Gabe Knight HP

With lotus field up and coming, and taxation big, I've been working on decks that use recurring credits to offset taxation, and keep runs 'cheap' while not relying on datasucker. I decided to couple this thought into a deck type I referred to as ABR (Always Be Running). The idea is to run 1 time per turn at least, and stay aggressive. I've tailored the economy to reward you for it.

I've now played this several times, and it really is a blast to play, stays very rich, and trains you to be super aggressive, and makes you flex your brain to find the way in you need. I've run several variants so I'll talk about other cards that had been in and my experience with them.

First as posted, it runs with knight early to keep the installed grifters going, hitting HQ hard for shutdown and siphon to slow down the corp's defenses. Active grifters are usually 100% net gain, so those 1-3 credits that I get, stay banked for the long game. Also mid to late game, they act as recurring credits on a delay. Not quite as good as cloak, CF, or omnidrive, but it's the criminal flavor.

I have replaced bank job with feint and added 1 recon, and that worked pretty well, but bank job is my femme money usually. Feint works because if you call security testing on HQ when you think you can't get in, you get gabe + security testing (+2 gain) keep any grifters alive (+1-3), desperado (+1) and turn on eshutdown. So this is reserved for when you need to attack a remote and appear low on bucks.

Why no same old thing? It's heavy click investment for flexibility is not really in theme with the deck. What this deck does do is ensure that any server you create as the corp will be a money drain. Security testing and grifter punish empty remotes by giving you a successful run. You can encourage ice rez on empty remotes to bolster HQ/R&D attacks (plowing into unrezzed ice). To do this, set up a bank job in advance, then dirty laundry the remote. If the corp doesn't rez enough to stop you, you gain a huge pile of bucks (don't security test it). If they do, they have less to defend HQ with.

I've used express delivery to good effect to find IJ/Feint when needed, or DL to really capitalize on successful run bonuses. Also helps to speed up breaker assembly, and it's in faction. However, lawyer up ended up being more effective due to siphoning and floating tags from shadows and things (grifter is a trash target if the corp is smart).

Crescentus helps you delay the long game, but finding the slots was tough, removing 1 bank job, 1 faerie and 1 legwork when I had it. It is fairly cumbersome to find time to install too. Good consideration for glacier and jinteki decks.

Playing against a weyland glacier deck I was able to keep the 2 grifters I drew in the first 2 turns alive the entire game (16 or so turns). So grifter CAN pay off if you get used to playing it. Also this helps you shit on decks that run subliminal messaging (a card I hate anyway).

Download it, and try out running for all of your money.