[Neo Borealis/Standard 23.03] Khusyuk 1 Khusyuk Fast

Deckbuilding challenge

Make In the Groove work better than a Diesel.

Deck idea

(Regardless of the challenge, this Khusyuk-1 Lat base idea seems pretty promising for an early-mid game Shaper.)

In the Groove requires many installs with non-zero cost. Cheapest is installing 1-cost cards. If we have many 1-cost cards then Khusyuk is great. It is also fast to set up (intuition: 1/3 the price of Khusyuk 3). Add in all the 1-cost cards and Voila! We have an aggressive deck.

Main breaker is Propeller with Pelangi, recharge with Rejig and Simulchip. As we're using dispensable breakers (power/virus counters), the number of runs we can make is limited.

The aggressive game plan is thus: Install a lot of 1-cost cards fast and cheap, then Khusyuk over and over again, aiming to end the game fast. First Khusyuk can comfortably land around turn 5.

While Grooving, cheat out more installs using Prognostic Q-Loop and Simulchip. Into the Depths and Rejig cycle themselves. All these cheap installs naturally enables Environmental Testing for explosive money.

Other cards worth considering

(Standard) Hush: This deck dies to Border Control, so a Hush may be helpful before committing a Khusyuk run.

(mostly Standard) Clot: Meta-dependent. May swap for Fermenter or Boomerang.

Aesop's Pawnshop and Spec Work: Econ cards to recycle spent programs and enable Simulchip, but not the most attractive econ options to concede board presence for early Khusyuk.

Avgustina Ivanovskaya: On paper she's another 1-cost install, and our deck has 7 viruses (+Clot), netting some free sabotages. But adding just 1 copy is unreliable, and it's hard to justify spending more than 1 influence. (Previous iteration seen +1 Clot +1 Avgustina -1 Q-Loop)

Paule's Café: While nice with In the Groove, trading 1c for a card (beyond the first install) may not be the best option. The good thing is it increases our effective hand size, allowing us to hold on to Pelangi against purges or Mayfly to save MU, but it's tricky to justify the doubled install cost for our 1-cost pieces.

World Tree: good to tutor out the console or Q-loop after getting DZMZ value, and to upgrade Telework Contract into Environmental Testing. Though MU has been tight and rather expensive in HHN meta where every credit counts. Also same reasoning with Spec Work.

Pantograph: Supercorridor is mostly for MU, Pantograph could be considered against decks with many small agendas like Jinteki: Personal Evolution, which this deck could struggle against if Khusyuk whiffs.

Self-modifying Code: while it doesn't Groove since it's 0-cost, can be used to set up for an explosive grooving turn and fetch the missing half of the P-P rig (Propeller/Pelangi). MU-intensive though.

Diesel: if you're boring and not grooving.