Celebrity Nasir

Took this to my local store yesterday and did pretty well with it. Went 2-2 overall with one really close loss. In my first game, against Tennin Institute, I was lacking any multi-access (as in, they weren't in the deck yet), and I just got attritioned out of the game. After some quick retooling and discussion with one of our local players, This was the build we ended up with.

The second game I won against a Jinteki: PE brew, decisively. Third game against another Tennin, I won by locking down R&D and punishing the corp for rezzing Archer (getting through easily with Sharpshooter).

My closest loss came against Replication Perfection (Soulcrusher), and the game went to the wire in a 7-5 defeat.

What this told me is that 1) Nasir can hang with the other Shapers, and 2) he can beat one of the most difficult decks in the game.

MVPs of the Deck are Net Celebrity and Ghost Runner. These two cards are amazing in Nasir. Think of Ghost Runner as a Mid-run Easy Mark. Previously, if you ran poor, you ran the risk of just getting stopped by a Pop-Up or pinged by a Pup. Now, this isn't so much a problem. These credits can be used for anything during the run, including (but not limited to) psi games, trashing cards, SMC, Clone Chip, and Personal Workshop. Also, the ability to use a recurring Net Celebrity credit during a Psi-game changes the way you think about the Psi-game. I think Net Celebrity's viability will lessen as Corps find deck space for currents, but right now, it's just bonkers. (And in case you didn't know how they worked, you only trash your current if the opponent scores an agenda or another current is played).

The Breaker Suite is pretty standard stuff: Atman at 4, Datasucker, Mimic (or Femme later in the game), Corroder, Gordian Blade.

The Extra Stuff is situational, but necessary for Nasir. The second Atman is for consistency. Femme is there because you will want to bypass ANNOYING ICE so you don't straight up lose your rig. Sharpshooter is specifically for Archer, but it's just a good program to have. Deus X is simply for the PE matchup, and it's really all you need if you know how to play that matchup. Overmind is a catchall that can do some good work early on if you need it, but I don't usually use it unless I see lots of binary, no-tax ICE. Disrupter was a last-minute include to tech against Midseason-Scorch decks. I figured it can deter them the turn you need to not take a billion tags. It can also help against Ash or other annoying Tracers like Shinobi in RP. The one-off Cloak has been extremely useful so far, though I'm hesitant to put more in. I think of it as the 4th Net Celebrity that you can use as a target for Scavenge to get back a parasite.

A Note On Desperado: look, I don't need to tell you how good Desperado is. The fact of the matter is that it fits very well into Nasir's overall gameplan: get money from getting stopped by ICE or get money from getting through unimpeded (and probably a sucker-token). That credit from Desperado can do SO much work in a deck that is built around running with low credits.

The Deck Philosophy: This is an aggressive build of Nasir that can also play control-and-wait. It has high-economy and high-card-draw and toolbox-style options. It smoothes out Nasir's 'high variance' style of play with a lot of during-the-run options but without the reliance on Personal Workshop to make it work. I will usually mulligan if I don't see an economy card (either ProCo, Desperado, or Kati will do).

Personal Workshop is a support card in this deck. The reason for this is that there are fewer programs and hardware than usual in Nasir decks. PW is here for support when you need to offload some Kati money or pump out those R&D Interfaces during the run (which makes the Corp do crazy things!). It still does some serious work for Nasir, but you're less reliant on it than in other builds.

TL;DR This is the strongest version of Nasir that I've playtested so far. It has the flexibility of a shaper, the economy of a criminal, and the tools of an anarch. It feels unfair at times and can snowball out of control if the corp is not careful.

Room for Improvement: There is always room for improvement, some numbers can be tweaked, and I'm happy to hear suggestions for the next version!