The Prestige

turtle 988

Here's a deck I've been playing around with since rotation and new MWL hit. The aim is to go as fast as you can. Some key cards:

  • Freedom/Mad Dash: just bringing in some points in the deck helps you get to 7 points faster. A good combo is Indexing->Freedom->Mad Dash which usually nets me around 4 points and puts you on game point after a single access.
  • The Shadow Net: Hands down the MVP of the deck. This card has singlehandedly won me games that I should have no business winning otherwise. Usually I use it for a surprise Day Job or Sure Gamble to give me a quick burst when I'm low on credits and the Corp thinks there's a scoring opportunity. I usually hold it in my hand for as long as I can to surprise the Corp (like a Stimhack). I also frequently play Indexing with it if I have a Freedom/Mad Dash in my hand as it's usually a worthwhile trade off. 4x 1-pointers you bring in the deck are really good targets for this.
  • Switchblade/Houdini: Just make Sentries and Code Gates really efficient to break and helps you contest remotes and hit RnD.
  • Inject/Deuces Wild: Additional card draw on top of Diesel because you want to go fast. Deuces Wild also has the additional flexibility of being able to expose and shake tags which is useful for some matchups.
  • Ghost Runner: This used to be Net Mercur, but I found I was just using Net Mercur like a pseudo-cloak to get stealth credits I needed. Often I found I didn't want to pay for Net Mercur and ended up tossing it because of other cards I wanted to keep like Indexing and Freedom/Mad Dash. I found Ghost Runner served the same purpose with a much lower entry cost and allowed me to better keep tempo.
  • Clone Chip: Makes trashing of programs from Inject not hurt so much. Also is an easy thing to install like Cloak and Ghost Runner.
  • Mirror: For the MU and also sustainability when making multiple runs on RnD (although recurring stealth credits already makes this fairly easy).

This deck probably has the most difficult matchups against asset spam decks (like that new prison deck that's floating around). Against those decks, I tend to ignore assets and opt to try and win before they fully setup by hitting RnD hard. It's about a 50/50 matchup.

2 comments
9 Oct 2017 mawa

Inject feels a bit spooky with no recursion and a decent number of programs. Why are you running it over some of the other 2 influence options like I've Had Worse or even playing Build Script?

10 Oct 2017 optimizer

With 3x Clone Chip I don't think program recursion is an issue. Essentially an inject turns into a diesel, you either trash your programs and bring it back with clone chips or you draw into your econ and other pieces (indexing, mad dash and freedom)