Iain Stirling: R.E.D.

K0diak.360 484

I have been seeing wild success with this deck and I want take a moment to put this build out for review.

Iain was the runner from H&P I was most intrigued with (like most people). The ten influence was a major issue and had me stumped on how to make this guy work. The obvious desire to run behind in points to make use of his ability was also a point I felt would be relegate the status "well this can dig me out of a whole if needed". As I continued to meditate on the concept of an effective deck for him and flipping through my binders to find cards that might work with him it hit me...

Keyhole!

I have always loved keyhole but have not had great lasting success from it in games. Also, let's face it is kind of douchey, milling your friend four times and make shuffle for the privilege. But I was going to regionals so keyhole was in scope.

Here's how this deck plays. it's a tightrope pilot, so you have be fully focused when playing.

First and FOREMOST, Logos has to hit the table as fast as possible. the only times I lose with this is when logos is slow to draw.

Second, get money and let'm score keep light pressure on HQ to threaten account siphon. When the score proceed to stage two.

Stage two, get the keyhole via logos on the score. Drop the source when you can. Account siphon the hell out of them to keep then rezing ICE. New Angeles City Hall is great for keeping it a one click run endeavor, avoiding the tags. then Keyhole,Keyhole,Keyhole. Take Jacksons first, the money second then agendas. Get 7 points in archives then proceed to stage three.

Stage three. Run archive and win.

16 comments
28 Jun 2014 wswan

Milling with Iain does seem like a straight up brilliant idea. Good call.

29 Jun 2014 GammaCodeX

I love it! it makes so much sense! Wow... What about Security Testing for pressure? Early game (stage one) it can make you money as they still have un-iced archives or remotes, and stage two it can help with pressing them to rez that ice. Also good against anyone with unprotected remotes. Is Data Dealer important enough to warrent a 2x? thoughts on Kati Jones over for instance armitage? You don't really want tags in this deck i assume, so closed accounts or losing kati shouldnt be the main concern. Just my thoughts, havent tried the deck as is, but i like it!

29 Jun 2014 K0diak.360

Made some minor changes. Dropped a Easy Mark, Armitage Codebusting and a Data Dealer. Added a Kati Jones and 2x Hostage. I would like to get a Security Testing in, still looking at what to cut.

-Thanks of the feedback.

1 Jul 2014 A1win

This deck is very close to my Andromeda Remote Control that I played up to Opening Moves. If I were to reconstruct it for Honor & Profit, it'd look something like this: Stirling Remote Control v1.

It's curious that you don't intend to run remote servers on this deck at all even though it's pretty much built for it, apart from lacking remote server icebreakers. That's easily fixed by putting in 3x Crypsis in place of duplicates of your central breakers.

My deck has been really difficult to play because it's so different from "normal" decks, but when played correctly, it really works. For example, instead of installing The Source "when you can", you should hold it in your grip until the corp actually installs a card on a remote (unless playing against FA) and you know that you can steal it if he begins to advance it; otherwise The Source just gets wasted. I know this isn't necessary if your game plan is to mill, but to be honest, Keyhole should just be extra on top of your remote control capabilities.

5 Jul 2014 liquidcooled

What's the gameplan if you lose Keyhole? I don't see any way to dig that back from the heap. With all the program destruction out there, finding some way to grab that after an unlucky Roto or net dmg would be nice. What wouldn't be nice is being reduced to single accesses on central servers only.

Maybe adding Legwork would offer some alternate win options, as the corp may hoard agendas in their hand if they think you're only worried about R&D/Archives being accessible.

100% agree with adding in some Katis and Hostage, it's a killer combo and nasty to think about with a snow-balling Iain. Plus Hostage means quick play of The Source!

5 Jul 2014 K0diak.360

I have gone to 1x of the breakers and added 3x overminds. Testing is looking good.

To address the program destruction issue, I don't usually run without cash and breakers. I had someone try to power shutdown my keyhole but I just dumped logos instead.

Again, thanks for all the feedback. I love playing underdog decks and this has been a great time playing around with idea and it has been winning.

6 Jul 2014 DavyRam

Really interesting build here, nicely done Kodiak. Would you mind talking about the role The Source plays in your deck to justify spending half your influence on it? It seems an odd choice in a build which has limited ability to hit remotes.

6 Jul 2014 pootify

@DavyRam appears The Source is to slow the Corp down once their score is up, since you're trying to get the Keyhole setup going and won't be running on remotes

7 Jul 2014 Kamalisk

Switching to Overmind I have found to be great also. I was going to comment on the fact that once they get a basic scoring remote up, The Source doesn't matter if all you have is inside job. With Overmind you can threaten a remote, so they can't just score unimpeded.

I also tried a deck similar to this, but a couple of ice on R&D and it soon gets expensive to keep keyholing. I imagine this works quite well against cheap ice decks, but I have found reasonably taxing ice really shuts it up (e.g. tsurigi).

The Quality time might help a lot though, I always found I was lacking in card draw, aside from Logos getting me the one card I needed.

13 Jul 2014 casteffens

I am looking to add R&D Interface to this deck. Run R&D, trash the first 2 trashables, then do another run and draw 3 more R&D cards - possibly accessing 5 different cards every turn. Does this sound like a viable/worthwhile strategy? If so, what to drop?

13 Jul 2014 GammaCodeX

Assuming there is two assets on the top of R&D. Wouldn't it be better to just keyhole twice? Seeing up to 6 cards every turn, requiring only one card installed.

13 Jul 2014 casteffens

@GammaCodeX Assuming there are two assets on the top of R&D, you score them both in one click with R&D Interface, instead of four.

15 Jul 2014 GammaCodeX

If you build for what might happen instead of what is likely to happen, then you might win but will most likely lose.

Also if there is two assets on top of RnD you trash one with keyhole and the other is shuffled into the deck. That still only costs one click. If there is two agendas (and now we are down to a very low chance (about 4%)) then you still dont want to score it. The whole premise of the deck is to win like noise: score all the points in the same turn to get the maximum out of ians ability.

12 Jan 2015 CapAp

Why is this getting upvotes? Of course it wins, it has 20 influence.

13 Jan 2015 GammaCodeX

1+1+1+4+3 = 20? You should learn how to math

13 Jan 2015 CapAp

Whoops