Faust Joust v1.0 - 1st Place Berkeley ANRPC Qualifier

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Faust Joust

Aside: Aren't you glad I named this deck such that you can easily remember the correct pronunciation of the card? Anyway;

Faust Joust

FAUST IS SO FREAKING GOOD!

This deck went 4-1 in swiss at a small 20 person ANRPC tourney at Games of Berkeley in the South West Circuit this weekend, losing to ETF because of a MASSIVE misplay on my part. (Yeah, if you're going to be deep digging R&D, you might wanna force them to remove Jackson so that they actually have to have agendas in R&D and not just in Archives.) It was paired with my Titan deck Helios.

Oh my god is this icebreaker amazing. It's like an Eater with absolutely no down sides, but it's also an excuse to dump a CRAZY amount of card draw into your deck. Seriously. Faust enables everything which gets your stack into your grip, which means that it's INCREDIBLY consistent.

The game plan for the deck works like this:
1) Dig for Wyldside.
2) Dig for Pancakes.
3) Dig for Faust.
4) Dig for Medium(s).
5) Win, because that's literally all you need.

Actually, there's a pretty important step in between the last two:
4.5) Vamp them down to 0.

This will not be hard. Whizzard will take care of economic assets, and this deck is no where near shy of economy. Career Fair into Liberated Account or Daily Casts is great. But the real reason you'll be rich is very simple: you don't spend money on runs. Other then installing your rig, 100% of your cash can be guiltlessly spent on vamping and trashing.

Once they're at zero, just pummel R&D with double Medium. Ideally there will be nothing rezzed in front of R&D, but realistically they'll be able to get something like Eli rezzed as protection. Don't worry: Keep hitting R&D until they can threaten to rez something substantial, or you've seen like the top 20 cards and they purge. Now just go about your business, earn cash, draw cards, Parasite the R&D ice, Levy, and then hit 'em again. Or Wanton their hand. Or, honestly, just enjoy the fact that Faust makes scoring windows ridiculously scarce.

Various thoughts:

  • Although it's tempting, try not to run anywhere but HQ before you can vamp. If they can rez something taxing, you'll regret it the whole game unless you can fix your mistake with Parasite.

  • D4V1D wasn't used very much, but that may have simply been matchup dependent. It's most useful against Weyland.

  • Oh, right! AI hate ice. Swordsman will trash your Faust, it's true, but that's totally okay. You'll draw another one soon. Parasite it. Turing will keep you out. Parasite it. Wraparound is kinda taxing to get through. If you like, Parasite it, but it's only a problem on R&D.

  • You must be fearless about what you pitch to Faust. Obviously start with duplicates of Faust, Wyldside, and Pancakes. Then move to your support cards, your econ, your draw, and finally your programs. I mean, obviously it's dependent on the game state, but every single card in this deck is expendable except for Wyldside, Faust, and Adjusted Chronotype and Levy (or Déjà Vu in Levy's place).

  • This deck is 50 cards. That is not a problem, but it is slightly inconvenient. It means you can wait just 1 or 2 turns more to Levy, which is good. It also means you sometimes see the important cards slightly later than you might like, which is bad, but luckily you have tons of draw. Make your choice about whether or not you want that, and cut cards wisely.

  • Oh, and take out a Levy. I don't know what I'll spend the influence on, but my biggest take away from playing this deck at the tourney is you don't need 2 Levy. Interesting possibilities include Box-E and Crescentus.

26 comments
13 Jul 2015 ANRguybrush

so simplistic, very cool. Why no inject or peddler though?

13 Jul 2015 juliandark

With only 11 programs, Inject is a good influence free substitute for diesel.

Definitely use the influence for 2xE3 Feedback Implants, you dont' want to be breaking multisub ice with cards only.

Pancakes are usually good at 2x, You don't need them always, 1 click for 2 cards is still good.

Imo you are too heavy on the hand size enlargement. I would go 2x Brain Cage and that's it. Public sympathy won't save you vs Midseasons anyway and holding 10+ cards doesn't help you in any way, just run somewhere!

Parasites feel weak without Grimoire, Clone chips and Datasuckers.

1 Levy is more than enough with E3, I run a quetzal deck with Faust and I am not even running one and it's fine.

13 Jul 2015 sruman

A few questions jump out at me:

  • Given you could substitute diesel and quality time, for inject and earthrise hotel , are they worth the influence? The 9 additional influence could be spent on all sorts of good things -- clone chips, e3, etc.

  • datasuckers would be a good additional. 1 of them would allow you to break odd-strength ice without spending the extra card.

What do you think?

13 Jul 2015 triplenine

How much work has Wanton Destruction done in this deck? It seems a bit ancillary.

13 Jul 2015 triplenine

Ancillary is definitely the wrong word to use there now that I typed it.

13 Jul 2015 Friff14

@sruman Inject isn't ideal here because you want to keep cards in your hand as much as possible. Although it's okay, I guess, if you have things to spend your influence on. Where would you put that influence? Lucky Find?

13 Jul 2015 Friff14

Also, what do you do about Komainu?

13 Jul 2015 iloveMRT

this deck asks for e3

13 Jul 2015 sruman

If you are removing 1 levy as well you have tons of influence to work with. I'd say 3xclone chip, 2xe3 for the 12 influence.

13 Jul 2015 sruman

Whoops, only 10 influence but the cards add to 10.

13 Jul 2015 llama66613

Woah, tons of responses!

@mcpba I had Inject in the first draft. It's annoyingly unreliable, and it doesn't help when you want to see Faust or Medium as soon as possible. It's not unjustifiable though, and I recommend trying it to see if you like it better. Peddler doesn't get cards into my hand, so it's not very useful to me.

@juliandark I very much recommend keeping Diesel.

You could try E3 Feedback implants, but that's sort of a different direction for the deck.

Brain Cage is unique so I would only be able to install 1 copy. You want to build up a large hand size with plenty of cards to trash before you Vamp and dig. 9 is about ideal.

If the Parasites feel weak, that's because you've been spoiled by instant speed madness. Sure, those cards are Parasites at their best, but they are still amazing cards all by themselves.

@sruman. Earthrise Hotel is definitely not a substitute for Quality Time. Quality Time lets you suddenly and unexpectedly gain a huge number of cards to ditch to Faust.

I could see Datasuckers. I just wish I had instant parasite capability. Maybe I'll try Clone Chip.

@triplenine Wanton allows you to apply additional HQ pressure and mess them up if they're holding a bunch of agendas in HQ. It's not necessary, it's just pretty good.

@Friff14 Cry. This deck has no counter to Komainu, and when you hit it, you will lose every single card in your hand one way or another. It's very sad. Luckily, you can still continue the run if you're a baller, draw back up super quickly with Wyldside, and then crush the Komainu with Parasite.

@iloveMRT This deck is not built for E3, though it could be, if that's what you wanted to do with it.

@sruman You definitely, definitely want to keep 3xQuality Time for the core of this deck to work. I may experiment with cutting Diesels for Clone Chips and slotting Inject, since the two cards have obvious synergy. My main problem is deck space. It's bloated as it is and cuts will be painful.

13 Jul 2015 Friff14

I think a one-of Grappling Hook would be good just in case of Komainu. Any influence room?

13 Jul 2015 llama66613

Wow @Friff14, your mind goes to janky places to try to solve problems. I think I'm going to try adding some instant speed parasite tech, to really tear through ice. That's probably the best solution.

13 Jul 2015 Friff14

Yeah, but you'd need a way for it to be both instant and kill it at the same time. You'll still lose your hand if you parasite it unless you have ice carver, datasucker, or something else like that. I see a lot of Komainu where I'm at, so I have to have some strategy against it. Grappling Hook is one of the best ways to deal with it in my experience.

13 Jul 2015 llama66613

I'll be using Grimoire @Friff14.

14 Jul 2015 lolpaca

I don't understand why Brain Cage over a third Public Sympathy - as far as I can tell, you're just saving 1 credit while losing a card (which I'd have thought is the more important resource). Is it so they can't trash it if you get tagged?

14 Jul 2015 153351

yeah this deck desperately needs a way to hit Komainu. that's the only way i've lost with it.

14 Jul 2015 Friff14

I'll be trying it with E3 to try to take care of Komainu. It sounds effective. The only real question is how to make the room for it.

15 Jul 2015 gandrasch

I missing econ so badly in this deck. I'm broke after installing wyldside/pancake/faust and cant do anything.

15 Jul 2015 llama66613

Hunh, that hasn't been my experience at all. I mean, you'll want to make sure you get a Liberated or at least a Daily Casts before you start installing all your cards. But I really haven't been short on money, far from it.

16 Jul 2015 Saan

Tried it out today and loved it. I took out the Levy and added an SMC to try out in case I was having trouble finding a program on the go due to the size, but usually ended up pitching it as Faust fodder, but I think I still like the idea of it, so I'll play around with it more.

I was playing a Quetzal version of this with E3, but I generally felt more poor with that deck and less so with this one. I think a lot of that comes from the extra Whizzard credits you get, but I also think that because this deck forgoes spending influence on E3 it can pack more draw power, which means I usually have cards for the breaking rather than needing to use cards + E3. I like the deck out of Quetzal, but it feels very very good here as well.

I'm tempted to take out a single Medium and replace it with a Mimic for the Komainu and Swordsman problem, but earlier today I ran into a Komainu and lost around 7-8 cards, and still won handily, so maybe it doesn't need to happen. Either way, this deck is a blast. =D

18 Jul 2015 Bladerunner_35

I feel stupid for asking but what the hellbis pancakes?

18 Jul 2015 llama66613

@Saan Glad you like it. :)

@Bladerunner_35 Adjusted Chronotype.

24 Jul 2015 dgmort19

Awesome deck! It feels like piloting an unstoppable machine. I modified it slightly for my own play style with Nerve Agent and an extra D4v1d, and I took Friff14's advice about the single Grappling Hook, but nearly all the original features are there.

Extremely consistent, difficult-to-keep-out deck. Komainu has already been addressed, and I run a single Mimic in case of Swordsman, but Turing can also be a bit of an issue. On a remote, however, D4v1d (or triple-clicking if you're sure it's an agenda) puts Alan in his place. Oh, and of course, Parasite can work wonders.

The corp cannot help but feel insecure when you've got an 11-card hand, and Wyldside bulks you up to thirteen so that you can fearlessly run whatever he's trying so hard to keep from you using Faust and D4v1d (seriously, with Deja Vu, Faust and D4v1d are the dream team).

Keep your IHW copies handy, though, as building your engine a turn or two faster is not worth getting flatlined by Weyland.

31 Jul 2015 Cyberblues

I played this deck for rund about 10 games against different corps and usually came out on he winning side. I removed the 2nd Levy AR Lab Access and the Wantons and pulled in an e3 Feedback Implants, a Datasucker and a Grimoire.

The E3 gives a lot of variation and helps against Komainus and makes Eli 1.0 a cheap one, but I also had some economy issues. I focused a bit on putting the Liberated Accounts on the board even if it took me some creditclicks and it worked out well.

Its simply a great deck. I consider 2 instad of 3 handsizeimprovements and adding an additional economy card but am not so sure about this as a handsize of 7 is a nice support especially in the early stage.

12 Nov 2015 Chamomile

What about Same Old Thing ? Could be pretty useful i think..