The Criminal Stealth Guide (2nd Seed SC)

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TonyStellato 783

Posting this deck because maybe it can dent the Criminal stealth setup. The deck is familiar enough that I'm not really going to post a write-up about strategy and what-not. I only want to talk about Study Guide.

The big change here is that I took out Refracter for Study Guide. I thought this was going to be a risky move, but I reaaaaaaally hate Archangel (as a Crim without D4V1D). Archangel invalidates Yog, and Refracter has to pump twice to get through it once a turn. So, I decided to look outside the norm for answers. I went with Study Guide. To be honest, it absolutely paid off. In the 4 rounds of Swiss, I unforuntaely only saw 1 NBN. It was a close game that was won on the next turn by the corp. My only path to victory was running through Archangel 3 times consecutively for an RD dig (DBS sent everything to the bottom of the deck). If i had run Refracter, I would have lost that game. My Study Guide was pumped to 6 and it was pretty much the only decoder that could have done the job.

I think people naturally dismiss Study Guide because its so expensive to set up. However, I found that even with a single Cloak out, you can quickly get it to a comfortable strength. What it eventually does is invalidates 1/3rd of the Corps ICE. Switchblade does the same. This concept is something that dates back to Andysucker, and more recently Net-Ready Knives. Its an important gameplan for Andy because she still wants to make money off of runs. Netting credits off of servers protected by Archangel feels great. So, if you are one of 5 dedicated Andy Stealth runners left, I urge you to try the Guide. It is ace.

Quick note on the deck: HQI was useless. Kati Jones was useless. Didn't install the singleton Sym Vis all day. Hostage was obviously useless. With that deckspace, I'd try to incorporate more draw, maybe? Same Old Thing could be pretty good, as well. The next few packs are looking good for criminal, so I might just take those out and add in some new tech.

11 comments
29 Mar 2016 king_mob

Goddamn this is genius, study guide + cloak is brilliant, iv noticed the exact same problem with refractor and this answers it perfectly!

29 Mar 2016 Friff14

Just played my first game with this deck, man I forgot how powerful Criminal can be. I think it's especially powerful now since people aren't used to it. Slotted out a few cards to make it fit my play style but mostly the same.

I never drew the Study Guide, but it's criminal so you don't always need breakers. I bet it'll be good when I get that rolling. Looking forward to round 2.

30 Mar 2016 DarlingSensei

I'm very excited to see stealth viable this season! A few things I've been wrestling with: -What is the best draw? Hotel? Fisk? Visage? -Does Fisk get better if you can PLOP Jackson? -How does the deck change to include PLOP and/or councilman? -Should HQ multi-access be HQI or legwork and how many? -Can this work in Leela? If so how does it change?

30 Mar 2016 king_mob

Leela needs more draw id argue for getting stealth online, 3x earthrise maybe.

30 Mar 2016 Swiftie

I think the Drive By will be replaced by Political Operative. The chenges that i made to the deck while testing were:

Took out

Added

The reason for the change is for the extra reliable draaw from the hotel rather than John (Andy keeps trying to get back into these Ritzy locations). The dropped hostage turned into another kati since that was the only target for it and I realy need to to deal with the foodcoasts/blue sun match. I wanted to max out on stealth credits s more ghost runners is better.

The main difference is adding in the sneakdoor. It gives a bunch of extra reach early game with andy, sure they will ice archives to stop sec testing but it shold still be fairly cheap to get back in for a few runs and your rig is empty early so its a good use

31 Mar 2016 stimmyrobbins

@TonyStellato how do you play a deck without draw? Also the name should be after a book ie the art of war etc

31 Mar 2016 TonyStellato

@king_mob you'll have a blast with study guide if you're anything like me. NBN Code gates have been locking me out lately. Enjoy!

@Friff14 I'd love to hear feedback from your testing. Didn't get to test it all that much before the tourney.

@DarlingSensei after being so underwhelmed with HQI, I think I'm just going to exclude HQ multi access until Turning Wheel. Siphon is enough HQ pressure, and no one wins off of HQ. John Mas and 3 Special Orders is almost enough of a draw engine. When Sports Hopper comes out, I can replace some Plascretes for more draw. I really don't like Councilman, but PoliOp goes in for sure. I don't run Leela, so I can't really help you out there.

@Swiftie drive by is good against IG, which seems to only be getting better. It's added utility against glacier and fast advance is just a sweet bonus. I think I'm going to keep it in tbh. I'm not against all of your added draw, but I think it comes down to criminal playstyle. I hate paying for Earthrise. Sneakdoor is interesting, would probably make the deck more aggressive. Haven't tried it in stealth.

@stimmyrobbins criminals don't win games by drawing their 1x answers to various strategies. You don't need to draw so much, you just need to always be running

31 Mar 2016 Swiftie

@TonyStellato I think the IG match up will get better with Political Operative since you can trash their ronin with it. My general plan against them is to get into RnD and generally ignore the remotes, having the sneakdoor is good since they can't hide their agendas in HQ and they can't protect all their central withs Mother Goddess. Would keep any hand with Security Testing since that will power your whole game and let all other econ cards be damage fodder.

The reason for the two Earthrise Hotel is to power through the mid game since you will have a good start being a crim and need the clickless draw to find your breakers/stealth later in the game. I've also been too burnt by John Masanori's tags, Don't listen to him his connections are not clean!

14 May 2016 dominionmundi

So what about ditching all those cards you don't like and adding exlusive party x 6 as draw engine.

7 Jun 2016 tzeentchling

Why use Cloak in this case? With Silencers and Ghost Runner, you have the stealth credits you need for Switchblade. I'd consider Multithreader instead. A bit more expensive to set up, but it pays itself back quickly. And it saves you two influence!

7 Jun 2016 TonyStellato

@tzeentchling yeah, I have a version with those but it's untested.