By Hook or by crook v0.1X

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Repartition by Cost
Repartition by Strength
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
By Hook or By Crook v1.0
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ODie 725

Moving away from the Street Chess style, this is based on a deck design that one of the local guys played to fairly good effect, but stripping out some extraneous complexity (e.g. Cloak & Dagger).

Combining Grappling Hook and e3 Feedback Implants makes breaking any multi-subroutine ice appallingly cheap, and Exile gains cards for each cycle of the Hook back into play, for a potent break/draw engine. The killer for the Hook is single subroutine ice, and Overmind excels at dealing with such defences. When the Hook isn't available, e3 combined with Overmind means saving power counters to break through.

"By crook" refers to the use of Sneakdoor Beta to skip around HQ ice and spread the Corp defences thin. Femme Fatale is the other "crook" technology that cares little about ice strength.

The specialised Shaper breakers - Deus X and Sharpshooter provide utility to pull in extra trash to break capability that isn't reliant upon the combo pieces and Inti is there for the nigh-ubiquitous Wraparound, as well as NEXT Silver, Paper Wall and early Ice Wall. In a pinch it can also deal with Himitsu-Bako when there's nothing else available.

Leprechaun opens up the possibility of hosting cards that enable the attack vector without drawing MU away from the Overmind (crucial only at install time). Using Scavenge allows you to recharge either Overmind or Imp counters, with Exile getting a bonus draw for resetting these cards. Scavenge also allows cheating in Femme Fatale off a Test Run.

Modifications: v0.1X Swapped out 2x Professional Contacts for 2x Magnum Opus Dropped 1x Test Run, 1x Scavenge for 2x Self-modifying Code Dropped 1x Sharpshooter for third Omni-Drive.

11 comments
22 Aug 2014 WardOfTheWoods

Everyone always does Street Chess when playing Exile and it's refreshing to see another build for him that works pretty efficiently.

22 Aug 2014 x3r0h0ur

I would do -1 omnidrive +1 scavenge, scav is 100% crucial to the deck IMO.

I would also try to go 3 TR and 3 SoT to do more TR and Scav'ing.

22 Aug 2014 Bamser

What are you putting on Omni-Drive? I think more memory chips would do the same thing and be more effective. I also would probably go down to one opus for another SMC.

Really like the deck idea though. Big fan of Exile and Overmind.

22 Aug 2014 x3r0h0ur

Omnidrive kinda gives overmind +1 str (kinda) Recurring credits a strong, and it doesn't count against your MU when you host OM on it Also don't discredit the free credit on femme and overmind. You're essentially getting through wrap arounds for free, or tollbooth for free, half price hadrian's, if you femme an eli, its only 1. Sure you have to pay 3 up front, but I usually break elis several times per game, so omnidrive is actually a good include, especially with modded to help reduce it's cost.

22 Aug 2014 ODie

@WardOfTheWoods, thanks. It's not quite there yet, hopefully the community here can help in refining.

@Bamser precisely as @x3r0h0ur said, the Omni-Drive is primarily intended for hosting Overmind and thus saving MU, gaining an additional token on the plus side. Hosting Inti it's free passage over Wraparound, Paper Wall, and effectively one less subroutine on NEXT Silver ;-) FF hosted bypasses Tollbooth for free. Good call on the swap of the extra MO for SMC, thanks, I'll try this in the next iteration, as I am struggling to get set up and that may help a lot.

@x3r0h0ur, you're right, I'm missing that third Scavenge in my tests, so I'll be working that back in. Same Old Thing is feeling really important, for repeat play of critical Events, but what to cut? It'll help take pressure off trying to preserve the Levy of it is drawn early on, too. Cheers for the suggestion.

23 Aug 2014 mmj

Tried this out last night and found OD+OM superb in setting up a very early R&D lock. I didnt draw any Scavs or SMCs for the entire game though and was thus clicking to draw or relying on CloneChip triggered Exile draws.That swap you're considering (and yes, SoT!) should make getting those key cards out sooner.

Scav made Leprechaun playable for me and was excellent in keeping MU up for OM recursion even with Sneak Door or MO in play but i find it highly situation as I'd rather recurs FF or OM.

23 Aug 2014 x3r0h0ur

Some people might say, I told ya so. I'm some people. I told ya so :P

I know this from playing dirty hands, you cannot have enough scavenge. Scavenge does so much work.

24 Aug 2014 BTrain

@ODie this is an awesome build that has actually provided me inspiration to apply to my Nasir deck that's been stuck in a huge rut as of late. I've been trying to find a way to make him work with Personal Workshop because it always feels like by the time everything's set up and ready to go, the corp is on game point. Cheers for the fantastic build, can't wait to take it for a spin.

24 Aug 2014 ODie

@BTrain, glad you like it, link me your Nasir deck if you publish it. I'm thinking of having a go with him down the track (post National Championships).

24 Aug 2014 BTrain

@ODie here's my "Nasir vs. Goliath" I've been running up to this point. It definitely works, but it's main weakness is how many moving parts you have to get in place.

And this is the "Nasir OverHook" deck I whipped up based (clearly) in very large part on what you made for Exile. It's currently stuck at 47 cards, but I feel like each one has a very specific place in the deck, so I don't know where to cut.

20 Oct 2014 kage02

Sorry just a test comment for beta testing.