FAUST AND THE BLACK HORSE

So I figure that this deck list should be pretty self-explanatory, but I'll give it a quick rundown anyway.

Tags and Money

The basic idea of this deck is to set up as quickly as possible, and then vamp the living daylights out of the corp. The 3 Magnum Opus, 3 Kati Jones, and 3 Self-modifying Codes are all there to enable this quick set-up. And because of Jes's ability, you don't have to loose the tempo to remove the tags from the Vamps.

This basic idea sets up every other card in the deck like. There are only a few other really 'important' cards that I install every game. All the rest, and all the duplicate cards, become #Faust fodder.

Common Installs

Brain Cage - Enables Faust runs without as severe a tempo loss.

Maya - Important for two reasons. 1) It obviously gives flexible r/d pressure, but also 2) it's the only extra memory that this deck packs, and memory can get tight.

John Masanori - Always install: gives extra card draw, lightening tempo losses filling your hand back up for another aggressive Faust run.

Situational Installs

e3 Feedback Implants - Running against Haas-Bioroid? Find it as quickly as possible. Seriously.

Film Critic - I'll often install this card regardless of the match-up... It just can negate so many unexpected problems.

Gordian Blade, Inti, and Pipeline - This is your anti-Faust-hate rig... If you're running with a Clone Chip and Self-modifying Code, you're good to go...

Atman - Blue Sun is the natural enemy of this deck... If you're gonna eventually have to pay to get thru a Curtain Wall, might as well only pay the 10 strength once... If they bury it in a server, e3 Feedback Implants should help make it more doable...

Plascrete Carapace - Wait. It's not in here... That's right. Because you're too rich to be Traced, and you should NEVER float tags. I've been scorched with this deck twice, and both times it was do to a stupid mistake on my part (yeah... I forgot I had a tag... I'll admit it...) So Scorch? Shouldn't happen.

Play Style

This deck is, surprisingly, not too easy to pilot. Knowing when to go all-in with the Vamps and when to lay back a bit and bide your time can be tricky... I'll freely admit that I'm not necessarily the best player, either.

This deck's economy is vicious. I can easily match any corps... I played a game against a Haas-Bioroid on Jinteki.net a month ago where he realized that I would Vamp him, and it became a straight-out money war. I had roughly 30 credits in my pool with another 40-ish on kati, and he had about 60 before my internet connection disconnected the game... Who knows how it would have ended, but suffice it to say, this deck has no problem with economy whatsoever.

At it's core it only needs 4 cards to work: Magnum Opus and Kati Jones, Faust, and Vamp. All the rest is can be Faust fodder.

In Summary

Let's be clear: I've won some notable games with this deck, and I've also lost quite a few notable games. Some pretty crushingly. The thing is, I don't think this deck has a problem. If my opponent's not set up to deal with the Faust play style, I'll probably win. Pretty aggressively, too. The biggest problem with this deck is that right now most meta's are become hyper-anti-Faust, with good reason.

I just took this to a store championship. When my third opponent (which developed into my third straight loss with this deck) rezzed an Ashigaru behind a Hive I asked him if he'd selected his ICE specifically to hurt #Faust. He just laughed.

That's when it hit me. This deck's in the wrong time. Give it a few months, when runners switch back to more traditional rigs again and Corps loosen up, and I think this deck will kill. But until then...

(The other reason I did so poorly was because, every time it counted, I lost my Caprice Nisei Psi-games... Dumb clone... :P)

People talk about Faust being over-powered. It's not. I mean, really... Come on... you Corps have Wraparound. You have Turing. You have Swordsman. Ashigaru. Multi-Sub ICE. Power-Shutdown. Etcetera, etcetera...

It's not that it's overpowered... It's that it's been dismissed by the meta until now. I think the general meta's waking up. The repercussions of Faust's deal with the devil are taking effect: maybe in a few months he'll reap more benefits.