This week’s jank is a little different, you may have noticed a lack of updates and that’s because I’ve been getting out a lot and playing, but with roughly the same decks at a few tournaments a week over the holiday period. I’ve been tweaking and working on them over the last few packs and I think it’s about time that I shared the results. Since I have a fair bit of experience with them I can go into a bit more detail, which people have been asking for. This week I’ll talk about my Exile deck, next week I’ll talk Blue Sun.

Here’s the current incarnation

Cards: 45 / 45

Influence: 15 / 15

Event (20)

3x Diesel

3x Indexing

2x Lucky Find ●●●●

3x Modded

3x Scavenge

3x Sure Gamble

3x Test Run

Hardware (8)

2x BOX-E ●●

3x Clone Chip

2x R&D Interface

Program (11)

1x Cerberus “Lady” H1

1x Crescentus ●

1x D4v1d ●●●●

1x Deus X

1x Femme Fatale ●

1x Magnum Opus

1x Mimic ●

1x Parasite ●●

3x Self-Modifying Code

1x ZU.13 Key Master

Resource (6)

2x Daily Casts

2x Earthrise Hotel

2x Kati Jones

Introduction

My goal for this deck was to create a shaper style that was more about having a really solid gameplan against all of the different, powerful corps right now. In particular I wanted to be able to deal well with Near Earth Hub, Blue Sun, Replicating Perfection, Personal Evolution and Engineering the Future.

The first thing that has to spring to mind is why Exile? Well, I’ve played the kid since he came out and I think a lot of people misinterpret the value of his ability. Unlike Kate you’re not going to trigger it every turn, but also unlike Kate you’re able to trigger it multiple times in a single turn. Many corps will try to create scoring windows by depleting the runner’s hand either through damage or forcing them to use tricks to call a bluff or lay down some aggression. Of all the runners I’ve played, Exile is unsurpassed in his ability to deal smoothly with the curve-balls a corp throws at you then end your turn with cards in hand, ready to go again. Since this is a pretty rare ability, corps regularly misplay against me, thinking they can tax me to create a scoring window or drain my hand enough to make me scared of running.

The second thing Exile brings to the table is a truly janky little combo that allows you to save a few precious deck slots. Anarchs are slavering over the upcoming card Steelskin because it allows them to resist kill decks without wasting deck space on cards like Plascrete Carapace which are dead draws in the more common tempo matchups that demand a highly tuned deck. By using BOX-E as a value console (since none of the more focused Shaper consoles are of particular value to him), keeping a hand size of seven and a Clone Chip installed, Exile can dodge dying to two Scorched Earth by installing a program off the clone chip after the first hits. Since both BOX-E and Clone Chip are very solid cards in and of themselves, enough so that I play multiples of both, I’m not diluting my deck against other matchups in any way. This really is something only Exile brings to the table.

The early incarnations of my deck included cards like Prepaid Voicepad and Personal Workshop to provide some additional kick to make up for the lost economy from Kate, but ultimately I found that simply playing a good density of high value credit generating cards was necessary to keep up. In the same way, I was originally running a suite of Cerberus “Lady” H1, Dagger and Refractor with some Cloak and Ghost Runner. While this suite worked incredibly well, it ended up being overkill alongside the other tricks I was playing and the dedicated stealth economy ended up being lacklustre for dealing with the need to score NAPD Contract, trash SanSan City Grids and what have you, so I switched to a slightly more aggressive suite and compensated with more premium economy cards. This and figuring out the two or three programs I needed to dodge common, awkward situations was the main thrust of the changes I made to the deck.

Deck Breakdown

Economy:

A pair of Lucky Finds is important to giving this deck a really good chance of hitting a powerful, reliable burst economy card within the first few draws, Diesel also contributes to that goal. Shapers on low credits early are vulnerable to a lot of things, so showing the corp a decent pool to deter them from getting cocky is crucial. Supporting this is a kind of economic toolbox of more situational but higher impact economy. Kati Jones and Magnum Opus provide two different styles of long term economy depending on the matchup, I’ll mostly use Kati against fast advance decks that demand a more active, click intensive playstyle where you can only spare one click a turn. Opus provides raw economic power against slower decks that aim for late game inevitability, since in these games I have time to find a BOX-E to cover the memory cost. Daily Casts and Earthrise Hotel are both big tempo hits, but incredibly click efficient. I’ve learned to be careful about playing these until I have a good buffer of credits on the table, they’ll usually come down on a turn I take a bunch of credits off Kati and go probing to get ice rezzed or fire a Lucky Find.

Modded is mostly in the deck to help keep up tempo against Near Earth Hub or Engineering the Future, letting me install R&D Interface early. In longer games, it gets BOX-E on the table for next to nothing and makes straight up Test Runs for Lady and D4v1d more cost efficient, using up a few of their counters then installing them cheaply after they bounce. Being able to use this strategy is really important against more taxing decks, as your supply of counters is not infinite and you need to get as many uses out of your limited breakers as possible, so making it cost effective is a big plus. Knowing what to prioritize for your Modded is one of the more subtle things I’ve had to learn. You don’t want to waste it on a BOX-E against fast advance, you should be focusing on running light and applying pressure. Most games I’ll just discard BOX-E in these matchups unless I have a serious bank and an Earthrise Hotel to fire.

Pressure:

Exile has the advantage all Shapers do of being able to use tutors to reliably get some early pressure in. This deck is particularly good at dealing with just about anything the corp puts in your way extremely cost efficiently, forcing them to spend more double or triple icing servers. A mix of R&D interface and Indexing generally means some heavy pressure coming down early, letting you make those reliable runs your tricks give you count.

While R&D is going to be your focus, don’t be afraid to poke and prod at other servers with tools on the table. You can safely force the Corp to rez ice a lot of the time, giving you more time to build a big hand full of tricks and a bank to use them all with. Don’t waste clicks running HQ except at really crucial points. If you play things right, against most decks you should be able to get a solid three to four accesses against most decks at that point, which is often enough to clinch the game, or at least stop the Corp doing what they need to win. If you need to drain the Corp’s money, Crescentus-ing big ice at the right time can really throw their economy off.

Defense:

This is the main reason I play this deck. There’s a healthy amount of Midseason Replacements–Scorched Earth, ‘bag of nails’ Personal Evolution and other kill-focused decks in my meta. A seven card hand size and almost infinitely recoverable Deus-X means that net damage decks stand almost no chance against you. The BOX-E and Exile’s awesome hand-refilling during crunch turns are almost enough by themselves, but the Deus-X means it’s very hard for the corp to empty your deck or catch you out with a Psychic Field that hits seven cards, both of which have happened to me in the past. Against Scorch decks you have to play carefully, usually letting them get an agenda or two while forcing them to rez ice. Once the economics swing in your favour, you can start putting them in lock-down until you finalize the BOX-E/clone chip combo that lets you leverage all that cash you’ve been stockpiling to finish things off.

Breakers/Programs:

Let’s go over these one by one.

Cerberus “Lady” H1 is the no-brainer fracter for the deck. At 4 credits it’s a bit expensive, but it isn’t a huge priority to get out. It’s the most cost efficient fracter in the game because of the free subroutine breaks, and you can benefit from this over and over while getting incidental benefit from Exile all the while

ZU.13 Keymaster is our code gate breaker for dealing with everything up to strength 4. Over that it gets prohibitively expensive so D4v1D and Femme Fatale take over. Luckily code gates rarely have multiple subroutines so while on paper Keymaster seems pretty weak, in practice he’ll breeze you through most things you’ll encounter pretty efficiently. I was originally running Refractor , but the cards needed to support stealth ended up being too valuable for raw economy

Mimic is our primary sentry breaker vs fast advance and Jinteki decks, plus Architect wherever you find it. Without Datasucker support, Mimic is very much a targeted breaker, you’re not going to be using it in every matchup. I see very few decks that run a mix of high strength and low strength sentries.

Femme Fatale is our all-purpose sentry breaker. It’s pretty terrible at the job, however, so we want to be using the femme Counter or D4v1D to deal with most big sentries. The real reason it’s in the deck is to turn Test Run into a ‘get through any ice you freaking want for pocket change for a whole turn’ play. That’s been a Shaper staple ever since Test Run came out and I’m still of the opinion it is the single most brutal runner play in the game.

Deus X helps dodge Snare! and Psychic Field while checking unadvanced jinteki remotes. It also gets you through obnoxious, expensive to break AP ice like Komainu , Tsurugi , Merlin and so forth if you’re hurting for credits. Don’t underestimate it in this capacity. Being able to safely go in with a Self Modifying Code out with only 5 credits can be pretty important in making early game probing runs. It also lets you clear through a Janus 1.0 if one turns up via Oversight AI , Bioroid Efficiency Research , Blue Sun etc.

D4v1D is really the keystone of the deck, letting you compete with big, taxing ice decks on an economy and playstyle designed for aggression against faster opponents. While it has some obvious uses like blowing through the bad bits of an Archer , removing much of the tax from a Tollbooth or breezing through a one hojillion strength IQ versus Cerebral Imaging, it can also help in a lot of other spots. I managed to lock down a win by using it to repeatedly get through Viktor 2.0 s for example (breaking the ‘end the run’ subroutine and letting the trace run to conserve counters), and it shuts down the oversighted- Curtain Wall in Blue Sun incredibly hard ( Test Run it so it bounces back into your hand and watch them groan).

Parasite is your primary long-term tool for dealing with taxing sentry heavy decks. Clear out Komainu , Tsurugi, Errand Boy and other annoying multi-subroutine ice. Against fast advance I mostly use it to kill off Popup Window , Rototurret and particularly NEXT ice as they appear.

Crescentus is a recent addition to the deck. I love it to death. Parasite punishes the expensive low strength ice, Crescentus punishes the expensive big strength ones. Crescentus is there mostly to be annoying, but it becomes important when big multi-sub barriers like Heimdall 2.0 and Curtain Wall come into play. You really need to make the corp pay for rezzing these as they put a massive tax on your recursion tools whether you’re using D4v1d or Lady to break them. A Crescentus in the heap with a Clone Chip in play will generally ensure no big ice gets rezzed in your face for the rest of the game. Remember you can test run it back as well!

Self Modifying Code: The shaper all-star, SMC will get you rolling quickly. Since you’re only going to use about half the tools in your deck in most matchups, SMC can end up pretty useless late game. You can use it as a Scavenge target if you want to get another Crescentus or Parasite back out and in a pinch you can install it to trash your Lady or D4v1d to be able to Test Run or Clone Chip them back.

This suite feels incredible to play with. There’s very little the corp can do to stop you going where you want and you can almost always match them blow for blow when they try and mess with you.

Matchups:

Near Earth Hub FA:

Never an easy matchup, but I’ve begun winning it pretty consistently, albeit closely every time. Ironically, you want to play it a little more slowly from the very start- spend one to two turns building up before you start hammering them, unless you draw a truly killer starting hand. (Sure Gamble, Lucky Find, Test Run, Indexing, Diesel for example). Facecheck early in your turn, as you can click through Eli for an access or be able to deal with an architect going off. Do your best to make them install as much ice as possible, as NEH ice is typically trivial for you to deal with.

This all goes out the window in the midgame though. When it’s a few agendas a side, just click for as few credits as you need and hit as much as you can, particularly focusing on R&D.

NBN Midseasons:

Play slowly, draw hard and get your economy rolling. This is a good matchup for an early magnum opus if you get a read on their strategy. If you get tagged out it’s not the end of the world, they’ll usually have to bankrupt themselves to do it and you can typically play a control match from there with the economic advantage you get.

Replicating Perfection:

I rarely have trouble against RP. Very few of their taxing options are actually that taxing against you and you can typically index your way to a huge advantage. Focus on shutting down their economy as hard as possible. Make sure you find a Kati or Magnum Opus as early as possible and you should have no problem

Personal Evolution:

Ignore advanced remotes as long as possible, but once you have access to your Deus X check out the others from time to time. Hitting R&D, particularly with Indexing is really your key to victory here, so make sure you’re ready to use them when they come up. PE decks are incredibly slow to win, so don’t be afraid to spend a few turns grinding through your deck looking for a BOX-E. Once you have that plus Deus-X, it’s almost impossible for PE to pull off a win. Remember that once you have BOX-E out you can feasibly soak a three advancement Cerebral Overwriter and still have enough hand size to keep on trucking, so use it as a trigger to call those pesky Mushin-No-Shin bluffs.

Blue Sun:

It’s almost impossible to lose this matchup if you play it smart. Make them rez their ICE and spend time bouncing it around, save your tutors to deal with anything nasty and power through your deck to set up your clone-chip combo. Do go in for the one-advanced cards, since keeping them off atlas is important and if you play things right you should be able to get into their big ice servers for next to nothing, throwing off their scorched earth math.

Engineering the Future:

Taxing ETF is probably the deck’s hardest matchup, with lots of multi subroutine, high strength ice, enough to drain your counter-based breakers quickly. Play extremely aggressively, focus on probing and making them rez, shutting down campaigns quickly and taking accesses where you can find them. Once you’ve got them low, dig for Indexing and RnD interfaces, these will secure you the game. Make sure you always have enough to steal an NAPD, ALWAYS. Against NEH missing one on the first try isn’t so bad, but against HB each run is far more of a commitment and you have to make them count.