[Startup] Stealth Anarch 18-0

Have you ever tried out penumbral toolkit? you can fetch with gachapon, and it helps incentivize HQ runs. I could see cutting CC and a simulchip, or 1 smc for 1 penumbral and 1 ttw? I played this kind of stealth for a bit without all the tutoring, but found it light on draw.

I haven't needed more stealth since I'm trashing a lot of Sentries with Chisel + Devil Charm anyway, and I can always support Afterimage with Leech if I don't find Taka.

As far as TTW is concerned, that would make this a Standard deck as opposed to Startup, and many of the slot choices here are specifically with the Startup meta in mind.

I would recommend against cutting cc, as the deck is meant to mulligan agressively for Dreamnet & Paladin, so sometimes you can mulligan into a slow start and the CC being generic money rather than run-only credits is great in those spots. Cutting a simulchip is also hazardous as is decreases the # of chisels/imps you can play in a match, and you generally want as many as you can get.

I think it's natural to feel that Afterimage could use more support, but it really doesn't. Even if you can't find Leech with SMC and Gacha isn't finding Leech or Taka, you can Chisel str 3 Sentries and use Chisel + Devil Charm to destroy larger ones.

Nice deck. I run a similar Hosh, but never thought of Afterimage as an breaker. There are two cards I am missing. Stargate and Fermenter, which is real good money and makes Simulchip easier to use.

In practice, if you aggressively mulligan for Dreamnet/Paladin, the deck has plenty of money, so Fermenter won't be necessary (any ice that costs more than $2-3 to break you just blow up), If you don't find Dreamnet right away, you have to strategically flip back and forth between Hoshiko & her WeebSelf, but once Dreamnet is on, you shouldn't have to click to draw for the rest of the game.

The deck doesn't have multiaccess, so Stargate would def enhance that aspect. I've found that that most corp decks, if you trash their good ice and Imp their hand, they can't win, even if you don't have Stargate.

So - I'm an old-player just getting back into the game so trying to refresh myself with everything!! Tried your deck out against my best friend - another old/new player and we had a blast. First time through though I completely messed up - was struggling to keep my head around all the free credits and triggers - even though this was through JNet - god knows how I would have fared in a face to face match-up.

Second time round I got a bit more of a handle on how the deck should be piloted. Still made a bunch of mistakes (lost my Fencer with 11 creds on!) but at 6 agenda points apiece I managed to yolo R&D using Imp to get rid of 2 cards and hit the winning agenda on the 3rd.

Fun deck to play but I've a lot to learn on how to pilot it!!

I'm curious about your very first sentence in this write-up. Can you use Self Modifying Code to get a Chisel mid run in response to ice being rezzed? As far as I can tell, you only get a paid ability window BEFORE the Corp chooses to rez. If you pass on that window, you move onto the "encounter ice" step, which means you miss the window for Chisel to see you encounter said ice. If you do it before the corp rezzes, they can just choose to let the ice remain unrezzed. Am I understanding the rules correctly? Self Modifying Code really tests your rules knowledge lol.

@stoolpigeon reading your comment on paid ability timing window has piqued my curiosity, so I checked the run timing structure, and found the following

Encounter Ice Phase

a. The encounter begins. Conditions related to the Runner encountering this ice are met.

b. A paid ability window occurs, in which players may only use paid abilities. Subroutines on the encountered ice can be broken during this window. (P)

c. If there are unbroken subroutines that have not yet resolved this encounter, the Corp resolves the next such subroutine in order. Otherwise, skip to (e). d. Return to (c).

e. The Encounter Ice Phase is complete. Continue to step 6.9.4, Movement Phase.

In short, Yes! You can use SMC to search for Chisel during the encounter Ice phase!

@Terrified_Prinny @stoolpigeon the actual timing moment is after you approach the ice. There is a paid ability window during which the ice is rezzed. Note: the ice is rezzed during the paid ability window, not after, so you can SMC for the Chisel after the ice is rezzed, in the same window. You move to the encounter after that.

What's the thinking behind using Buzzsaw instead of Utae? The cost to boost on that buzzsaw makes me cry.

@Rhaplanca1001 Buzzsaw aims to make the greatest use of your leech counters, by breaking twice the subroutine for $1 (where ideally strength won't matter for either breaker). If you are feeling that your leech counters are to few to support Buzzsaw in addition to Cleaver & Afterimage, Utae may be an answer, tho you may be underprioritizing leech for your SMC & Gachapon targets.

@aunthemod for Midnight Sun I only changed this:

-1 Liberated Account

+1 The Twinning

I find Liberated Account too much of a tempo hit anyways and The Twinning adds pressure. For me, this is one of the best runner decks I've ever played.