Has anyone had any luck making the cyborg faction work? I find every deck I play wants 3 Diesel, 3 Wildfyre and 2-3 Aesop's Pawn Shop which is too much influence for Cyborg. The extra draw is really important but you want ways to get rid of Wildfyre when you're making key runs late, because you want the extra actions for many of the powerful Heimdahl style of ICE. I think this will get somewhat better when you have decent ways to break code in faction for Cyborg.

This is what I've come up with so far:

Programs: (10)

2 Aurora

2 Ninja

3 Sneakdoor Beta

1 Femme Fatale

1 Gordion Blade (2)

1 Crypsis

Hardware: (4/14)

3 Desperado

1 Lemuria Codebreaker

Locations: (6/20)

3 Wyldside (9/11)

3 Crash Space

Event: ( 19 / 39)

2 Diesel (4/15)

2 Special Order

3 Infliltration

3 Sure Gamble

3 Inside Job

3 Account Siphon

3 Easy Mark

Resource: (6/ 45)

3 Bank Job

3 Armitage Codebusting

To be honest I'm struggling to find the last 5 cards, Lemuria Codebreaker is unreliable and some of the 3 of's that can't be duplicated I'd rather have 2. There are some cards I like a lot here, but I dislike having only 2 diesel, not having pawn shop and the serious lack of options to round out the deck. If Cyborg ever gets a good code gate breaker they can get the extra diesel in and a few more solid cards would make the deck interesting?

How do you handle what was considered the weakest faction at gencon?

Well, first off, the faction is Criminal, not Cyborg. The criminal runner we have just happens to also be a cyborg.

Secondly, you don't need Diesel AND Wyldside. I think you either need 3 diesels OR 2 Wyldside, and you definitely want 1-2 Pawnshops because Criminal has a lot of good things to use it on.

3 Diesels or 2 Wyldside is 6 influence. 1 Pawnshop is 2 more, which leaves you with 7. I'd suggest a Gordian Blade (since criminals have no decoder) which is 3 (not 2 like you listed), and the rest can be spent as you want. Maybe a Corroder since Aurora isn't very good. You can afford to run singletons like that because you have Special Order. Maybe a Stimhack.

I've had a lot of success with the Criminal Faction. I run 3x Diesel and no Wyldside. I think its a great faction because of Special Orders. I completely bypass Crypsis and the junk icebreakers and just run one to two copies of the best of each (Corroder, Gordian Blade, Ninja). In my latest build, I only had room for one Corroder, so I also run one Aurora just in case I need it due to one getting trashed. The rest of the deck contains the Sneakdoor Beta route and then pretty much all money getters. I like the card that steals the corps cash and gives you double (forgot the name), especially after having Crash Space or Decoy out to get rid of the tags. Bank job is also great for those corps that flaunt their Pad Campaigns. And, Inside Job is a beast early game. Keeps everything but rush NBN decks from playing their Agendas until they can afford two ICE in a remote server. I've heard people call it the worst faction, but I think Inside Job, Sneakdoor Beta, and Special Orders are three of the top five cards in the runner's current arsenal.

Aurora is really bad, I think I would rather run a Crypsis if you can't afford to run 2 Corroder and 2 Gordian Blade. In fact I think my Criminal deck does currently run 1 each of Corroder and Gordian plus a Crypsis for backup, and 2 Sacrificial Constructs to keep them in play.

Every deck I've played runs into card draw issues. I've played a lot with fewer numbers of wyldside and diesel and I always want more. 2 Wyldsyde feels wrong to me, both because of the lower chances of getting it early, and also because I often play it in a pawnshop deck where once you've accumulated a diesel or the ability to replace it after a few turns with 4 actions you typically throw it away for a while, and get extra actions for some running turns.

Sorry about the incorrect title, the faction is criminal, although the content still stands.

I agree Aurora is bad and would replace it if I had the spare influence.

Even if I cut to 2 Wyldside and 2 Diesel, I'm adding 2 Pawn Shop before any of the other stuff, and that already gets me to 14.

2 Wyldside 1 Diesel 2 Pawn Shop 1 Gordion Blade is perhaps manageable although I'm giving up a significant amount of draw compared to other factions. This is fine if I can make up for it in other ways (faster resource generation), but a problem if I can't. I'm also missing out on the power of Medium which has been good enough for me that it often ends up in Shaper (despite the 3 influence cost): a medium with a few counters often means you can afford to run at R&D once every three turns in the late game, which completely changes the entire economic structure of the game. The two most popular archtypes right now seem to be one that's focused on single completion of agendas, and one that's focused on dealing net damage. Running with 7 cards in hand is an effective way to deal with the later, while making it impossible for the opponent to draw the last agenda is quite strong against the former. I never feel I have the same level of power in criminal at later stages of the game.. this deck feels very much like win early or bust.

As for power level of the 2 cost runner cards: I often feel like Inside Job is the worst of the three. Marker's mark is a triple effectiveness run on R&D, and the trash ability on demo run is effective for taking away ice from hand, or removing key piece(s) of the top of the deck. On those dig or bust turns, Demo Run lets you make multiple runs on R&D removing any misses for free. Combined with medium I've had turns where I see the top 15 cards of someone's deck. Paying 2 to skip the first ice, but not being able to use any special effects (bank job, sneakdoor, etc..) for 1 run is very good in some situations, but plays more to attacking agendas that are readying for completion in play, something the metagame doesn't seem to do a lot of right now.

Note also that misers pawn shop or Wyldside has issues when you do account siphon type missions because you're often planning to end the turn with an opponent having 0 credits but you having 2 tags. Gain, Gain, kill resource can be painful in that situation if they are hitting your miser items.

You definitely only want to Account Siphon if its your first or second action. Your last two almost have to be used removing the tags (unless you popped a Decoy). I agree, Criminal is a little weaker late game without Medium or Maker's Eye allowing multi-card access, but their ability to easily run the best icebreakers with Special Orders is just awesome in my opinion. No data fort is ever safe. I've had much more success with this faction than the other two, but my style as a runner is very aggressive.

Aesop's Pawnshop is amazing, but not for Criminal. I have had a lot of success with Criminal playing only 3 Diesel, 1 Gordian Blade, 1 Corroder, 2 Sacrificial Constructs, and 2 Stimhacks. With Account Siphon, Inside Job, Desperado, and Gabriel's special ability, Criminals already have the best money generation in the game; they don't need Aesop's as much as Anarchs and Shapers might.

Also, Account Siphon means that Decoy and Crash Space will actually be worth playing outside of the NBN/ Weyland matchup. Criminals have the tools: use them.

They already have the best money gen in the game, I'm not so sure they need the Stimhacks. They can get close to 9 creds from other sources without taking a brain damage for it.