Express Elevator to Hell (top eight champs, 3rd in swiss)

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
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Repartition by Strength
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Faust Ken (5th Place Aus Nats, Top of Swiss)
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Axlotl 2681

48 man Store Champs at Mead Hall (Minnesota). 4-1 in swiss, 3rd in standings before top cut. Tenma/Blue Sun

This deck is highly tempo dependent. You need to keep money and cards coming in. Fortunately, this deck is also pretty efficient at that. Running Faust backed with paid breakers allows you to use credits and cards somewhat interchangeably. Faust helps enable early High-Stakes and Siphons. The deck can switch pretty well between assaulting centrals and keeping remotes down. Retrieval Run/Femme plays do a great job of taking care of ice that would otherwise be problematic, like Turings on scoring servers. Faust enables you to ditch Femme during a run instead of having to dump it ahead of time, so you don't tilt the Retrieval Run play early. I went with only one E3 because in a lot of the early game I need credits to build board state and keep a credit reserve up to snowball more econ. A second one wouldn't be bad, as it is quite the lifesaver versus HB. Public Terminal does work. Public Terminal + High-Stakes does exactly what Prepaid+Lucky Find used to do, but for less clicks and no influence, at the downside of requiring the initial 3-6 credits.

The deck click draws a lot, but doesn't feel bad about it. If the deck has to click for credits, you have a problem. If you bottom out on credits with a Drug Dealer on the board, you have a very serious problem. I usually play the Drug Dealers a little conservatively, dropping them after building a decent credit pool and a good start at the rig.

3 Special Orders = 5 chances for an early Faust.

Here is how my rounds went:

Round 1: NEH. Win 7-0. A well timed Siphon gets me past ice to snipe an Astro. I follow it up with a Legwork and pull another 4 points. Later, top-decked Faust comes down and I dump my hand to get through a Wraparound for game.

Round 2: NEH. Lose 4-1. I get the feeling this is scorch from a few early plays. My econ is going strong, but so is his. I get a Plascrete. Install, single advances cards. First one I run is a Breaking News. Second is a Shattered Remains. We do the usual econ war for a few turns, with me poking here and there on single runs. I decide to do a Maker's Eye. I hit an Explodapalooza. This gives him a couple credits above the amount needed for a Midseasons/Traffic/Scorch kill. I hope he doesn't have the full kill in hand, but he does. I die.

Round 3: Win 7-0. Blue Sun. I pull 2 Priority Requisitions early, get a Plascrete, and stay ahead on econ. Much later I find a third agenda.

Round 4: Win 7-2. Biotech. Biotech shell game. I decide to focus on checking servers and drop Desperado and Masanori. I hit a few Snares and Pyschic Fields, but always early enough in the turn to play around the 2 net damage flip. Twice I siphon then clear remotes. Hes unfortunately flooded, so I find 7 points between remotes and HQ.

Round 5: Win 7-5. ETF. Glacier's up. I use E3 to get through double Ichi's on RnD. multiple Maker's finds me 4 or so points, maybe 6? A Global comes down a little to early and Siphon/taxing plays stall out the scoring for 2 or 3 extra turns. He still gets the Food eventually, but I seal the game with a Legwork.

Top Cut: Replicating Perfection beats me, 4-7? maybe? didn't make a note of the total. I manage to get through a 4 ice scoring remote for what I think is 5/3, by dumping all my credits, cards, and clicks, holding only a Same Old Thing for the Levy in a couple turns. Masanori draws me a card, and I access a Fetal AI. Masanori saves me from the flatline, but the Fetal net damage hits my last Same Old Thing, so I can't Levy. RP grinds me out.

12 comments
7 Feb 2016 ANRguybrush

Exactly what I have been looking for. Thanks.

8 Feb 2016 futureguy

Funnily enough I won a GNK with Ken/Blue Sun a couple of weeks back and I have been looking at converting Ken to a Faust breaker suite. High Stakes Job along with Account Siphon means that Faust makes ridiculous sense.

This looks like a good starting point for me to try my own spin. Very nice deck and well done on the placement.

A few questions...

1) What was the reasoning for double Femme Fatale. Would a single Femme not serve your purposes (and add a Garotte/Mongoose instead?). Is it there for wraparounds as multiple runs through that must be a pretty major tax on Faust.

2) Off the back of Q.1, is Femme you main target for Retrieval Run or are they there for getting trashed programs back? I'm thinking about the influence and wondering if two could be used elsewhere (third Maker's Eye for example)?

3) You are using John and Drug Dealer for draw. Did you find that was enough, especially when using Faust?

4) When using Faust, did you find yourself in difficult situations regarding what to ditch?

8 Feb 2016 Axlotl

The double Femme/Retrieval Run was a decision I made together after deciding on Faust, as a very cheap, or often free, Femme supported remote play well combined with Inside Job, and most importantly was my main answer for a remote server Turing. I was satisfied with the package. You can hard install the Femmes, though, so feel free to try out the RR/Maker's swap.

The card draw seemed fine. A little more wouldn't hurt, but I almost never play the second Dealer so a third isn't the answer there, and I'm not sure where I'd want to fit anything either. Earthrise is to credit intensive for how often the deck goes tag me. I click draw a lot. I haven't had any problem with maintaining enough cards to be threatening to remotes, so it seems to work pretty good.

I had a few hard choices with what to pitch to Faust, but that kind of comes with the territory. RP is rough. But there are plenty of cards that you're pretty ok to pitch depending on the stage of the game. You can snowball ahead enough on econ to start pitching gambles pretty quickly. I had games where I was pitching Dirty Laundry eventually. That is one of the nice things with a Faust/credit breaker package and run economy. The deck is pretty flexible with its economy.

8 Feb 2016 ren666

If you click draw quite a lot, what about baby instead of Dealer? Might help keep your credit pool a little higher overall as well.

8 Feb 2016 Axlotl

Baby doesn't generate any card advantage. The free extra card from dealer is far better in here. However, Visage could supplement Dealer nicely, but the more resources you play the less viable floating tags becomes, and I prefer the current econ options over Visage.

21 Feb 2016 Axlotl

Played in another store champs, in Wausau, Wisconsin. 3-2 in swiss, 7th place. 18 people.

Brutal field at the tournament, a lot of high caliber players. Spags, Andries, Schupp, etc. Lost to NEH FA twice (Schupp, and the guy that was 2nd in top cut, sorry I didn't catch your name), beat NEH FA once, Beat Haarpsichord (Piloted by Nate, another player from my local, who won the event) and ETF.

Went -1 Femme, -1 Retrieval Run, -1 Plascrete, -1 Inside Job, +2 Data Sucker, +1 Mongoose, +1 E3. I think that is a stronger package.

8 Apr 2016 archunt3r

Awesome @Axlotl im looking at taking ken to a store champs on the weekend, i see you got two desperado's, I've only got one core set so what would be another console to put in? Im missing quite a few packs as well, ive got all the packs youve taken the cards from though

8 Apr 2016 Axlotl

In your case, I'd drop Desperado all together in order to bring in a third Maker's Eye. The version listed doesn't even need a console. If you want to play the Data Sucker version (and I suggest you do, and definitely include Mongoose) Logos or Box-E is probably your best bet.

8 Apr 2016 archunt3r

So do the 1 fem and etc like you got up top? And would two mongoose be an idea in case they trash it?

8 Apr 2016 Axlotl

Yeah, I think the Wausau changes I made in the comment before your first one is a better version to go with. You'll only need 1 Mongoose. Femme can be used as your sentry breaker in a pinch. The Mongoose is mostly for Jinteki, but its good to bring out when you start seeing problematic sentries in the midgame, or a Swordsman, especially when paired with the Suckers to mitigate its pump ratio.

Maybe if you anticipate a lot of HB you could keep the double Femme, as its your only way to deal with a scoring server Turing, beyond 3 clicks and econ denial.

Oh, also, you should add in Political Operatives now that its out, if you have the most recent data pack. Caprice was quite problematic for me. Maybe cut Plascrete entirely if you don't expect Scorch to show up. Drug Dealer also allows you to survive Traffic + Scorch , so you'd still have some protection if you run carefully. Another potential trim is the 2nd Masanori. The tag is a bit of a liability and you'll see him eventually in the first pass of the deck.

8 Apr 2016 archunt3r

Yeah democracy and dogma isnt out here yet :( i was thinking of getting rid of masanori, didnt really get used at all in my play testing. Do you think maybe putting aomething like breach in for early-mid game barriers on centrals? I actually put in gang sign and found it actually worked and got me a few agendas, not sure on the meta for where the store champs is, travelling 4 hours to get to the city lol. I did put in two mongoose but may take 1 out and put another femme in

8 Apr 2016 Axlotl

Breach is in the list.

The problem I have with Gang Sign is that its reactive, and I'd rather be proactive. I also float tags a lot and Gang Sign is a much bigger target than Masanori or Drug Dealer.