Good Stuff Ken

mostlysmart 52

I am pretty sure there is nothing new under the sun with this deck. Just lots of money, recursion, and some fun. Enhanced Vision would probably be the first to cut for needed cards. Took the shell from @ivanbarker and have been testing both. I can't decide which deck I like more, but I have been enjoying this build. Feels slightly shapery with the dense econ engine of criminals.

Write to come if needed.

14 comments
6 Apr 2016 mawa

Why Shrike over Mongoose?

6 Apr 2016 ivanbarker

Awesome, I do see what you mean about dropping the Hemorrhage for the influence, it let's you do some different things!

A couple of questions (possibly would lead to changes in my deck)

  1. You went down to only 1 code gate breaker. With only 2 Special Order do you find it hard to get out? Are you afraid it will be trashed?

  2. Compared to my deck, did you find replacing 1 Enhanced Vision with a Kati Jones to be a good change? Do you still get it out quickly only having 1?

  3. Has Councilman been working out? Seems like an interesting card. What did you drop for it?

  4. Why is Levy AR Lab Access in there? With Same Old Thing I couldn't imagine you need much more recursion. Plus it's not a run event. And it can't be recurred by Same Old Thing either. I feel like the influence could be better spent on some cool out of faction run events. See Singularity (might work with Councilman)

6 Apr 2016 ivanbarker

Ignore part of question 1, I see you fitted in a Clone Chip

6 Apr 2016 ivanbarker

After looking at this again, another little comment. In my deck I was using Hades Shard to deal with Jackson Howard when accessing Archives. Are you using Councilman to a similar effect? What do you do if Jackson Howard is already rezzed and the Corp is using it to overdraw?

6 Apr 2016 mostlysmart

@ivanbarker good questions. To be honest, some of these were taking the influence from Hemorrhage and finding new cards that I thought may be needed. LARLA was there to see if I needed it. I think I will end up cutting it and using the extra influence for another code gate breaker. Councilman is a fun card but not sure it's the best card. I may be using Political Operative instead so you can trash cards on the spot. I thought Councilman would be great for encountering those pesky upgrades but I think Political Operative may be best. I just didn't like the conditional HQ access for the install, but with Ken you run so much that I might as well.

6 Apr 2016 mostlysmart

@ivanbarker In terms of GS Shrike M2, my meta tends to have some beastly Sentries and I am tired of face planting 2 of them with no way break both with just a Mongoose out. If you have both Femme and Mongoose out that's fine, but Femme is not the best breaker for some stronger sentries.

A lot of these changes were out of curiosity and just wanting to play Ken more.

Would love to have continued thoughts on this...

6 Apr 2016 ivanbarker

Political Operative is nice, but it essentially costs 2 clicks (1 to run HQ, 1 to install), PLUS the credits needed to to get into HQ, plus the install credit, plus the credits to trash. It's an expensive endevour. That being said, this deck does offset that cost. You can make your HQ run a Dirty Laundry, with Public Terminal out, or perhaps Account Siphon. If you wanted to add it, it's possible you could use Feint to get that HQ run easy. An issue is upgrades on HQ, or Crisium Grid...

Instead of GS Shrike M2 why not 2 Mongoose then, if stacked sentries are your meta? You could have 2 Mongoose down and deal with both sentries. That would free some influence. GS Shrike M2 seems expensive to install, and Ken doesn't have any link to utilize it fully.

6 Apr 2016 mostlysmart

@RubbishyUsername I tagged @ivanbarker instead of you my bad. Comments up above ^

6 Apr 2016 mostlysmart

Double Mongoose is great but we need MU for our rig and Medium. Thoughts on other great sentries?

6 Apr 2016 ivanbarker

Very true. I forgot about the MU part. I like Mongoose + Faerie personally, but that's 2 MU. Mongoose as the main breaker, but Faerie is needed as backup thus why I include 2 in my deck. I believe Mongoose and Faerie are the best sentry breakers right now,

So that being said, how come you decided to use Medium? Would it be worthwhile to save the MU and use The Maker's Eye instead? I'm sure you could free up one influence somewhere. Drop medium, and plop in 2 The Maker's Eye. Then it'll be a run event you could use Public Terminal on and recur with Same Old Thing.

6 Apr 2016 ivanbarker

So I think: -1 GS Shrike M2 -1 Medium +2 The Maker's Eye +1 Mongoose +1 Faerie

That'll put you at 47 cards, which you could cut from somewhere, but you'll have 1 extra influence left over to use.

6 Apr 2016 mostlysmart

The Maker's Eye could definitely be a great card to slot. I like the pressure that Medium provides. With Ken, he prints money and I would rather provide continual pressure on R&D instead of the one of... One thing I realized when playing the original was lack of multi access server pressure. I could hit up HQ or RD for one but never felt like I could go deep diving without an event.

Encouraging the purge and slowing the corp down is nice, too. I think Medium just wins games faster. Unless you are playing against Jinteki.

6 Apr 2016 ivanbarker

I fully agree about lack of multi-access in my deck. It has Legwork, but that's it. How about R&D Interface? A bit more to install, but if you drop GS Shrike M2, you'll save some credits there.

I guess it's 3 options. Medium The Maker's Eye and R&D Interface.

I feel Maker's works the best, then Medium then RDI. Each have their advantages and disadvantages I guess!

Let me know how it goes. I'm interested!

7 Apr 2016 mostlysmart

Trying out the R&D Interface and will keep you posted on outcomes.