Hegnum Quarpus

Kharn the Betrayer 224

I've been fiddling around with run-for-profit criminal builds for a long time now but never settled on one that actually worked well for me. This is one I finally feel okay playing. The idea is to make your runs raw profit in addition to your accesses. Why click for cards or cash when you could run for them instead? You're rarely trying to run for points, and most of the scores I get playing this deck feel accidental, you're really just trying to build up an insurmountable money lead so that the corp never feels safe trying to score while you plunder away their centrals.

Security Testing/John Masonori/Patron/Temujin Contract/Bhagat/The Turning Wheel/Desperado: All the usual suspects for building up crazy run value, even better with Gabe's natural HQ reward. You could be running HQ for up to $17 and a card off of an account siphon or $12 (net) and a card off of laundry. Even without the cash events you can be earning a respectable $9 and a card just off the rig itself on a single click. Or if you desperately need cards you can be drawing 3 and getting some chump change with Patron/John. Hotwheels and Bhagats give you some slowplay multiaccess as well.

Hostage/Special Order: There are a whole buttload of important One-ofs to find (partly due to influence, partly to deck spots) and tutors are a must here.

Sports Hopper/Networking: Anti-tag & trace/bag tech, otherwise they're dig or Account Siphon synergy respectively.

Political Operative/Councilman: Can't afford the Rumor Mills, and these do okay as replacement hate cards considering they can be tutored with hostage.

Inside Job/Sneakdoor: The corp is pretty much guaranteed to wall up on HQ as soon as they see blue across the table and doubly so when they see Gabe. Being able to subvert some of those defenses is hugely important to landing contracts and Inside Jobs never hurt for pressuring remotes.

Breach/Passport/Corroder/Gordian Blade/Mongoose: The influence is too spread around to afford multiple out-of-faction breakers, so breach and passport fill the gaps there, Special Order is probably going to be searching for the blade or the corroder 90% of the time over those. Mongoose is an adequate killer all on its own, but there's another just in case you need to push through multiple sentries. There used to only be 3 breakers and an extra mongoose, but it was way too problematic trying to establish a take-all-comers rig on those alone even with aggressive draw and special orders to help.

The Supplier: Helps out installing some of the costly resources, tutorable with hostage. He makes Sports Hoppers a powerful draw click and Temujin Contracts even more grossly profitable, which I had initially tried doing with career fair, but I found it not really lining up well for me and ended up axing altogether after I dropped Dailies.

8 comments
30 Aug 2016 locusshifter

This is REALLY close to what I'm doing with Gabe. i think it's super-strong in the current meta.

31 Aug 2016 michaeln

Would you switch Gordian Blade and Corroder for ZU.13 Key Master and Paperclip respectively?

31 Aug 2016 HolyMackerel

@michaeln: Absolutely agree with that change. Paperclip is higher quality compared to Corroder than Gordian is to Zu.

31 Aug 2016 locusshifter

I'm doing Paperclip and ZU. Paperclip is bullet proof unless someone hits you with Chronos while it is in your heap. Of course, influence then dictates the shift to ZU.

31 Aug 2016 Meristem

@Kharn the Betrayer with little recursion, what's your plan against rig shooters? Never run without Mongoose? Love that Crim are getting back to the roots of running for profit!

Side note regarding Paperclip and ZU.13 Key Master:

It would be interesting to see what the most commonly played code gates vs barriers and the average cost to break with each suite. Seeing a lot of Vanilla and Ice Wall, less Spiderweb and Curtain Wall while seeing the rise of varying strength code gates like Fairchild 2.0 and Ravana 1.0.

YMMV based on your meta!

31 Aug 2016 Kharn the Betrayer

@Meristem That's more or less the plan. There are two breakers for each ice type so you can survive a hit without being totally boned. Other than that you just have to run carefully.

I might have to make the clip swap, but I'm not totally sold on it having to drop the Gordian Blade. There are a whole lot of times where I've found myself staring at stacked codegates.

10 Sep 2016 The Traveling Hero

What about instead of flipping Paperclip/Zu and Corroder/Gordian, you switch out Gabe himself for Ken? Run Paperclip/Gordian/another Turning Wheel? You already have 9 run events + 3 Same Old Thing. Beyond that I guess it would really be a different deck entirely.

28 Sep 2016 michaeln

@The Traveling Hero: that's a very interesting idea. I've found it hard to force myself to run aggressively enough when playing this deck; having it in Ken might encourage me to run earlier...