Run Swift Run Deep

In my first competition, I played Ken in the Dublin Circuit Opener in Startup format earlier this year. I came 7th despite not having played for very long by this stage. I have played different runners since then, but I remembered how fun the Ken deck was so I wanted to play with it again, but do something different this time.

Most people play Hermes or Pennyshaver as their consoles when building a criminal deck, but Swift was a cool card and I liked imagining Ken on a motorcycle. I just couldn’t think of a way to make it work well until I saw what other decks had put in with those two cards; Deep Dive

Scrolling through other decks people have built using these three cards, I saw people also use Harmony AR Therapy and I instantly thought of how great it would be to get my run events back with this as well as my deep dives, which is my biggest win condition.

I’ve made a lot of tweaks to this deck and will probably edit again in the future after I’ve found the perfect balance. I originally had Corroder as my fracter but I didn’t want to spend influence on that when I could spend it on diesels. My deck didn’t have a lot of card draw and neutral card draw cards are expensive. It was a shame not to include Bahia bands in a Ken deck, so a diesel was later swapped for two Bahia bands. This card allows for a lot more flexibility.

I decided I wanted to spend my MU on Cezve because it helps pay my way through ice which is pretty important to pull off the deep dive. I thought of putting more cards that gave me MU so I could play Tranquilizer and maybe also spending influence on a Leech which would make the deck more fun but Boomerang seems more fitting for this deck so I can focus on having so many run event cards.

Despite the protest of my friends, I did play this deck with a Tycoon initially and despite giving away a lot of money to the corp especially as I got unlucky in that game facing so many barriers, I had used Tranquilizer on an Ivik and the corp had kept re-rezzing that card, and purging before finally deciding to trash it. It sort of balanced out and was fun, but I’m not sure it made for a good deck.

I begrudgingly decided to only use criminal icebreakers. Curupira isn’t very strong but in a pinch I can use three power counters to bypass a tough piece of ice. Inside Job also bypasses ice. And my Boomerangs should hopefully deal with other tough cards. I can also use Pinhole Threading to sneak my way in to servers to pull off the deep dive.

Other versions of this deck had Aumakua but it was expensive and I didn’t end up using it. I did think about maybe putting in a Mayfly but it uses 2 MU. I didn’t have influence left to look at other AI programs of other fractions. And I didn’t want to use more cards to give me more MU.

Other people’s decks have included Revolver as their sentry breaker but I’ve always been able to play Carmen after making a successful run and only pay 3. Afterall, Ken wants to run. It is a decent enough killer. Revolver only gets 6 uses. But I wanted a deck that is good in the early game and still strong in the later game.

My Shibboleth is a lot weaker in the later game at threat 4, but hopefully my deck should have enough money to deal with that. My czeve money should help pay for it. The Prepaid VoicePAD really pays off with all the event cards I play. Some are free, but Legwork is 2 credits.

I originally had three Sure Gamble but I replaced these with Carpe Diem because it’s cheaper and works well with the prepaid/Ken ability combo. Even if the corp keeps me poor somehow, I can still do a lot. In a pinch, if I trust that I’m not getting tagged a lot, I can use my no free lunch to gain 3 credits. Enough to pull off a Bravado if I have one in my grip.

You can keep the corp a little bit poorer by running a lot and forcing them to rez ice if they have a lot of ice. I do have a Tread Lightly which is better for early game before ice is rezzed or on a remote server if you’ve been ignoring them for too long. Then a Diversion of Funds which is great because it’s also a run event so it combos with Prepaid/Ken’s ability.

This deck struggled a lot against MCA Austerity Policy reducing the clicks. Swift does help with this but I didn’t have enough draw at the time to get it out early and struggled with being able to trash cards. Pinhole Threading can help with this but I only remembered this after the fact.

I did still get lucky and pull off a win by aggressively going through ice that did not end the run and only accessing 1 card while doing so. Legwork and Jailbreak can give you additional access. I did originally have Docklands Pass in this deck for more access. It does combo with Legwork also, but I found that corps rarely have agendas in their hands, especially against criminals.

I spent a lot of money and clicks removing tags in previous games but it’s probably okay to take tags sometimes, as I don’t have a lot of resources and a lot of my cards that get trashed are useful but not very powerful. I like to play safe and get programs out earlier by having two copies so I can usually take net damage later. Harmony AR Therapy can help recover the good cards. I do just have to look out for nasty cards that try to finish me off.

Tl;dr Basically you just want to always be running even with only one card access and keep putting the pressure on until you can Deep Dive into a lot of cards. If the ice are very tough or nasty, you can just save and rig up for a deep dive. There’s two in this deck plus the Harmony AR Therapy, so you get 3 chances to pull it off. Especially with the extra Swift click to steal two agendas per deep dive.

I’m hoping we’ll see another card in the future that gives extra clicks to steal even more agendas, but if they did that, Deep Dive could get banned.