Enter Subroutine - Run the Decoders!

Enter Subroutine: Run the Decoders!

This is the second of a three part article I’m writing. In this part I’ll walk through the Runner deck I decided to take to a tournament, making an analysis card by card.

In case you missed the first part:
http://www.cardgamed...ournament-r1033

There’s an interesting discussion about a particular card: Thomas Haas. Some (me included) defend that, in certain strategies, he is a good card, others however think he’s only good to wipe your assets clean.
Both sides have interesting opinions! Keep them coming! Afterall card discussion is also a detrimental part of card games!

I was not; I was; I am not; I am all.

Total Cards: (45)

Identity:
Rielle "Kit" Peddler: Transhuman (Creation and Control)

Event: (14)
1x Escher (Creation and Control)
1x Levy AR Lab Access (Creation and Control)
2x Scavenge (Creation and Control)
3x Diesel (Core)
2x Stimhack (Core) â–  â– 
3x Sure Gamble (Core)
2x Tinkering (Core)

Hardware: (10)
2x Clone Chip (Creation and Control)
2x Lockpick (Opening Moves)
3x Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead)
2x R&D Interface (Future Proof)
1x CyberSolutions Mem Chip (Fear and Loathing)

Program: (13)
3x Cyber-Cypher (Creation and Control)
1x Chakana (Creation and Control)
2x Self-modifying Code (Creation and Control)
1x Corroder (Core) â– â– 
1x Femme Fatale (Core) â– 
1x Gordian Blade (Core)
1x Ninja (Core) â– â– 
1x Net Shield (Core)
1x Parasite (Core) â– â– 
1x Omega (Fear and Loathing)

Resource: (8)
3x Daily Casts (Creation and Control)
3x Professional Contacts (Creation and Control)
2x Armitage Codebusting (Core)

This deck is very aggressive! Which is not the same as a rush deck. In my opinion a rush deck is a deck that tries to win fast, it normally has its strategy around that concept, recurring to the most efficient and fastest tools available, be it specific Operations (like Inside Job), multi-access cards (The Maker’s Eye, interfaces, Medium, etc) or aggressively costed programs that help you get in where it matters fast (Sneakdoor Beta and such). These decks don’t usually have a late game plan, because they’re done around the mid stages of the game. An aggressive deck however, is one that tries to punish the opponent for the choices taken by him/her. It is closely entwined with denial cards (Account Siphon, Keyhole), as it is with pure punishing cards (Blackmail, Kraken). Can a deck be both aggressive and rush to victory? Yes!
Mine however isn’t rushing, instead tries to always be on top of the Corp pressuring them to make risky plays and taking away their feeling of safety.
Let’s see the choices!

Rielle “Kit” Peddler – Why Rielle? It starts pressuring the Corp even before the first turn. The Corp by seeing her, must be extra careful building its servers to try and nullify her ability, otherwise it’s basically free runs for Rielle and even then it’s going to be difficult: if the first ICE isn’t a code gate it has to be very taxing, otherwise you’re just wasting clicks, if it is indeed a code gate it’ll be passed very easily. 1 ICE servers are formalities for “Kit” to go through. And 2 ICE servers are not that far away from being easily passed also. The ability of “Kit” only functions once per turn, tough, but if you spend three clicks in preparation and the first click running every turn, the amount of pressure you’re applying is asphyxiating.
This deck also has an “early game mode” (Code: EGM) and a late game mode (Code: LGM), both of which are done to utilize Rielle’s ability to the fullest. But we’ll get to that in more detail as we go through the card by card analysis.

Operations
Diesel – Pure card draw. I love this card. It’s a card for three with just one click. It’s great at speeding things and an awesome counter to those pesky Jinteki. Also, this deck doesn’t run Test Runs, because the cost of programs are 1 cred below or above Test Run, so it becomes a complete waste. Paying 7 for a Gordian Blade? No, thank you. Omega costs 7 and Femme costs 9, but you can get around your economy to pay for them. Therefore, you need to draw cards, quite a bit. The raw power on this is very appealing and it’s even in faction, so I opted to run three, because I can’t run anymore.

Escher – This is a LGM card. As I said, you are very aggressive from the start. Pounding servers turn after turn. If the Corp is under this pressure, it’ll rez a lot of ICE to try and stop you, so it can develop its game plan. When you are well establish you can punish them by dragging all the non-code gates out and allocating the more troublesome ICE out of the way. Normally on LGM you’ll try to establish a R&D lock, after attacking relentlessly HQ, Archives and any remote, so you won’t telegraph to the Corp that the main LGM goal is the R&D lock. If it all goes according to plan R&D won’t have a lot of ICE installed, you can then force a run on HQ and set-up even further your lock. This card is miser, leading to some ludicrous situations where you screw completely the Corp., accessing at will any remote or a previously hard to access central. There may be games where this strategy is unfeasible, so I ran one to at least have the option.

Levy AR Lab Access – This card can recur any program trashed to an unfortunate faceplant or net damage discard. It also brings your economy back in. It can bring some fluff as well, so the best time to play it, really, is if you had a bad start and the Corp stomped your progress. This seldom happens if you run with some degree of caution. If you happen to have it in your hand as the last card, it is also a good play to reset your deck and redraw the Sure Gambles and Diesel. You’ll never need more than only one!

Scavenge – Scavenge is a good card. I often see Runners having three copies of the card. And I understand the desire to have such a flexible card at your disposal pretty often, but it is somewhat a win-more card. It only really shines if you already have done something! It doesn’t bring you back from the dead, for example, like Diesel does, or Magnum Opus. It only helps your already established dominance. In this deck its best play is to remap a Cyber-Cypher of Femme, which implies that you’ve already installed them before, and access a server to your heart’s content. It is an effect I like to have access but I’ll only need it once per game and not in every game. I feel this way even if I’d run Test Run. Like any two card combo, Test Run + Scavenge is very cool to pull off, but the set up required may be troublesome. We’ll leave that discussion to another time though.

Stimhack – The first brain damage is not dangerous and this card gives you 9 (nine!) credits to do a run, in which, with the help of SMC you can establish a powerful rig and attack a server with relative ease. I added two copies to ensure I’d see it midgame, as you want it when you’re transforming from EGM to LGM.

Sure Gamble – Standard boost economy. A net of 4 credits is always good, it can help you install the most expensive cards on the deck and keep a good flow of economy. You’ll always be happy to see it in your hand.

Tinkering – This card helps you with tempo plays, making you able to go through a server without having to have the proper breaker. Or should I say, making your breaker the proper one? It has an added satisfaction effect when the Corp player’s face twists in horror because they thought the server was well protected and is in fact a highway to agenda scoring.

Hardware
Clone Chip –This cards serves a similar purpose as Scavenge, if you have one, you can freely trash any installed program (trouble with memory, perhaps) or be less scared of “Trash 1 program” subroutines and later, if need be, install them back. It also counters Power Shutdown nicely. You don’t need another card to work, like you need with Scavenge, but you don’t get any discount either. Fair. I also happen to run Parasite, so you can recur it to a certain amount, ensuring you’ll never lift the pedal and be all over the Corp.

CyberSolutions Mem Chip – The list started initially with 2 Akamatsu Memory Chips, but I seldom needed the extra memory. This cards saves up one slot and grants me all the memory I might need for one game and then some. I also wanted to test it so this also served as a good reason to try it.

Lockpick – This is a really cool card. The cost is perfect! In the first turn the investment + reward ratio is even and from then on it just keeps adding in value! As any Rielle deck uses a lot of decoders its inclusion seemed natural. I’m very happy with these little cards that add you value in a couple of turns.

Plascrete Carapace – A lot of you may be wondering: “Why so many Carapaces!?” Well, this was a meta game call. I expected a lot of Weyland decks, even more with the popularity the Accelerated Diagnostics combo was getting. So this number was necessary to ensure them in my hand early in the game to be able to start running in relative safety. The aforementioned Lockpick and Clone Chip were also put in the deck with this mindset. They help you clutter the board to prevent my carapaces from being shutdown. This in addition to a methodical approach against that match-up made it quite easier to beat. I can easily see a shaving of this card, depending on the meta, for one more R&D Interface, a Deus X/Sharpshooter, or any cool tricks the Shapers have.

R&D Interface – Once you’ve established your dominance in the board this helps close out games faster. It can also function as a tempo punishing play if the Corp as the R&D relatively unprotected. It is the only multi-access card in the game so be sure you’ll be able to lock R&D before playing the interfaces, otherwise, if the Corp is aware of your play it may build a enough taxing server over R&D that it just won't be reliable to go for the lock. It can still give you the ability to do some glory runs, if you’re searching for the final agenda points.

Resource
Armitage Codebusting – Unlike Sure Gamble, this card can bring you from poor to rich, which is a big difference. Its click-to-money ratio is also very good (Magnum Opus good, in fact). It’s a great turn one play and a great economy card all around.

Daily Casts – This card is a good complement to Armitage Codebusting: if you have the time, bring the credits from Armitage. If not, the dripping economy of Daily Casts will help you level on a wealthy level. I like to see it soon than later, while you’re setting up, hence I run one more than Armitage Codebusting. It’s important to mention that it doesn’t wastes you any click, except the installation one.

Professional Contacts – If you’re about to go digging for that winning card, why not win some credits along the way? As I mentioned earlier, I don’t run a lot of tutors, so I need the card draw more heavily than other builds. This gives me both card draw and economy. What else could you ask for?
(You could ask for it to be a legal Modded target. But I didn’t say anything).

Why do I have a resource heavy economy? The only tagging and cards I expect from the “news folk” were in out of faction decks which had other plans to do with the tags than destroy my pretty resources. Again a meta game call. I didn’t expect a lot of tagging unless it was to kill me dead. And it was another guess I got right! Fortunately.

Icebreaker
Corroder – This is the first piece of our LGM rig. He’s the best barrier breaker for this type of aggressive strategy. It’s cheap to play and he’s very cost efficient breaking the barriers of all the corps, generally speaking. Don’t worry if at first you don’t succeed, just boost its strength and try again. We only need one barrier breaker as my meta is not very abundant on those. And half the time they’re also code gates, anyway.

Cyber-Cypher – These are the stars of the show! They make this deck possible! They have the same stats as Torch (!), cost 2 credits, but can only operate on a specific server, which is really not that big of a drawback: against the majority of the decks you’ll install them for one central, normally R&D and for one remote, the scoring one. If the Corp. abandons the remote trying to nullify the Cyber-Cypher, they’re heading into a world of pain, as you can then remap them, or install a second one. Remember: punishing for their acts. You’ll always want to see this breaker in your starting hand. I will mulligan actively for it. He’s one of the main pieces that makes this deck so good. So I absolutely have to run 3. I have 5 virtual copies of this card in my deck which is a pleasing number.

Femme Fatale – Her versatility is very well known. Her ability makes up for our lack of firepower against beefier ICE, she can even, occasionally, break a sentry. The possible play of “install, run, play a Scavenge remapping Femme Fatale to another ICE, run”, albeit expensive, is a good one to have up your sleeve. In combination with Rielle’s ability the Corp won’t, and cannot feel any of its servers safe (first ICE decoded, second ICE bypassed, if there’s a third ICE install, I doubt the run has been so taxing that you won’t be able to go through it as well). Very powerful!

Gordian Blade – Ah! We get to another piece of LGM. The deck pounds the Corp early with Cyber-cyphers and Rielle negating the Corp a safe expansion. If the Corp ever gets out of your aggressive start and starts to build up, you go for the LGM, which consists on the building of the Voltron of Icebreakers (Corroder-Gordian-Ninja). And Femme forms the head! Gordian Blade is one of the best decoders in the game, and even if the ability on Rielle loses some relevance in the late stages of the game, Gordian will always have you covered, regardless. Why no Torch instead? First, I still didn’t had the expansion and also, Torch is expensive! This deck economy is very tight, as you run often to make the ability on Rielle count. It might be a good addition in detriment of Gordian Blade, one would have to test.

Ninja – I’d much prefer to run Garrote, but the influence on that card is too much to handle. It’s also 2 memory units, which is a real cost, even if I run Mem Chips. Ninja is a fine addition and efficient at what it does. In the late game you won’t mind too much the credits lost pumping Ninja as they may prove a mean to reach the end (that sweet Agenda).

Omega – I didn’t had much time to test this card as I got it last minute and went on to battle. It seemed to complement the strategy nicely. Its strength is very low, but it can be convenient half the time to force through the server. Making the Corp to absolutely build 3 ICE long servers by installing it alone is very pressuring indeed. As my meta didn’t had too many of those glacier type strategies, it worked out fine.

Cyber-Cypher plus Omega did give me a couple of “All your servers are belong to us” turns!

Program
Chakana – One Chakana against Fast Advance. This card is more of a silver bullet than anything. Either way, it can be a nice Ace-in-the-hole to have at your disposal. Three runs on R&D against Fast Advance strategies won’t be very difficult to pull off, because you want to pound their hand, as they’ll always score “out-of-hand”, and thus will want to protect H&Q more than any other server.

Net Shield – Similar role to Chakana, silver bullet against a specific strategy, although this one goes after Jinteki and the like. Some Weylands (which I expected a lot) do run Snare!, this can smooth out the damage input. It also blanks completely Jinteki: Personal Evolution’s ability.

Parasite – Helps control the Corp when it decides to go for long servers and keeps applying pressure. It is a bit slow, but if unchecked it’ll eat a good number of ICE (Ice Wall and Shadow, beware!). Functions very well with the Clone Chips.

Self-modifying Code – These are the only tutors of the deck. You use them to get to your silver bullets or a missing piece of the Voltron, basically. If need be, in mulligans going after the Cyber-Cypher is not horrible. But this deck tends to draw a lot of it, fast, so do this play only if absolutely necessary. You only have one card to enhance your memory units also, so keep in mind that SMC takes up half of you free space, having it lying around too much may be hazardous to yourself. Install them only if planning to go on a run.

Aftertoughts
Paintbrush!!!

Okay, okay. Omega works wonders if you can fit Datasucker, fortunately, Omega is no longer needed as we have Paintbrush now.
Also… Paintbrush.

On my next and final part of this Enter Subroutine: Tournament, I’ll talk about the mindset of the two decks, overall strategy and some interesting plays analysis I came across whether during testing or during play.
If you have any questions about why did I play a card and not THE card, feel free to comment it. I’ll leave a reply as soon as I can!
I’ll revisit this deck again, as I quite like this archetype. If you have any archtype you feel like asking me, go ahead, I’ll do some Test Runs and write about it here.

See you next time.
Ashtaroth