Hayley: Friend to the Lizards

Do you have a link or anything to a ruling saying that the Chameleons come back to your hand after the discard happens? I'd be really interested to see that for my own experiments with Hayley/Chameleon.

Not sure if there's been a ruling, but if you look at the timing structure of a turn in the rulebook, it definitely looks like the case. It goes discard phase -> end of turn, so Chameleon triggers after you have to discard.

Well there go the Box-Es from my deck.

:) Dinos all the way my friend

@Shiiuga @lolpaca Since you have priority on your turn as the Runner, you also get to choose what end of turn effects occur first during that step. So in this case, you choose to return Chameleon to your hand over trashing them on London Library. Same thing happens at the beginning of the Runner's turn with the whole Aesop's/Wyldside combo. So yes, this definitely works. If it didn't work that way, this combo definitely wouldn't be as hyped as it currently is.

But for me this kind of combo decks set up way to slow, because you need 8 specific cards out of 45.

Had the same approach but didn't work out.

But for me this kind of combo decks set up way to slow, because you need 8 specific cards out of 45.

Had the same approach but didn't work out.

Not at all. This isn't a combo deck - you don't need all the pieces out to start pressuring, it just gets stronger and more efficient the more of them you add (like good Shaper decks should). You can put down an LLDS Processor and SMC-faceheck nearly any early-game ICE with impunity.

London Library/Autoscripter/Sahasrara is just what you work towards. It gives you an extra click and 2 credits per turn, which is a pretty huge late-game boost.

@lolpaca - I was about to sit down and tinker with this build it myself – now I don’t have too. THANKS! =)

I really like the idea. How is the economy working for you? That’s the area I was debating about. I was thinking, as you suggested, removing 2x Diesel, but adding 2x Professional Contacts instead of Replicator. I was maybe even going to go so far as to -1x Legwork & +1 Hostage, in order to be able to find Kati Jones or Pro Contacts. Thoughts?

Econ's pretty solid, though I reckon it could be improved. Generally I find the first few turns I'm just setting up economy - I'll be Dieseling, Sure Gambling and Career Fairing econ to make sure I've got enough for all the installs I'm about to drop. Admittedly this means a pretty slow start, but running's incredibly cheap once you're set up.

Pro Contacts is definitely worth trying out, as I often have to click for cards even with all the Diesel/Earthrise shenanigans going on. Damn Hayley, clears her hand too fast :) Not sure about Hostage, but that second Legwork is definitely a flex slot so by all means try it and tell me how it goes!

Any concerns about IT Department?

Don't think I've ever played a deck that runs it, but I guess it's about the same as concerns about Corporate Troubleshooter. At the end of the day, you can't defend against everything - I'm probably more worried about Midseasons/Scorched, as I've got no damage protection and a fairly limited economy.

It'd be nice to jam a couple of Plascretes in there if I could find the slots. Also I might end up just finding a way to make Mopus work, as much as I like being an edgy Nethipster by going for Armitage instead.

I think if you were to perhaps go -1 Clone Chip, -2 Armitage Codebusting, +1 Kati Jones, +2 Plascrete Carapace you would find Kati Jones more reliably (which helps the economy a lot) and gives you some damage protection. Its also really useful in a meta which now has Snatch and Grab, Character Assassination and Contract Killer. Its a shame to drop the Armitage Codebusting though as they are great early.

Why not just go with Cerberus "Lady" H1 and save 2 influence? You can trash it any time you install Chameleon and refresh with Clone Chip...if you even need to.

3 CC looks a bit excessive to me, what are you recurring? You could easily cut one for a Plascrete Carapace unless I'm missing something obvious.

For what it's worth I squeezed in ProCo, Hostage, and Plascrete but I'm a bad Shaper so what do I know.

I like Corroder, especially getting it free with Sahasrara - it's just very solid. Cerberus would save influence, but I'm not sure what I'd actually do with it... deck slots are a bigger issue than influence at the mo. Try it out and tell me, though! (Don't forget Weyland just got Spiderweb which could give you problems...)

Chips are mainly for recurring SMCs so I can tutor everything when I need to, plus insurance against random pings/trashes, but you're right, maybe I should be more worried about meat damage. Could swap one out for a Plascrete.

Levy AR Lab Access could also be worthwhile for mid-game econ boost, once most of the kit's on the table and it's mostly economy in the trash. If I did that I'd probably take a second look at Replicator over Diesel.

You're right about the leftover influence. It's awkward. Hostage may not be the best card either since you have to pay for the install, so unless you're rich enough for ProCo it's limited to Kati. I don't think I've ever read it closely. Clot is decent option too.

You have a good point about Corroder though. I'm leaving it in for now.

If you ever got away from Data Folding, Datasuckers might enable some early aggression while you wait for pieces.

I'm definitely in two minds about whether Data Folding's worth it. It takes three turns just to pay for itself, meaning it's rubbish late-game and not even that great mid-game. But with Chameleon you're always going to have that 2 free MU at the start of your turn, so you might as well get something out of it. Adding more programs is always going to mean adding memory chips even without Data Folding.

I played this deck tonight, and was able to consistently access through a Janus. I'd like to add 1 Net-Ready Eyes for redundancy and to allow me to break Wotan. What do you think?

Ain't nothing like breaking a Janus 1.0 for 4 credits :) I hadn't given the Eyes much thought, but a 1-of could actually be pretty sweet. Let me know how it goes!

Btw, you can always break Wotan with Corroder, it just costs a lot. But that's true for nearly any deck I guess.

I like the deck in theory, not sure I'd be comfortable relying on such a large combo. It seems very vulnerable to ambush heavy decks, especially Shattered Remains, and card that tax your hand, like Housekeeping or Docklands.

If you can build up the tempo, and avoid setbacks, it'll be great. A single bad run will loose you Autoscripter; If you get tagged and you've pulled your combo at least once, you're probably loosing the library.

Personally I'd drop the London Library to streamline the process, but that makes Hayley's ability less useful here.

I'd be interested in seeing how the deck runs before making any final decisions.

I agree it's kinda fragile (and currently waaay to vulnerable to Midseasons and the like). But I think it's still pretty good even before all the parts come together.

Say you've just got Sahasrara and a couple of LLDS out, and your 2 Chameleons in hand - that still means you've got two adaptable 5-strength breakers, at a net cost of 2 credits and a click each turn. That's usually enough to make a cheap run if you want to - not often the corp has all 3 types/6+ strength ice covering all its servers - and money up/draw/install as needed with your remaining clicks.

Admittedly, in that situation you'd probably be slightly better off using normal breakers, but it's not a bad mid-game to have while you're working towards the full rig.

I'm not saying it's perfect (or even all that great) in its current form, but there's definitely something strong here that's worth tinkering about with. I think better deckbuilders than me will do something huge with this combo in the future.

Trashing pieces can disrupt any deck but you are right that there are several moving parts here. I think it can potentially be simplified though; I'm going to test it without Dinosaurus personally. This also allows a couple extra things to squeeze in (Plascrete Carapace). Net-Ready Eyes is also a potential add.

I'm more worried about money in the long run if a piece is missing. Multi-sub and taxing ice will wear you down if you're paying 4c for Chameleon every turn if London Library or Sahasrara decide not to show up.

I'm looking forward to testing this out though. It's at least interesting, which is more than I can say for some other decks.

This looks like a really long-winded way of avoiding playing good cards, and spending Influence on cards you'd rather not be spending influence on.

Chameleon is a really neat support card for a rig, but you're having to work super-hard to put it front & center instead.

very fun deck, thnx for sharing it :)

So I've been doing some testing with my own version of your list, and I've found just having 3 Modded and 3 Magnum Opus is infinitely better for your economy than what you get from Data Folding and Armitage Codebusting. Not to mention I have yet to have a problem with running out of MU. Once you go late, you've dug deep enough into your deck to hopefully have gotten Kati, and then you can freely trash Opus because of how many credits you can get off of her.

Just my two cents :)

Yeah, you're right :) I think I want Data Folding to work because it fits, but sometimes you've just gotta submit to the mighty Mopus.

In the current version of this I'm using 3 x Replicator instead of the Earthrise, which I now think's absolutely essential. No wasted time digging for the second and third LLDS improves your hitting power by a lot.

One question on Data Folding... Let's say you start the turn with Sahasrara + Hyperdriver installed. You "trigger" the Hyperdriver first and RFG it. Does your Data Folding still give you 1 credit?

I would think so (per the Aesop's + Wyldside case), but reassurance would be welcome. :)

Yeah, I'd have thought so - I wouldn't mind confirmation on that myself though. Hmm, Hyperdriver Chameleon, you say... :)

I got in a few test games with a similar build yesterday against a VERY horizontal NEH and a big bioroid NEXT. I ran -3 Earthrise Hotel, -3 Data Folding, +1 Kati Jones, +2 Replicator, +3 Professional Contacts. The main issue is that against NEH, my opponent rezzed a Mother Goddess over R&D with no other ice. GG. As a result, I was thinking some AI support. My first thought was saving influence with Atman, but I wonder if it might be worth dropping a Legwork and slotting Faust. Faust allows me to dump duplicates of Kati Jones, Professional Contacts, and Dinosaurus without breaking a sweat while giving emergency protection from Mythic, Traps, and any other unforeseen circumstances. I'd also really like to find room for The Maker's Eye, as I've found I can have trouble closing the game out if it runs late. A single 6 card dig into R&D is usually very taxing, but doable with a big Kati Jones pull (don't forget to account for NAPD Contract!).

Also just as a note, if you find yourself comparing this deck to PPVP Kate for efficiency, then this probably isn't the right deck for you to try :)

Have you considered Test Run it's actually quite nice with Chameleon as it goes to your hand not your deck if you activate them properly.