The Creative Principle

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tiedyedvortex 4802

So I have a confession to make. I am a Shaper. I play weird, strange decks just to see if I can make them work. I find the unloved cards and I try to find ways to love them. And sometimes, hidden between the rejects and binder-stuffers, I'll find a combo that works.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: The Creative Principle. A London Library Brahman deck.

In the late game, a typical turn looks something like this:

It's bonkers. It's crazy. It's overly elaborate. And yet, somehow, it works. You're hitting one server a turn, but it's almost entirely unstoppable. I've played games with this deck where I would eat through a 5 ice deep server every other turn, alternating between drawing with Professional Contacts and making these high-impact sniper runs.

Typical AI hate cards don't seem to matter; if you're worried about faceplanting into an unrezzed Swordsman, you simply target the unrezzed ice with Femme and coast past it. Inti turns off Wraparound and ZU.13 Key Master deals with Turing.

Hilariously, to deal with Faust a lot of decks are running low-strength, multisub ice like Hive, which are exactly the area where Brahman shines. One AI's tech is another AI's treasure.

All-nighter is a backup plan: if you lose your Autoscripter, then there may come a turn when you find yourself one click short of being able to make into a server. There used to be two, but I really needed a single R&D Interface to help close out games when the corp refused to score.

It's not a Tier I deck. There's no kill protection. It tends to hold key combo pieces in hand, making net damage (or Salem's Hospitality) disastrous. It relies heavily on its resources, so tags hurt. And it just doesn't quite set up fast enough to keep pace with NEH Fastrobiotics.

But it's one of the most fun casual decks I've played in a while, and in that space it wins a fair bit. Give it a shot and see what you think!

15 comments
2 May 2016 moistloaf

brahman is a cool card, nice use of it here

2 May 2016 aero

Nice. So fun. On Swordsman, you don't even need to Femme it on account of it being such low strength.

2 May 2016 Trusman

A single game and I'm falling in love. Congratz!

2 May 2016 tiedyedvortex

@aero You don't need to target it with the Femme bypass, but you still need to have it available. Which requires some careful planning: knowing exactly which program to replace with Brahman so that you can still break everything on the rest of the run is challenging but ultimately doable.

One other thing you have to be careful about is, bizarrely, making sure you can break enough ice on your run. If you're running last click and the corp doesn't rez enough pieces of ice to let you pick up everything on the Library, then you're going to lose programs. This deck is packing a fair bit of redundancy but if you lose all three Brahmans to net damage, Swordsman, and Library misplays you will be a sad puppy.

3 May 2016 Pushover

Is there a reason for Harbinger over Cache? Cache pays you +2 or +3.

3 May 2016 regresssion

@Pushover I'm guessing it's because viruses can't be used as bounce fodder for Brahman

3 May 2016 tiedyedvortex

@Pushover @regresssion Also, Cache uses up your MU. With an Astrolabe, you only have 5MU, which is exactly enough for a rig of Inti + Zu + Brahman + Femme.

3 May 2016 Demolishine

Just wondering, since you already have 3 LLDS installed, won't it be better to use Chameleon instead of Femme?

It can go like this:

  1. Install Brahman

2.Install Chameleon on Scheherazade (With Hayley)-Choose Sentry

3.Run the Server or Install another Chameleon w/ London for cheap breaking/Brahman Bounce(2nd Click)

4.Run on 3rd Click, bouncing Brahman back to Stack in the process

  1. Use Click 4 and 5 to take Brahman & Chameleons back from Stack

If you leave the Chameleon at London it's fine too as at the end of the turn it will go back to our grip.

With the extra influence you can get 1 more Autoscripter or maybe a legwork or something.

3 May 2016 Demolishine

Eh, not sure why it's like that, let me fix it

1.Install Brahman

2.Install Chameleon on Scheherazade (With Hayley)-Choose Sentry

3.Run the Server or Install another Chameleon w/ London for cheap breaking/Brahman Bounce(2nd Click)

4.Run on 3rd Click, bouncing Brahman back to Stack in the process

5.Use Click 4 and 5 to take Brahman & Chameleons back from Stack

3 May 2016 staglore

@tiedyedvortex have you considered using Cerberus "Lady" H1 with this?

3 May 2016 tiedyedvortex

@Demolishine The power of Femme Fatale goes far beyond being able to break Swordsmans. Brahman is amazing at breaking small- to medium-ice, but if you have to break something with strength 7 or more (Susanoo-No-Mikoto, Curtain Wall, Janus 1.0) it gets prohibitively expensive very quickly. Chameleon is worse, because you can't boost its strength at all. Femme Fatale is much, much safer.

Additionally, Femme lets you pressure earlier. Lets say the corp has 1 unrezzed piece of ice protecting HQ. Femme Fatale guarantees that you can get in, no matter what type of ice it is. With Chameleon you have to guess, and hope that you don't hit something nasty. Even just bouncing off an Ice Wall is disastrous if you lose your Autoscripter.

Lastly, with an Autoscripter down, you can Library down two Femmes, run, and pick them both back up. This gives you a 100% chance of being able to get into any 2-ice deep server. (Unless your opponent is playing Underway Grid, of course.)

@staglore I considered it, but ultimately I decided that Lady wasn't worth the MWL influence cost. Inti does just fine at getting you through Wraparounds and Ice Walls, Brahman deals with Wall of Statics and Bastions easily, and for anything larger you just Femme it. Inti also has the benefit of being a zero-cost program, which is perfect Brahman fodder.

4 May 2016 aeternii

What about John Masanori? Immediately re-drawing the stuff you Brahman'd on access sounds pretty good to me.

6 May 2016 Phoenix

You must be awesome at Psi games. Making 1 meaningful run a turn only to have Caprice at the end of the server must suck. Have you considered PolOp or Councilman?

15 May 2016 SHIEL

Really love this concept. Would love to see a v2 with a bit more recursion/dig/flatline protection, because I can't help but feel like this could be seriously dangerous if you didn't have to spend half the game clicking to draw. I've lost games because the corp scored out while I spent whole turns just drawing, hoping to one day see a Brahman or a Femme.

12 Jul 2016 Cobura

What about Sacrificial Construct in here? Works well with Autoscripter and London Library, and lets you face check without worrying to lose your programs to program trashing. If you would slot Clot (which I would), you would also get a stronger Clot-lock.