DJ Patel

This has been my go-to runner deck for the past few months and the source of many an exciting game. A few weeks ago it also got me second place (with the help of IG 49) at a small store championship in Halifax, dropping one game on the day.

The idea behind the deck is to take advantage of Leela's ability in the early game to punish the corp for any overextension, and then to transition into a more passive mid- to late-game by managing the corp's money with Account Siphon and flooding their hand with Fisk Investment Seminar. Coupled with Rumor Mill, this leaves the corp little option but to risk multiple Gang Sign accesses by attempting to score. Rumor Mill seems to catch people off guard generally speaking, so I've won several games simply by running Archives on the turn following a Jackson overdraw.

My approach in most matchups is to force ice rezzes on R&D, Archives, and remotes but to leave HQ ice unrezzed. This strategy often allows for punishing Leela bounces in the mid-game which, coupled with Siphon and repeat accesses with HQ Interface, can often cripple the corp.

By way of card choices, I've recently changed the draw engine of the deck away from [Blockade Runner] (/en/card/11065) to Career Fair + Earthrise Hotel. The deck has been performing much more consistently since. Turntable, meanwhile, is my favourite console in the game, so I've (perhaps controversially) chosen it over Desperado. This is likely the wrong choice, as more money is never a bad thing - not to mention the 1-2 influence which would be made available to shore up weaknesses in the breaker suite. Nevertheless, Turntable plays into the strategy of the deck quite well so I'm hesitant to cut it. I did recently cut a singleton Salsette Slums, however, as I often wouldn't find it early enough - not to mention that the deck largely lacks the kind of economy needed to stay on top of asset spam anyway. You're usually better off trying to hammer centrals in these matchups and pray you get to 4-5 points early.

Turning to matchups more generally, this deck performs quite well against HB and Weyland (save Midseasons kill decks), while having decent matchups against certain flavours of NBN. Absolutely atrocious pairings are against RP glacier or asset spam, as well as Making News Door to Door decks - both of which have been all over Jnet in recent weeks. As with all Criminals, this deck is also quite vulnerable to rig destruction.

This is the first decklist I've ever posted, so I'd love to hear some feedback on it.

Cheers!