Mighty Duck

Iron_Soul 165

This is the Quetzal deck I've been playing for some time now, and it has been phenomenal. I love how aggressive she can be, and I've found that her ability often severely inconveniences the corp in almost every game I play. The major thing that this deck does is get out mega-breakers quickly and for a very minimal cost, then run like crazy. The combo of inject and retrieval run is so fantastic, and nobody really expects it. Here's a rundown of my card choices:

Forked/Knifed: Since I run morning star, I rely on her ability to break barriers with a strength greater than 5, and knifed meshes perfectly here. A very canny opponent will double hadrian's wall or curtain wall on a server once they see the morning star and knifed lets me take care of problems like that. Forked is here to shore up my sentry weakness, which is potentially running out of tokens on the dog. I've yet to have an issue with tokens thanks to e3, so forked usually ends up just being a great way to save money in the long run.

Prepaid: This card is so good here, it's almost criminal. I'm running a ton of events and this really pushes my econ up through the roof. Getting to pay for an inject for free, trashing two programs and making money off them, then retrieval running one of those back in one turn is fantastic, and that kind of tempo swing can really put the corp on the back pedal.

Breakers: Cuj.0 isn't the best sentry breaker out there, but influence is tight and he works great alongside e3, so there's that. Forked helps to ensure he doesn't break his leash. Morning star and torch are there to really bust the corp's balls with retrieval run. If you're going to be trashing your own programs and bring them back for only three credits, why not bring the most expensive breakers there are? Original iterations of this deck saw me drop one torch for a gordian blade and femme. Gordian is for when I have to hard install a code gate breaker if the corp is smart and puts a code gate over archives. Honestly, I've almost never had that happen before so I switched back to double torches. Femme is nice with retrieval run, but I almost never installed her. I'd still like to have her back in the deck, but I just don't see myself cutting anything for the influence.

Imp: This is the star of the deck and one of my favorite cards in the game. Efficient breakers guarantee I get where I want to go and imp trashes anything and everything. Combined with medium or nerve agent, imp makes for amazing digs. Access, trash what can be trashed with credits, steal what can be stolen, imp anything else. Rinse and repeat.

Day Job: Originally I had three day jobs in the deck, but I was having a hell of a time playing them. They're awesome with prepaid, but eating a whole turn is rough. I'd often end up with two or three in my hand taking up space because I could never find myself in a position to eat the tempo hit of using my whole turn. I kept one because sometimes you find yourself in a tight spot or you're up by a large margin anyway.

Deja vu: Here to bring back key cards that might get sniped out of my hand for whatever reason, or to bring back my non-breaker programs that get trashed with inject. Pretty self-explanatory.

Levy: One of those cards that I'm still on the fence about. Quetzal is fast and doesn't really want the game to go on long enough for this to be pertinent, but sometimes bringing back econ and cutlery cards is too good to pass up. Prepaid makes the cost tolerable. Still toying with the idea of dropping this for a femme and one lucky find.

The rest of the cards here explain themselves I think. Please let me know what you guys think!

9 comments
26 Jun 2015 Dydra

Cuddos for the try. I have some recommendations though. First of all, against RP and Jinteki in General there are large amount of taxing sentries and Cerberus "Cuj.0" H3 is by far the worst of the 3 dogs. Paying 3-4c to boost STR + keeping Déjà Vu 2c and Retrieval Run 3c to keep him up with tokens seems far from optimal.

Also I'm not 100% sold on the econ. 7 pure econ cards, 10 if you count Inject and you have to Levy, to run them.

What I have in mind, is to import Net-Ready Eyes and Mimic ... This will allow you to boost your Morning Star STR to 6 when needed, while having the suitable 4str for Mimic. :)

26 Jun 2015 Iron_Soul

I have to disagree with your assessment, Jinteki is often my best matchup. Forked goes a long way towards helping out cuj.0. Plus, e3 guarantees that those tokens go the extra mile. Mimic without datasucker is not safe in my mind. Net ready eyes is an awesome card, but where would I find the influence? Downgrading torch to something else completely negates the point of having mega-breakers to retrieval run back. The only change I would make to cuj.0 is to add a third, putting me up to 46 cards.

Also, you severely underestimate this deck's econ. PPVP makes those seven event cards shine, and kati jones kicks out tons of cash over the course of the game. This deck has a 90% win/loss ratio, and a previous iteration went 7-1 at a store champs two months ago.

26 Jun 2015 gumonshoe

I'm a believer.

29 Jun 2015 CommissarFeesh

This might well be seen at a league night at my LGS in the near future - though I'm tempted to squeak in your Femme/Lucky Find instead of Levy and see how that plays. I've wanted to make a decent Quetzal deck for a long time, and this looks right up my street. It's not a million miles away from a MaxX deck I've been thinking about importing into Quetz anyway (which has the added benefit of allowing me to free up influence currently used on Clone Chips).

30 Jun 2015 xarlstaunzund

I actually like ``@Dydra's` suggestion. -1 Levy AR Lab Access, -1 Déjà Vu, +1 Net-Ready Eyes, +1 Mimic. Or if you don't mind going to 46, keep the Déjà Vu. Now you can use the Mimic to eat up smaller (see: the vast majority) of sentries, with the dog on hand if necessary.

2 Jul 2015 IonFox

Have you considered Faust? Oftentimes, Anarchs keep redundant cards in hand, and Faust also works well with e3.

2 Jul 2015 IonFox

Moreover, Faust also lets you trash any super breakers in hand, letting you set up a surprise retrieval run. Another card which also solves the 5+ str problem is d4v1d, which also combos well with e3.

2 Jul 2015 Iron_Soul

I've been thinking about Faust now that The Underway is out. I could see it replacing Cuj.0. Drop two Cuj.0s, add two mimics, one Faust, one Net-Ready Eyes. Drop one Forked and this brings you to 46. Faust can deal with tricky sentries over strength 4, as well as a code gate over archives to stop Retrieval Run. I also like the idea of Faust for trashing programs from my grip to RR back same turn. Net-Ready is convenient and careful planning could see the meat damage trigger I've Had Worse. I think Levy becomes even more important here as you can refill your deck to fund Faust.

2 Jul 2015 Iron_Soul

It occurs to me I forgot to mention ditching one Torch and adding a Lucky Find to account for influence in the above changes. Alternatively, you could drop Levy and the other Forked for Net-Ready and a Femme.