Caissa Reina

x3r0h0ur 8970

Not totally siphon spam, lots of instant speed caissa pieces with peddler and CC (with deep red too). Cheap runs, lots of keyhole.

Game plan, don't let them rez ice on RnD, rook the shit out of it, get them near poor with siphon, and keyhole like mad. Instant knights = winner. Real breakers to back up knights as needed.

Going to be testing this one in casual on OCTGN sometime this week.

6 comments
13 Jul 2015 Bigguyforyou518

Most decks need a reliable source of tutoring or card draw (or both). With just 1x Symmetrical Visage and some Street Peddlers, I think you're going to run into serious tempo and reliability issues. Aside from the ever-pressing issue of finding the right breakers, I think your rig is going to run into memory issues quickly if you don't reliably get Deep Red out early. Earthrise Hotel, Inject, and I've Had Worse are all great options here. For more precision, you could drop 1x Security Testing and splash in a Special Order or Test Run.

Have you thought about your strategy against Blue Sun: Powering the Future and Near-Earth Hub: Broadcast Center? Both are very popular right now, and both usually bend Caissa Reina over a barrel. Blue Sun will constantly trash your chess pieces by picking their ICE up, and you have no multi-access or asset destruction to Rein (heh) in NEH.

13 Jul 2015 x3r0h0ur

Keyhole is your access. I do think inject could work, and had it in the first few rounds of testing, but removed it as the draw actually seemed fine without it, and was easier on the recursion of knight. This isn't a "build a rig and run" deck, its more surgical, requiring strikes until you have a partial rig enough to employ pressure as needed.

The biggest issue is its non-viability against blue sun, but for a fun caissa deck, I'll take the challenge. Using rook and reinas ability, sometimes you can 'get' blue sun. By that I mean if they OAI-tricked a Curtain wall, and thats how much money they have, rooking it and running makes it unrezzable. Though, if they do rez, they get that much back so that sucks. D4v1d might improve this match up, but it causes MU issues.

13 Jul 2015 Bigguyforyou518

I've always lamented that Caissa, and Deep Red specifically, weren't designed better. It would be so much more usable (and interesting) if Deep Red instead said "The first time you spend a with a Caissa program each turn, gain 1 ". That might actually let it go toe-to-toe with Blue Sun, as you could realistically move the pieces off the ICE before they got picked up.

14 Jul 2015 x3r0h0ur

Yea, with this build you have a bit more game vs blue sun with instant speed rooks and knights off peddler and cc, and returning them with pawn. I'd play more calculated, forcing rezzes off RnD before keyhole jamming. It definitely is a work in progress, but it is great against NBN, and pretty good vs HB so far.

17 Jul 2015 ain

Is Bishop doing work for you? To me it's always been the most (the only?) underwhelming caissa piece.

17 Jul 2015 x3r0h0ur

I think 2 might work, eventually you need it, since there is no sucker or parasite. I could see cutting to 2/1 with datasucker, but sometimes the MU doesn't line up for sucker. I beat an NBN with this last night (NEH). Was light on econ because siphon didn't show up, but otherwise pretty good.