Drug Dealer Gabe

kookoobah 1177

This is my tweak of Abram Jopp's Aggressive Gabe deck.

https://runthenet.wordpress.com/2015/11/14/on-drugs-and-devils-a-new-breed-of-aggressive-criminal/

This deck went undefeated in a 3-Swiss, no cut tourney defeating a Glacier Blue Sun deck and 2 Haarpsichord Butchershops.

I cut the Sure Gambles for Easy Mark. It's only 1 credit difference, and this Gabe deck makes a ton of money. If you're low on cash, Easy Mark helps you get out of that hole better than Sure Gamble, it helps a lot after the Closed Account hits, and you can always discard it to Faust.

I cut a Same Old Thing and Fisk Investment Seminar to include 2 Plascretes. A good call considering I faced a ton of meat damage decks.

This deck is easily my favorite Criminal deck in the current meta game. It's strong, consistent, has good match ups against Butchershop, and Foodcoats. The Parasites help against RP, and the HQI really hurt the hide agendas in HQ gameplan that most RP decks do. Astrobiotics is Astrobiotics, so just play good Netrunner and you'll do fine. Bank Jobs punish every single one of those 4 decks and I wouldn't play any less than 3.

This deck is Tier 1. Criminal is back. Move over Andromeda and Leela, Gabe is back in the driver's seat.

28 comments
20 Dec 2015 TheBigBoy

Easy Mark over Sure Gamble is fascinating and makes a ton of sense. I may have to try that.

Lately I've been finding the Shutdowns to be lacking and I've gone down to 1 copy. How were they for you (I suppose vs Blue Sun they are probably pretty good)?

Thanks for working on the deck!

20 Dec 2015 moistloaf

what's the general line of play versus Foodcoats? do you keep them off Campaigns or not?

21 Dec 2015 kookoobah

@TheBigBoy They did a lot of work in playtesting, especially versus Glacier. They were useless in the Butchershop matchup but they pull their weight in the Foodcoats, Blue Sun and RP matchups.

@moistloafFoodcoats can't punish tags anymore than trashing Drug Dealers. Siphon them to death and apply massive HQ pressure. I tend not to kill Eve Campaigns unless I am super flush in cash, or I'm prepping to Siphon them. I do kill Adonis Campaigns a lot. Foodcoats just folds under all the central pressure. I snipe agendas when I can, but between the Siphons, Emergency Shutdowns and Inside Job, they're pretty scared to try and score out.

My wife and I played yesterday. She has not played Criminal in a year. She was second seed after Swiss in our 36 player Nationals with Kate PPVP. After losing with Gabe against me playing Foodcoats 3 games straight, it finally clicked for her and she went on to win the next 4. That's a testament to how strong this deck is.

21 Dec 2015 ijw473

I really like the easy mark change as well, I'll give it a shot. Other than that, this is the same modification of Jopp's that I've been running. I like it a lot.

21 Dec 2015 hbarsquared

Am I missing something or does this deck not have an answer to Turing?

21 Dec 2015 TheBigBoy

On HQ it's Parasite.

On remote is Inside job, Parasite and 5 sucker counters, Siphon->Shutdown, or 3 clicks. Sometimes remote Turing stuffs you, but you can just go get points from centrals.

21 Dec 2015 rojazu

Mongoose over Faerie on its release?

21 Dec 2015 TheBigBoy

MU is tight, and you can drop faerie turn 1 to counter architect.

22 Dec 2015 prozz

suprisingly good deck. winning a lot with it. thanks for sharing.

26 Dec 2015 konradh

Well, at least this is another deck that makes slotting Crisium Grid reasonable defence. But still I think it is better to play Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future against this then any Weyland deck :(

26 Dec 2015 herod1204

Almost identical to my version, but mine has a single silver bullet for the 46th card to beat foodcoats: Cerberus Rex. Goodbye Turing!

27 Dec 2015 Tomonaldo

I've been playing Gabe a lot recently - a very similar deck to this - and Tier 1 is a bit strong IMO. He is brutal when he wins, but good players simply shut out centrals 2 deep, purge any viruses you may have built up and then you're pretty much done for.

Other issues I've had: - program trashing is awful. Even with a Clone Chip. If you don't find that one of, you can be stuck for a long, long time. - I had 3 x Datasucker and 2 x Parasite and I still wasn't finding my Parasites enough :/ - Wasting a Faerie on an Architect is a pain. You're then pretty screwed if a big, nasty sentry appears.

27 Dec 2015 kookoobah

@Tomonaldo You're right. Maybe Tier 1.25 or 1.5 haha.

I think the key is to score 3 to 4 points early on. If you don't score 3 to 4 points in the first 4 or 5 turns (and this is a easier for this deck than others) then it becomes really difficult to win later on.

In the version I'm running now, I'm running a Passport for the Enigma/Turing on centrals.

27 Dec 2015 prozz

@kookoobah what slot u put passport in?

27 Dec 2015 SlayerCNV

@prozz probably 1 Plascrete Carapace

27 Dec 2015 kookoobah

@prozz My meta is full of meat damage, so the Plascretes can't be cut. I cut 1 Faerie for 1 Passport.

@herod1204 I think you just give up the remote if it has Turing and just pressure centrals. 7 credits to get through (with install cost) Turing isn't a winning strategy, especially if you have to pay 5 or 7 to trash Campaign + BBG when you get in. Rex and Peacock just won't cut it. I play Passport and just rush centrals.

27 Dec 2015 GrantZilla1979

What do you think about this deck with Rebirth coming out soon? Andy -> Any Other Criminal ID seems pretty strong, but to be honest it really doesn't look like it would benefit that much from Andy's additional draw power, or at the very least it doesn't seem like it suffers from not having it.

28 Dec 2015 kookoobah

I'm not sure. I guess you can mulligan for it and get a free Diesel. You really want your HQ threat online from turn 1 though

29 Dec 2015 Warpstoned

I have been cutting the Levy and clone chip for another faust, parasite and a mimic. Helps a lot with consistency. If your faust is trashed you can always special order for the second one. Other than that the CC was most often used to recur parasites anyway.

Also, mimic helps a bit some match ups, saving cards against mainly architect. But I guess it could be something else if you really want.

I have been really enjoying this deck lately. Though I am not feeling the Tier 1 sentiment.

(Oh, and I really like the SG -> EM change. Will make the change myself asap. Thanks!)

29 Dec 2015 kookoobah

That's a good change, it will help the Foodcoats matchup. I like the Clone Chip, but I see why you would opt for the extra Parasite or Faust. Still, instant Parasite is brutal, and so is instant Faerie.

This build is worse against Foodcoats, since I edited it to improve the Butchershop matchup. Feel free to cut the Plascretes.

30 Dec 2015 chill84

Article on this Deck of the Week:

fusionhaa.wordpress.com

31 Dec 2015 haerik

So is this deck completely dead now with NAPD's Most Wanted? The way I see it you'd have to cut clone chip and 1 parasite, which puts you right where you need to be with the new influence rules. But that seems like a big problem.

This is the runner deck I'd been most excited about for quite a while...

31 Dec 2015 153351

A great example of how the new NAPD Most Wanted rules did more harm than good. This deck goes right back into the box.

1 Jan 2016 kookoobah

I think it will survive in a different form. A lot of the Tier 1 Runner decks took a hit, and so did the Tier 1 Corps, so it opens up a lot of room for decks like this.

I'm thinking add Passport, an extra Faust and maybe Mimic?

1 Jan 2016 153351

@haerik aren't you forgetting desperado influence? gosh in-faction influence is the stupidest thing.

1 Jan 2016 kookoobah

Desperado 3 influence, RDI 2 influence, Faust 2 influence, Parasite 6 influence, Datasucker 2 influence. Or cut a Parasite for Faust and Mimic lol.

5 Jan 2016 ANRguybrush

@kookoobah what about levy though?

5 Jan 2016 TheBigBoy

1 Parasite can go for the Levy I suppose.