Denial and Destruction

turtle 988

So, this is the Gabe deck I've been testing for a few weeks now.

As we all know, Crims aren't where they used to be a year ago. A big part of this is that the pace of Netrunner as a whole has been speeding up. Corps and Runners now have more tools at their disposal to set up quickly. Specifically, Anarchs have recently seen a surge of cards that have addressed previous issues they have had with the early game (economy and card draw)

As a result, I feel that Crims have lost a large aspect of their game that made them dominant for so long. Prepaid Kate and MaxX have shown that both Shaper and Anarchs are capable of the aggressive style of attacking Corps from the get go that Criminals were notorious for.

I've been tuning this deck for a while now. It started off as an aggressive Gabe deck that focused on econ-denial via repeatedly recurring Account Siphon and spamming Lamprey. I realised that while Gabe doesn't establish the headlock as hard as Reina, he does establish the headlock faster (thanks to in faction Account Siphon) and can establish it for longer (thanks to Desperado and Gabe's ability to sustain attacks on HQ). The hope was to deny the Corp and drag the game out long enough for a single Legwork into HQ, where hopefully agendas had built up due to the Corp being unable to score safely.

However, it seemed that the biggest weakness of this style of deck was that it can't sustain the headlock forever, was weak to drip asset economy and didn't do too well against decks that ran a lot of cheap to rez, but annoying ICE (Eli 1.0, NEXT Suite, etc). Eventually, if the game was dragged out long enough, it just became impossible to sustain the headlock on the Corp if they just slowly ICE'd up HQ with cheap to rez ICE and the deck would run out of steam.

With D&D released, I was particularly excited about Apex's cards. Namely, Apocalypse - here was a card I felt was perfect for address the Criminals major weakness - their late game. We all know the strength of Shaper and Anarch's late-game and Criminals were supposed to have the edge on them in the early game to make up for their lack of late game potential. However, it seems like Shapers and Anarchs have now sped up greatly, allowing them to apply decent early game pressure and still retain the late game they were known for.

So the thought process was, rather than focus on improving Criminal's late game, why not just give them more early game?

The core principles of this deck still remain the same as they were pre-Apocalypse. Apply early game pressure, deny economy, shutdown ICE and drag the game out. Once the game feels like it's at that tipping point, where you feel the headlock is becoming hard to establish, start setting up for the Apocalypse play. Usually, the Corps don't see it coming.

Key Cards:

Employee Strike - This card is mainly there to address some of the more annoying IDs (Blue Sun, Argus, RP & NEH). It's just a solid card for forcing the Corp to slow down a bit, particularly the IDs that really rely on their ID early game to get out ahead.

Drug Dealer - Just allows you to draw into your pieces quickly and reliably. Economy won't be an issue due to Gabe's strong economy that he gets from his ID, along with Crims having strong economy overall. Hence, I'll gladly trade a credit for a card in most cases.

Lamprey - Just another tool to slow the Corp down (via denial and forced purges) and apply more pressure to HQ. Nothing special here.

Central-Only Breakers (Passport, Breach, Alias) - 2x of each Central Breaker. These mean you will be able to get the Apocalypse down. Inside Job keeps the Corp honest by double ICEing any remotes, and Apocalypse can ruin their day and undo a lot of work that they've done.

Give it a shot, it's pretty fun (for the Runner at least), and it feels pretty good to land an Apocalypse the Corp doesn't see coming. Happy Running.

17 comments
2 Oct 2015 iceqs

Look out for Excalibur on central. You actually have no answer for it other than an Inside Job if it is the outermost ice. Also for decks like PE, it is really punishing the Runner for running on R&D and Archives. Luckily you won't be accessing any HQ cards due to Siphon and normally PE is relatively poor compared to other decks.

Good job on trying to make an old Gem work though!

2 Oct 2015 moistloaf

is this pretzel from OCTGN? this list looks interesting

2 Oct 2015 turtle

No, I only play on Jinteki.net and go by the same username as here

2 Oct 2015 turtle

@iceqs Excalibur isn't really an issue. The aim is to still play a standard Gabe econ denial deck. Apocalypse is simply there to reset the board state (essentially give the runner another 'early game'). Besides that, you can simply run the server with Excalibur last and let the sub fire.

2 Oct 2015 optimizer

Tried it :) .What about Eater or Faust?

2 Oct 2015 turtle

@optimizer I'm thinking of swapping out the two Employee Strikes for Faust; it might do more work in this kind of deck (help guarantee an Account Siphon early). I'll have to test it more with the changes.

2 Oct 2015 sruman

Although this is an aggro deck, you the sec testing may be cut-off and siphons costly to land when you find them, so my thought would be 2 slot, 1 or 2 Kati's ( -2 strikes, +1 faust, +1 kati?) so you have those big infusions of cash for a click when you want to hit a well defended central(s) mid-to-late game.

2 Oct 2015 turtle

@sruman Kati Jones might be a bit slow for the kind of aggression this deck needs. I feel this type of deck needs to keep constant pressure (either by running servers or drawing aggressively to find the pieces you need to establish the headlock). I feel that you should never let the board state really reach that point where you need Kati to get through all central servers. Criminal has enough tricks to make getting through all servers cheaply (Inside Job, Sneakdoor Beta, etc), along with a decent denial game, the Corp really shouldn't have enough money to rez ICE that would be too taxing to get through that Kati is warranted.

2 Oct 2015 desertfox42

Bank Job seems like a much better choice than Kati in this deck.

3 Oct 2015 optimizer

With Faust in for Employee Strike, this deck is bonkers!!!

3 Oct 2015 jumping_down

This deck is very very interesting .

3 Oct 2015 turtle

@desertfox42 Bank Job seems like a bad choice for economy as it relies on a successful run on a remote and we are only running Central breakers.

@optimizer Yep, the switch for Faust over Employee Strike seems to make the deck a lot faster for setting up the Account Siphon and establishing the headlock.

3 Oct 2015 jumping_down

Here's my is idea of what to add to the deck to keep the early game sustained;

-1 Inside Job, +1 Feint. Makes a double iced HQ cheaper to hammer, and with Lamprey, Gabe's ID ability, Desperado and even Security Testing all cheap ass things to set up you have a powerful position after an Apocalypse reset of the board state. Means you can play this card insteead of a program to break the ice in front of HQ. Saves you a click.

-1 Utopia Fragment, +1 Stimhack. When you're playing against a corp that has a faster setup of binary ice, like Quandary, this will ensure that a critical run will succeed for an Apocalypse or to shut down a Crisium on HQ early game for the low cost of 1 brain damage. This is important because once you install an icebreaker in the early game you have no credits to use the breaker you just installed.

-1 Security Testing, +1 Dorm Computer. This will help make cheap runs through the troublesome low-cost ice that exists in the meta, like Gutenberg at 2 credits and Turnpike at 2 credits. It's 0-cost, so you start saving credits right from it's install, just like security testing except to avoid tracer ice breaking or paying to beat traces.

3 Oct 2015 turtle

@jumping_down Thanks for the feedback. I've gone back and forth between the second Inside Job and Feint, and ultimately settled on Inside Job after testing. Its shown to be more versatile and drawing into it early helps so much for contesting weak remotes that Corps try to rush early agendas behind.

As for cutting Utopia Fragment, I've found it just too strong of a play to pop it right before the Apocalypse play. You either hit Agendas or ICE with it, and both cases are bad for the Corp. They now either have to dig hard for a Jackson Howard to stop you from scoring those agendas, or they have to dig hard for ICE to defend their centrals from a impending assault.

I haven't yet tested Dorm Computer, but I feel that cutting down to a single Security Testing would be a mistake. A single Security Testing on HQ alone gives Gabe so much sustain, allowing you to gain 5 credits on a single successful HQ run. You want to be drawing into it early to mid game, and having just a single copy makes it hard to do that.

4 Oct 2015 roninbodhisattva

Been trying this deck out on jinteki.net and I just love it. Such a blast to play!

10 Nov 2015 Vimes

I was just thinking about Gabe and Lamprey during my commute today and find this little beauty! How fortuitous.

Some piloting questions: Do you feel like you have memory limits with Lamprey and Sneakdoor? Are they meant to be played at different stages/you do not worry about trashing your Lamprey for necessary breakers? Since you aren't running Faerie I considered Q-Coherence Chip, but that is a lot of deckspace and you lose them to a purge. Dyson is pricey, other options cost influence, and we wouldn't run anything but Desperado, so I think we have to let it rock. Also, what is your experience with Crisium Grid?

As for cards, I think Faust is great and second considering Dorm Computer, Feint, and Bank Job. Dorm Computer is really useful against the new Raven/Lane method of trashing programs or going through Gutenberg for free. Maybe Plascrete can go if you are reckless. Feint does have many similarities with Inside Job, but it also makes trashing Crisium much easier while saving IJ for another central or the remote. I don't see why both cannot exist here, but it does seem like a 46th card.

If one goes the Faust route, some Fisk Investment Seminar may also help out. It helps out your aggro and if you can keep the corp low-money then they will have to make some bad decisions. Maybe it'd be better in a deck that goes a little less Apocalypse and more general denial (Crescentus).

11 Nov 2015 turtle

@Vimes Generally I haven't had any MU problems with this deck. Sneakdoor Beta is usually installed before I have any breakers out as a surprise to get a few more accesses out of HQ and I usually install over it and pressure HQ directly if archives gets ICEd up.

Crisium Grid is definitely annoying. I'd say that its a card that slows this deck down quite a bit. I have no answer for it except for running in and trashing it before the Account Siphon or Lamprey lock. This deck does make a lot of money very quickly so the economy hit isn't as bad as you would think.

I have been using Feint with some success - contesting remotes isn't a strength of this deck, but the Feint, Emergency Shutdown + Inside Job into a remote is a strong play against a remote you must get in now.

Generally, I don't build my decks with Plascrete Carapace (see my Novelist where I got some flak for not including it), but in Crim I feel like its a worthwhile include simply because Account Siphon lands you tags so easily and you don't really want to shake them and lose tempo.

I have also swapped out the two Employee Strikes for a Faust and its been doing a lot of work comboed with Drug Dealers. I've also tried playing with Fisk Investment Seminar as card draw but found it inconsistent. Probably just because I haven't figured out when to play it, but often I didn't want the Corp to draw those 3 extras for free.