hand.

What would you spend your newfound influence on?

4 Nov 2016 IanArbitraria

maybe a prepaid voicepad or two?

4 Nov 2016 dawspawn

I'd spend it on either Multiaccess or Meta matchups. Just generally, a Self-modifying Code wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, either. Then maybe you could drop a Special Order and add in a Femme Fatale.