Chimera: Part Friend, Part Foe

 

Used judiciously Chimera can be reasonable, if unreliable, friend to the corp; used poorly it will do more work for the runner than for you. Costing two credits to rez and having the unique property of being any of the three main types of ICE you want it to be Chimera's purpose should be fairly obvious - it's there to rush out an agenda at some point between turns one and four. Assuming you're happy to leave your centrals open to attack you can score out an agenda with as little five credits in the bank - though I wouldn't recommend such a thing unless you're running a LOT of low cost operation economy. Of course doing so is fraught with risk - Criminals have Inside Jobs and Siphons, Shapers have SMCs, and every Anarch and their mother runs Faust. Okay, let's be honest; everyone's running Faust. Still that's the thrill of rushing. If you're not up for high risk-high reward games then it's not the deck archetype for you.

Chimera can also be a pain. If used to defend centrals or assets or indeed used any time after the first three to four turns it will hurt far, far more than it will help. At zero strength and with only one subroutine it will cost most runners just a single credit or card to pass. Meanwhile you're spending two to rez it every turn: the exchange is not in your favour.

How many copies of Chimera should you include in your deck? For the most part the answer is none. If you are putting it in you probably want three. For it to do work for you it needs to be seen early. Of course then you're going to be drawing and promptly discarding it in the late game when even a humble Quandry has more utility. Arguably simply including regular gear check ICE is the better option. If unmolested and invested in Ice Walls, NEXT Bronze and the like can even gain in utility as time goes on.* That said it's not always an either or choice: a Chimera often works best when paired with another gear checker. It takes a little more cash and a little more set-up but with a Quandry in front of it Chimera can take on a single SMC or an Inside Job.

*Though they often don't and - outside of certain specialty decks - investing in Ice Walls is rarely a good idea.

The Stakes are Too Damn High

The community's initial thoughts on High Stakes Job were extremely positive. It was going to be the card that made Ken good because what Ken had - apparently - been missing was another run event economy card to take advantage of his ability to gain a credit the first time such an event is played. (This is an absurd idea but we'll get to that later.) This line of thinking was paired with the optimistic opinion that the prohibitive cost of six credits would be lowered to just two in Ken: decreased by one for each Public Terminal in play and then once again by Ken's ability.

Of course this is nonsense - even with three Public Terminals in your deck you may only see one if the game is a quick one. The odds of having all three before the game is half over are very low. Furthermore Ken's ability doesn't lower the play cost of events; it gives you an extra credit for playing them. Lastly the card has a hidden cost. The cost of breaking or otherwise nullifying the unrezzed piece of ICE on the server you run on. All of a sudden the paout of the card starts to dwindle.

In short High Stakes Job is highly conditional. It's beautiful when it pays off but it can clog up your hand for ages until the time is just right. Of course there are things you can do to make the conditions more favourable. For starters don't base most of your economy on cards that require a successful run. More often than not you need money to run and if all your cash is tied up in Dirty Laundries, Bank Jobs, High Stakes Jobs and Account Siphons then you're going to find yourself clicking for the creds you need to install breakers or sitting on your arse while you wait for you opponent to install un-ICEd assets. No runner - not even Ken - wants the bulk of their economy to be conditional. Make sure you have some trusty Armitages, Daily Casts and/or Katies to get you through the winters.

You can also include cards that make playing High Stakes Job easier - pair it with Account Siphon or Emergency Shutdown and you can turn a difficult job into a cakewalk. Of course then you're spending extra clicks and creds to pull the job off - not to mention waiting for the combo to find its way into your hand. You're getting huge side benefits from doing so of course but you're not making High Stakes Job less conditional - just better. It's still going to sit in your hand unless you have some surer gambles to keep your economy ticking over.