18 Card Monte

linuxmaier 711

This is a Criminal 'Good Stuff'/denial deck, powered by the Tech Lord.

The idea is to leverage the Breaking and Entering suite (Shiv, Crowbar, and Spike) to remove the tax from Criminal's biggest strength: run based economy. Security Testing and Desperado team up once again to help you apply pressure to any server, even ICE on empty remotes to force the corp into a position where they want to rez to deny you your money, but you lose nothing from the exchange but a click. If the ICE is expensive, you can break it with some B&E and de-rez with Crescentus to erase their board state gain, leaving you with more money and a few cards and them with emptier coffers.

The main heat in the game comes from your regular Criminal pressure: Account Siphon, Legwork, Desperado and R&D Interface added to help you lock up the remaining central. B&E really helps you keep Siphon alive even into the mid-game as they'll be rezzing ICE only to have it get derezzed, you'll be spending little to no money to break it AND you'll further gain lots of money at the end of the rainbow. Keep the corp struggling for air and get to seven agenda points before they can stabilize!

The main weakness of this deck is going to be the first few turns. Possible changes to mitigate this is adding Inside Job (a great card!) or switching to Andromeda: Dispossessed Ristie. The deck's skeleton would also probably switch a bit in that case (my Andromeda version used Emergency Shutdown instead of Crescentus, lost a Clone Chip and a Mimic in favor of three Quality Time and a Femme Fatale. It also ran John Masanori to help with the card draw issues) but her early start of four extra mulligan-able cards can really get the game in gear a turn or two ahead of time. Geist doesn't get online as quickly, but he should be able to pull together a pressure rig within a turn or two. Remember, if you can get 3 different breakers on the table, you can probably blind Account Siphon and get through for peanuts, since your B&E breakers will be at strength 3 and likely able to handle most early game ice.

I like to mulligan for 2 economy cards, or 1 economy card plus 2 different breakers. That should be enough gas to get the game running and once you start breaking things, you'll draw into more economy and more pressure.

7 comments
8 Jul 2015 linuxmaier

When you play this deck, think about using cards like Dirty Laundry as though you don't have to worry about the run ending. In my experience, you get 1 of each breaker online pretty quickly (there's a ton after all) and once that's the case, there's no server you can't get into at least once. So try not to use Dirty Laundry or Security Testing on servers where the corp has no skin in the game, if you can help it. Use them to make the corp rez cards, since you know you can break it. Use Dirty Laundry as more than an Easy Mark that gets better once Security Testing and Desperado are on the table; use the "Run" part of the run event to combo into a run you already wanted to make on HQ, RnD or the remotes. Trust yourself to get through, since if you're forced to burn a breaker it's not a tax on you. You get to draw a card for your effort, while the corp has to pay to rez ICE that might even be getting derezzed presently.

9 Jul 2015 PurinaBisonChow

Crash Space instead of Plascrete. Use it to help clear the tags from Account Siphon and it stops Punitive Counterstrike from shooting you in the face. It might not be direct counter to SEA Source Scorch Scorch like Plascrete Carapace is but it still acts as a speed bump since they will tag you click 1, kill Crash Space click 2, and Scorch you click 3, leaving you alive if you started with 4+ cards.

9 Jul 2015 linuxmaier

@PurinaBisonChow I thought of crash space and it still may go in after some more testing, but Butchershop is really popular in my meta and I wanted meat damage resistance that was immune to tags. That said, Crash Space would be awesome here.

9 Jul 2015 linuxmaier

@PurinaBisonChow Also, this deck is designed to go tag-me pretty readily if it looks worth it, so I tried to minimize resources.

9 Jul 2015 FarCryFromHuman

Plus as Geist you can just use a bunch of trash abilities to refill your hand after the first Scorched Earth lands...

9 Jul 2015 linuxmaier

@FarCryFromHuman Not in this particular deck. Clone Chip is the only one i can use on the corp's turn.

9 Jul 2015 linuxmaier

Making some changes on my side and not including Street Peddler was a dire mistake. It REALLY helps get the rig online earlier and if you get two different kinds of breakers on it, you can start the Account Siphon and pick which one you end up needing. Dropped a Clone Chip, Mimic, Security Testing and Crescentus for 3 Street Peddler and one Femme Fatale and I think that will be solid.