Kate "Victorinox" McCaffrey (v18)

It started as a joke: With the amount of available tutor and recursion, Shaper decks would eventually become nothing but 1x cards. I laughed at first, but then started thinking: What if you had a reliable way to pull those singletons?

Enter Logos.

I don't have SanSan Cycle yet. Tyson Observatory will probably be a key card, allowing me to bring in more HQ pressure and Parasites.

I have learned a LOT about deckbuilding in the 11 months I've been playing this deck, especially Shaper building. If it's green and in the game, I've tried it. Version 18 is the smoothest iteration of the deck so far, although it is not final, and probably never will be.

Construction

The deck revolves around six cards, in this order of importance: Self Modifying Code, Logos, Magnum Opus, Clone Chip, Test Run, and Scavenge.

Second tier good cards include Earthrise Hotel, any of the R&D options, Escher, Tinkering, Same Old Thing, and D4V1D, which I honestly believe is the best runner card in the Lunar Cycle.

Special shoutout to Earthrise, which is stunningly good in long game Opus decks. Install, take 6, followed by 3 turns of draw 2, take 8/take 6 and install a card: Absolutely bonkers.

The program suite is as lean as possible. Opus decks are short on memory, so every program has to pull maximum weight. Atman is the best breaker in the game. I kind of want to increase to 2x.

Play

The perfect opening hand: Opus, Logos, SMC, SMC, Clone Chip. I may actually never have to draw a card again.

My opening turn is almost always either draw 2, install install; or Opus, take 6. The play is to get Opus on the table ASAP. SMC or Test Run or hard install with Modded, doesn't matter.

After that it's about finding Logos and taking money. Logos is the great evener. Most big rig Shapers struggle with letting the corp run away with the game - Logos will let you smash them with whatever tool you need the instant they score out. I will Mulligan for Opus but having Logos is an acceptable second place.

After that it's simply about keeping your credit pool high: ~15 credits approximately. The corp MUST respect a shaper with SMC, Clone Chip, and a lot of credits. With 10 credits (one turn on Opus) I can SMC Femme, or Atman at 6 strength.

The big thing to remember is that you are a long game control deck. Don't do the probing runs thing too much; commit to setting up your board state. Opus + Logos + SMC is a very scary board for the corp. Once you have your breakers (which are uniformly phenomenal) you will be able to smash your way into almost any server.

Atman, D4V1D, and Lady are ridiculously efficient. Combine with Blade and Tinkering, and ice cannot stop you, only bluffs - which is why Raymond Flint is in the deck. He saves me so much money.

After that it's establish R&D lock, or make it so the corp can never have a secure remote, or create central pressure via standard runs, or Sneakdoor, or Escher.

Logos Targets

Indexing/RDI/The Maker's Eye
Femme/Atman
Feedback Filter
Public Sympathy
Raymond Flint
Scavenge
Net Celebrity
Escher
Sneakdoor
The Personal Touch
Same Old Thing

These are all powerful cards that can reshape the game state very quickly, either by letting me reconfigure/strengthen my board, create new threats, or protect myself (Feedback Filter & Public Sympathy are my choices for net/meat protections, respectively)

Things I learned

The thing I learned the most: Deckbuilding is hard. It is teeth pullingly hard. Every component of your deck affects nearly every other component, and the more I dove and the deeper I went the more that phrases like ‘X is an autoinclude’ become laughable.

The second thing I learned the most is that Magnum Opus saves you so many card slots. This deck (which is packed to the gills with kooky 1x cards) only worked once I switched to an entirely Opus economy - yes, even cutting Sure Gamble. Compared to nearly every other card in the deck, it simply was not providing enough output.

I learned so much about Shaper economy. I literally tried every possible economy package that I could think of: PPVP, Proco/Kati/Resource Economy, Run Economy, Freelance Coding Contract, Subsidy Econ(Ice Analyzer, Sahasrara, Cybsoft Macrodrive, Modded) before settling on Opus.

For the Future

Apart from the note about Tyson Observatory letting me save influence on Logos (I would bring in a HQI and a Parasite + 1 more card because I would cut to 1 Mem Chip) I don't really know what else I'd bring in from SanSan cycle so far. Study Guide tempts me but I'd need to test it against Blade, because even with Opus the deck runs very close to the wire on money vs speed.

Any card like Earthrise Hotel that allows me to turn money & cards into time is going to be massive in this deck. Hopefully we see more in faction compression coming soon.

I might also consider cutting Public Sympathy for Plascrete, but that's meta dependent.

And that's my deck. I've been working on it for a long time. I'm quite happy with it. Please tell me what's wrong with it so I can make it better.