Khaaaaaaaaan!

This is my Khan deck. I've enjoyed building it and honing it. It's not the best deck, but it's OK. Give it a go; it's fun. An insanely detailed explanation follows.

At it's core, this is a pretty old skool Crim deck. It makes lots of runs and farms early singleton accesses. I'm gonna go ahead and assume people know about the generic strong cards. Account Siphon, Aaron Marrón and Temüjin Contract speak for themselves. This description will focus on the more unusual and questionable choices in the deck. Let's do it as a Q&A.

I hate being broke. Show me the money!

Thank you, mysterious questioner, you've hit the most important point right off the bat. Whenever you're examining an ID, there's an important question: how do I turn this ability into money? Most games have an important economic component, but Netrunner is especially cash focused. s rule over all. So how do we make Khan economically viable?

Khan's ability gives a free cut-price install. That's huge! Compare it to Kate. You get the same discount AND you save a . Of course there are two drawbacks. You're limited to installing icebreakers (much narrower than Kate's Program or Hardware requirement) and you have to pass an ice.

We'll come back to the second problem. Let's focus on the first: you can only install icebreakers. Generally, you don't want too many of those. A typical deck runs 4-9. That's not nearly enough if we want to fire Khan's ability regularly. And in-and-of-itself it's not making us actual cash, it's just discounting the cost of installing.

Fantasy Flight obviously thought that breakers like Golden and Peregrine would be the answer to this question, but they're super expensive. You could faff around with Sahasrara, but that's a lot of moving parts. Better to have lots of cheap breakers that you're always happy to install. All you need then is a way to leverage those installs for sweet, sweet s.

By now it's probably clear that the key piece here is Aesop's Pawnshop. A less install is always going to be good if you can sell the installed card for 3. As long as there are a bunch of cheap breakers in your deck, you can leverage your ID ability for hard cash.

OK, so cheap installs are good - but come on, those breakers are awful.

I know right? Those are some super-janky breakers. Let's go through it.

Crowbar, Spike and Faerie are our prime Aesop's fodder, but don't limit them to that. Their breaking threat pressures remotes surprisingly well early on, forcing the Corp into a holding pattern when they might otherwise score. In general, don't be afraid to use them either way. Sell them, break with them - whatever comes up. We're playing Faeries over Shiv because reliably breaking sentries is slightly better than efficiently breaking sentries.

We're playing an extra decoder - 6 instead of 5 - because code gates are everywhere and they often need to be broken; you can't always just bounce off them like a Wall of Static. Passport is free to install with Khan's ability and does a ton of work. Rex is surprisingly efficient (Equivalent to Gordian Blade or better for a single code gate) and you can sell it to Aesop when it's out of counters. I tested Peregrine but it was expensive to install. This deck likes things that are cheap.

Fracter-wise, you really want Corroder. If you've got it, install it. Prioritise getting it on the table over using your ability (although obviously a less install for 1 is lovely.) Breach is probably the most questionable card in the deck, but it does work. As soon as you find Corroder you can sell Breach. Seeing a theme here? Even once Corroder is down you can still sometimes install Breach for profit with your ability and Aesop. Saker might be good in this slot, but after my experiences with Peregrine I wasn't eager to test it.

Mongoose is great. If the corp stacks sentries we've got Faeries in the short term and can dig for the second Mongoose in the long term. I used to run a Shiv but I cut it for the second Rex because frankly code gates are way scarier than sentries these days.

What about the rest of the deck?

Drug Dealers are enormous. Khan's ability is quite card hungry, and finding your pieces faster is clutch too. In other news, they're the bonbons against net damage decks, because those decks tax your s far more than your s. The best thing is that if the cost of the Dealers is getting too much, you can just sell them. As long as Aesop's is installed, you never have to worry about installing too many. Installing to draw a single card and then immediately selling is a completely valid play, meaning the extra copies aren't blank.

Levy AR Lab Access is essential against Potential Unleashed and the like. Respect the threat of Ark Lockdown. Some games will be won or lost on whether you play Levy. You have only one Same Old Thing so don't fire it without understanding the ramifications for the long game. Having a deck that recycles also helps support your disposable decoder suite. Consider selling your Rex before Levying if it's low on counters.

The Turning Wheel and Legwork give you necessary multi-access to close out the game quickly against combo decks. If you're on any kind of clock you want to find the Turning Wheel and get it on the table fast. Farm those accesses! Faster! Faster!

Inside Job is less clutch than I initially thought it would be, but it's still the solid card that it is in every other criminal deck, offering good pressure to scoring remotes. The combo with Khan is a cute bonus, and I can't say it's not satisfying to bypass your way into a Temüjined central, installing a breaker along the way. That's the kind of efficiency that makes Replicating Perfection really sad.

Şifr seems important to your breaking suite. Why do you only have one?

I started with two, but I found that Turning Wheel was winning me more games, so I cut the second Şifr for the second Wheel. The games when you need Şifr tend to be slower, more glacier-ish match-ups. In those games you have time to dig for a singleton in a 40 card deck with a strong draw engine. Don't get me wrong, it's completely boss with our cheapass breaker suite and I would absolutely play a second one if influence wasn't so tight.

Another use for this slot that I have considered but not tested is Desperado. Why have just one completely busted console when you can have a choice? Desp would support the deck's asset spam match-up, and if you find you want to switch consoles at any point you can trade up at Aesops.

What are your match-ups like?

Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way first. This deck is weak to Railgun and CI7, which is the main reason (although not the only reason) that it will never be actually competitive. Against the former, if you get two Drug Dealers installed you can have a handsize of seven in the Corp's turn, meaning you have to keep the Corp off 10 rather than 6. That helps some. Against the latter, just farm accesses as fast as you can and hope to get lucky.

Against asset spam, your economy is probably strong enough to keep down the Corp until about the 4-5 agenda point mark, provided you get to empty a Temüjin or land a solid Siphon early on (a 40 card deck is lovely for this, by the way.) Things will inevitably get out of hand, so once the Friends in High Places have done their despicable work, shift gear and charge in for the last few points before whatever horror the assets are bringing wins the game for the Corp. Controlling the Message is obviously pretty grim. Try to get some early Aaron counters if you can. Jinteki variants are less of a worry. Just make sure you get to play your Levy and you'll be fine.

HB Glacier is super fun, and an unusually strong match-up for a trad Criminal thanks to Khan's affinity with Bioroids. Face checking Fairchild 3.0 with your first click feels much better when it comes with a free install. Eventually you'll want Şifr, and you'll probably be looking to win on centrals seeing as you don't have Rumor Mill or anything of that sort.

Fast advance is a race, but not an unfavourable one. Lightly iced remotes play to your ID ability, and Siphon + Aaron is at its strongest in this matchup.

You said you'd come back to the trigger conditions of Khan's ability

Yes I did. Thanks for reminding me. Khan's ability requires that you run. Running is already quite good, as it is how you win the game. Comboing up your runs with Turning Wheel and Temüjin is makes them really efficient. But do know what's a really unhelpful time to be able to install an icebreaker? Immediately after you pass an ice. Generally speaking, you want the icebreaker first. To, y'know, break the ice. The fact that we're using breakers as economy pieces solves this problem to an extent, but there's no getting around the fact that to get the best out of Khan you want to perversely leave breakers in-hand while you face check ice.

As a result of this dynamic, this is not a deck for anyone who is nervous about face checking. Insanely aggresive early runs are key to your early game, as you need to find an ice you can run through to fire your ability. Happily, we're well placed to suck up the consequences of your rash offensive. Program trashing? All our breakers are disposable junk anyway. There's more where they came from. Net damage? Similar story. Nothing in our deck is essential. It's a pain having to draw up, but it was expensive to rez that Komainu, and later on your Mongoose will be laughing at it.

An interesting fringe benefit of Khan is that she plays merry havoc with the corp's server maths. The fact that she can potentially install a breaker from hand in the middle of an Inside Job means that they have no idea at all if you can get in, or how much it costs her to do so.

What are you looking for with a mulligan?

A hand with Temüjin in is a good starting hand. Drug Dealer supported by Sure Gamble or Aesops is also a strong opening. I hear Account Siphon is strong, and your ability gives the corp a good incentive to show you the ice on HQ when you face check it on turn 1.

Do you think this deck description could be improved with some GIFs?

No.

Why does Khan have only 12 influence?

This is more of a Koan than a question, akin to reflecting on the sound of one hand clapping. There is no answer, but to consider it clears the mind.

Final thoughts?

Khaaaaaaaaan!