Knowing Nasir

A Nasir deck I ran for a while and thoroughly enjoyed. A true source of all the Shaper BS (TM) that you could ever want.

Some notes, in no particular order:

• Your economy is the corp's ICE, so get running as fast as possible. Before that though, you need to make sure you've spent (or have access to spending mid-run) all your opening cash. Personal Workshop, SMC, R&D Interface and Earthrise Hotel are all fantastic opening cards. Lay one down, host stuff if necessary, and start running at that ICE!

• On a related note - no Sure Gambles! Having 5 creds is not all that common in this deck. It's fine!

• Stealth - and recurring credits in general - is a natural fit for Nasir. Running both a Dagger and a Switchblade is not really necessary...but I've never managed to work out which of the two I prefer.

• Kati Jones is obviously always strong, but for Nasir she's even better than normal. Savvy glacier-type corps will hold back a cheap piece of ICE to fling at the front of the remote in order to get a scoring window - a bank on Kati that you can grab after losing your cash on the first run will mean that NAPD Contracts is still in reach. Ghost Runner is good for this too, although obviously take care you have enough stealth.

• The Toolbox is always a great console, except for it's hefty price tag. But it's fine! The Corp's paying! Particularly good for soaking up some leftover credits before Nasir's effect fires when it's on the Personal Workshop.

• This deck needs a LOT of memory. Akamatsus + Toolbox can sometimes still not be enough in long-running games.

• No Order of Sol? I've not tried it, but I dislike the timings of it. You have to be careful that either your approach spending has room to spend all your money, then gain a credit and spend it immediately, or you mustn't spend all your money on the approach. If you want it, it would likely replace Ice Analyzer - but personally I like the preserved pool of credits for installing programmes, and the additional punishment on the corp for rezzing ICE.

• More card draw would probably be useful. Some Diesel or Quality Time could be called for.

• Low/cheap ICE builds makes this deck sad. Space ICE (advance to reduce rez cost) always makes Nasir sad...a 6-strength barrier rezzed for 0 is nearly impossible to handle on first hit.

• Savoir-faire: it might be Blue, but it's the key to the best Shaper BS (TM) I've ever managed. It came into the deck after I realised that the most annoying place for a programme to be was in my hand, since SMC and Clone Chip allowed access to installs from anywhere else... as a 1-of in this sort of deck, it's surprisingly strong. Give it a go!