Cheating with Precision

This deck is part of a series of duel decks created using only cards from a single Core Set and the Genesis Cycle of data packs. These decks exist to show off the variety that Android: Netrunner has, and all of the interesting effects that are brought to it from its initial set of expansions. The entire catalogue of these decks can be found here.

Gabriel Santiago: Consummate Professional is the classic representative of the Criminal faction. As such, this deck is built to emphasize what Criminals do better than any other faction: put "pressure" on the corp. What that means is that this deck is built to hit the Corp hard before it is prepared to defend against you, and to slow down whatever preparation the Corp can manage to set up. This means that you need to start running on the Corp's servers early and often, before it has had a chance to bolster its ice and credits.

To help you, you have Gabe's ability which rewards you for running often on HQ. Running on HQ allows you to see just what the Corp has up its sleeve, so that you can always be a step ahead. Though, corporations should be prepared for the Runner to see a few cards in HQ. A deck that truly wants to pressure the Corp needs to punish the Corp extremely for allowing those early successful runs.

That is why this deck is full of punishing cards like Account Siphon, Sneakdoor Beta, Inside Job, and Indexing.

Each of these cards can be devastating to the Corp, and each of them is able to inflict pain on the Corp in a different server. So if the Corp has iced up HQ as much as possible because it can't risk getting hit by an Account Siphon, your Sneakdoor Beta lets you in through Archives to check what's left after all of that ice has been played. If they ice up Archives as well, then you can just look at the top 5 cards of R&D with your Indexing instead, and likely grab an agenda in the process. If they then try to patch up that hole on R&D with even more ice, then there is not much left for their Remote Servers, is there? Your Inside Jobs will keep them from scoring at all, and your Bank Jobs will give you giant influxes of cash for any unprotected assets the Corp leaves out.

Other cards in this deck are meant to mitigate whatever protection the Corp can manage. Special Order lets you pull out just the breaker you need to get through a specific server as early as possible, Crescentus and Kraken take the Corp a step backwards in their icing efforts, and Forged Activation Orders force the Corp commit to protecting one server while you focus your efforts elsewhere.

If you hit the Corp early enough with multiple high impact runs, then you can secure an early victory. Just make sure not to let up too much, because this deck is not built for a long game. Unlike many other decks, there are no cards here that give any permanent economy boost. You want to swindle the Corp of agenda points before it knows what hit it.

As a final note, be mindful of what the corp can do to you while you are tagged. You have ways in this deck to defend against Corps that rely on getting you tagged, like Decoy and Crash Space, and they are worth using against said Corps. However, if the Corp cannot abuse your tags, then you have a different advantage: you can just keep the tags instead. Your Bank Jobs and Liberated Accounts can net you profits before the Corp has a chance to trash them, and if that is the only tagging threat the enemy Corp can levy against you, then you can just ignore your tags altogether. Save your money and clicks for more runs!