River’s Closet: River Ward Gear Deck Guide

River’s Closet is the most-viewed River Ward list in the official deck builder. How to pilot it, which matchups make it wobble, what it’ll cost you. That’s what this piece is for.

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River’s Closet is a tempo deck with 15 Gear

This one already has a real game against BBG under its belt. It comes from KP, it’s called River’s Closet and it has been in the official builder since September 30, 2026. KP linked it in a video (in the description the link is labeled “River Gear”) and played that game on camera. The video has 18,803 views, the deck page 1,265 views and 17 likes (as of October 14, 2026). No other River Ward list in the official builder comes close.

If you’re facing BBG, keep our BBG guide open next to this one, because the removal thresholds we use here come from there. What the meta looked like back in the print-and-play phase is covered in our May article on the first meta decks (German only).

At the table the list plays like this: drop small and mid-sized Units, gear them up at the right moment, steal one to three Gigs with every attack. You defend with Legends that you keep ready through your opponent’s turns instead of spending them (spending means turning a card sideways to use it, and it then stays used until your next turn).

The backbone is 15 Gear. Twelve of them cost 2 or less and can be played for free through River Ward. Add two unusual Legends, the fixers Muamar Reyes and Dexter DeShawn. On top sit five Units with 8 power: three Johnny Silverhand and two Jackie Welles.

Some vocab, because these words come up constantly. You pay in €$: with Eddies, which you get by selling one card per turn, and with Legends you spend for it. Legends themselves are not Eddies. A Call flips a face-down Legend for 1 €$, once per turn. Gigs are dice, points and objective in one, and whoever has 7 of them at the start of their turn wins. A min Gig is a die showing 1, a value-pair is two Gigs with the same value. Lag means a freshly played Unit can’t attack this turn.

There haven’t been any official constructed tournaments, so every popularity number counts lists in the builder, not wins. Opinions belong to the people who voiced them: KP, MoTheMonster and KP’s opponent in the video. For some lines from the video it’s unclear who’s talking, and there we write “the video says”.

The decklist

Qty	Card	Type	Cost	Power
1	River Ward: Detective on the Hunt	Legend (yellow)	–	–
1	Muamar Reyes: El Capitán	Legend (yellow)	–	–
1	Dexter DeShawn: Off the Grid	Legend (red)	–	–
3	Secondhand Bombus	Unit, Blocker	2	0
3	Swordwise Huscle	Unit	3	3
3	6th Street Recruits	Unit	4	6
3	Meredith Stout: Stone Cold Corpo	Unit, Blocker	4	5
2	Jackie Welles: Ride or Die Choom	Unit (Epic)	6	8
3	Johnny Silverhand: Never Stop Fighting	Unit (Epic)	6	8
3	Mantis Blades	Gear	1	+2
3	Satori: Sword of Saburo	Gear	2	+2
3	Zetatech Faceplate	Gear	2	+2
3	Adrenaline Converter	Gear	2	+3
3	Gorilla Arms	Gear	4	+3
3	Live with the Aftermath	Program	3	–
2	Over the Edge	Program	3	–
3	Bootleg Black Sapphire Show	Program	5	–

That’s 40 cards in the main deck: 17 Units, 15 Gear and 8 Programs. The builder flags the list as legal. If you want to swap cards, watch the color budget, called RAM in the game. Your Legends set how much yellow and red a card may ask for. Here it’s yellow up to 4 and red up to 2, because River and Muamar bring 2 yellow each and Dexter brings 2 red. Adrenaline Converter and Bootleg max out the yellow budget at RAM 4, Johnny, Swordwise and Over the Edge max out the red one at RAM 2.

Cost	1	2	3	4	5	6
Cards	3	12	8	9	3	5

Most cards cost 2, and those are almost exclusively the Gear that River hands out for free. So you nearly always have something cheap to play. At 4 you find the two sturdy Units and Gorilla Arms, at the top the five 8-power Units.

You can sell 23 of the 40 cards, namely all 15 Gear and all 8 Programs. None of the 17 Units has the Sell tag, so only Gear and Programs qualify for your one sale per turn.

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River Ward wins your opponent’s turns

Leave River Ward ready and face-up at the end of your turn as long as you hold a Gear costing 2 or less. Don’t burn him as 1 €$ while your opponent can still attack. His card text tells you why.

{Quick} {Spend} Play a Gear with cost 2 or less from your hand for free.

On your own turn that’s a discount. You spend River instead of paying him as 1 €$ and get a Gear worth 2 €$ in return. MoTheMonster puts it exactly that way: “Being able to cheat out equipment that is two Eddies for only one Eddie cuz you have to tap River Ward.” The math checks out, but it leaves out that River is gone until your next turn afterwards.

On your opponent’s turn the discount turns into a threat. Thanks to {Quick} you drop the Gear in the middle of their attack, and they have to assume extra power on every one of your Units. MoTheMonster’s version: “with River Ward ready, all of these gear represent at least plus two power. Sometimes it’s a blocker and other times it’s plus three power.”

Our take: the threat is worth more than the discount. Burn River on your own turn for a Gear and your opponent gets a window to attack risk-free. Hold him back and your opponent has to do the math, and often they don’t attack at all.

Bluffing is explicitly allowed. According to the official FAQ you can activate River even when you don’t have a matching Gear in hand, and the Gear doesn’t have to go on River, it can go on any friendly Unit. So a ready River with four cards in hand always looks the same to your opponent.

On defense the River trick is safe, because the attacker can’t respond to it anymore.^*1 They have to do the math beforehand. In your own attack that doesn’t apply. There your opponent can react to the freshly played Gear, with Detonate for example.

River can play twelve cards of this list for free: three each of Mantis Blades, Satori, Zetatech Faceplate and Adrenaline Converter. Gorilla Arms costs 4 and falls outside.

The River block costs nothing and flips the attack

With River, an enemy attack on your Gigs turns into removal against the attacker. Your opponent attacks, Bombus or Meredith block, get spent in the process and become the new target. River puts a free Gear on the blocker, and the fight resolves with the new power.

This only works if the blocker ends up with more power than the attacker, because on a tie both lose. It also fails if River is already spent, say because you paid him as 1 €$ on your own turn. And an attacker with its own anti-blocker effect can stop the redirect.

Once the fight is on, the attacker has no answer left. All they can do is run the numbers beforehand and skip the attack, which is often exactly what happens. That’s the whole reason you keep River ready.

On the block, your Gear choice decides the fight

Block with the Converter when the attacker has exactly 2 power. An example against BBG shows why: Jacked-In Voodoo Boy attacks with 2 power, Secondhand Bombus blocks.

With Mantis, Satori or Zetatech, Bombus has 2 power. Tie, both lose and both get defeated. River’s filter triggers, and Satori draws nothing on a tie. With the Adrenaline Converter, Bombus has 3 power and wins, and only Voodoo Boy dies.

Mantis via River plus a Muamar Call for 1 €$ also ends in a tie, except Bombus can’t be defeated then while Voodoo Boy can.

In the video KP called putting the Converter on Bombus a bad play. That was about KP’s own turn, as the attacker. On a block, the same card on the same Unit is used correctly.

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Which Legend shows up first is random, and in KP’s list each one pulls weight

Plan your first Call as “draw a card” and don’t bank on River. From turn 2 on you keep a Call in reserve that also works during your opponent’s attack. Both come down to how Legends are laid out.

Your three Legends sit face-down and shuffled, and you don’t know which is where. When you Call, you pick a position, not a known card.^*2 By our math you hit River on the first Call one time in three. By the second Call you have him two times in three, by the third for sure.

A Call without River still isn’t dead air in KP’s list, because both fixers have two modes each.

Muamar Reyes: {Call} Choose one effect. A friendly Unit can’t be defeated in a fight this turn. // Draw 1. {Spend} Adjust a Gig by 1.

Dexter DeShawn: Off the Grid: {Call} Choose one effect. Give a friendly Unit +2 power this turn. // Draw 1. {Spend}: Increase a Gig by up to 2.

If River comes first, you have the Gear tricks right away, but no Gig control and no combat trick yet. Hit Muamar and you draw a card or protect a Unit in a fight, and later his Spend moves a Gig by 1. With Dexter first you draw a card or give +2 power, and afterwards his Spend raises a Gig by up to 2.

On cards alone the fixers are a wash, since the popular partners Dum Dum and Viktor also bring cards on the Call (Dum Dum draws one or two, Viktor fetches up to two Gear). The fixers‘ extra is Gig control plus a combat trick. Why that matters against BBG is in the BBG section.

In the video it played out exactly like that: KP hit Muamar on turn 1 (“call Mumar. Uh I’ll draw a card”) and Dexter on turn 2 (“I will call Dexter Deshawn and draw a card”). Both times KP took the card. River must have come as the third Legend after that (exactly when, the transcript doesn’t show). Later KP says “preemptively, let’s river him” as a Zetatech hits the table.

MoTheMonster rates the fixers highly: “I think all the [fixers] have truly surprised me with how powerful and spiky they can be as combat tricks.” The auto-transcript writes “fixtures”.

The Call works as a reaction too

Even without a face-up River you have an answer during your opponent’s attack: you Call a face-down Legend for 1 €$. With Dexter your blocker gets +2, with Muamar it can’t be defeated in the fight. And if it’s River, you use his Spend right away for a Gear, which only works if River is ready when you Call him. You can’t have spent him as €$ before, and you pay for the Call with a different resource.^*3

This fails if you already Called during your opponent’s turn, if no face-down Legend is left or if no €$ is free. You get one Call per turn, and your opponent’s turn counts separately. A Call on your own turn and one on your opponent’s turn would then both be legal.

Plan the fixers‘ Spends for your own turn, because neither Muamar’s nor Dexter’s Spend has {Quick}. During an enemy attack the rules only allow reactions, meaning Calls, blockers and Quick effects. There’s no FAQ entry on this, but by the rules the fixer Spends aren’t allowed there, not even against BBG.

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Every card in this list has a job

All 43 cards, one by one: what you do with each at the table and why it’s in at this count. The rates refer to 206 public River lists with a red Legend and measure how often other people include the card. They say nothing about wins.

River Ward: Detective on the Hunt

River is the one card you want to keep ready, because then your opponent has to treat every one of your Units as if it had +3. Besides the free Gear, River has a second effect: when a friendly equipped Unit is defeated, you look at the top two cards of your deck and trash one. So every equipped Unit you lose improves your next turn. MoTheMonster calls River “the only unreplaceable legend in the deck”.

Muamar Reyes: El Capitán

Muamar’s first Call is usually “Draw 1”, though during an enemy attack it can save a fight instead. His Spend moves a Gig by exactly 1. Against BBG your preferred target is the opponent’s d4, pushed off the 1.

KP took the card on turn 1 and explained: “I think I don’t need to protect any of my units at this point in time.” The protection mode has a catch: a Unit that can’t be defeated still doesn’t win the fight.^*4

Plan for exactly one step. “Adjust a Gig by 1” has no “up to”, so the Gig has to change by exactly 1. A d4 showing 4 can only go down.

Muamar shows up in 64 of 417 River lists, that’s 15.3% (as of October 14, 2026).

Dexter DeShawn: Off the Grid

Called as a reaction, Dexter gives a blocker +2 power. His Spend raises a Gig by up to 2: against BBG that means a min Gig, and in your own Gig area the d20 for Over the Edge.

KP used the Spend against the opponent in the video: “I will activate Dexter Deshawn to […] turn your five into a six”. Dexter is also the list’s red RAM source. Without him, by our math, Johnny, Mantis, Satori, Meredith, 6th Street, Swordwise and Over the Edge wouldn’t be legal. Dexter: Off the Grid appears in 25 River lists.

3× Mantis Blades

In a pinch you play Mantis Blades without River too, for 1 €$ and +2 power. The blades lift Bombus out of the zone where even a single-effect Pyramid Song bottom-decks it.

Mantis sits in 93% of River lists with a red Legend, at 2.89 copies on average. The cheapest +2 makes the “one Gear, ten power” plan the most consistent. KP used it in the video as protection against Pyramid: “Go ahead and insulate ourselves with a Mantis Blades a little bit.”

3× Satori: Sword of Saburo

Satori goes on the Unit that’s about to win a fight, meaning a blocker or Johnny. On a Unit that only attacks Gigs you waste the effect.

Satori gives +2 and draws a card when the Unit wins a fight, according to the FAQ also when it wins on defense. On a tie you draw nothing. The rate is 88%, 2.73 copies on average. Johnny wins fights especially often and draws a card with Satori every single time.

3× Zetatech Faceplate

Attach Zetatech before the Unit gets spent, and every attack, block or Spend of that Unit triggers a Gig adjustment by 1. If you then have three or more different friendly Gig values, you draw a card.

Zetatech sits in 92 to 93% of all River lists, which makes it the most-played Gear in the builder. KP in the video: “trigger zetch. I will modify this D6 into a five and draw a card.” What matters for you is the order: equip first, then attack or block, or you miss the trigger. The FAQ covers the timing in four answers.^*5

Since the adjustment may also hit an enemy Gig, Zetatech is a draw engine and a tool against BBG in one card.

3× Adrenaline Converter

The Converter is the biggest bonus River can play for free. Save it for Johnny or Jackie when you’re behind.

If a Rival controls at least 2 more Gigs than you, this Unit has {Adrenaline}.

It costs 2 and gives +3. Adrenaline lets the Unit attack on the turn it’s played despite Lag, but according to the FAQ only while the condition holds. MoTheMonster keeps it short: “without even reading its text box just says plus three”. KP calls the card “messed up”.

It’s the reason the list runs double yellow, since it needs RAM 4. The rate in River lists with a red Legend is 62%.

3× Gorilla Arms

Gorilla Arms only goes on a Unit that attacks directly and reaches 10 or more power with it. That turns one attack into a three-Gig heist.

The first time this Unit steals 1 or more Gigs each turn, steal a rival Gig with a value not shared by a friendly Gig.

The Gear costs 4, gives +3 and can’t be played through River. KP laid out the plan in the intro: “Gorilla Arms and Adrenaline Converter are messed up cards and the game plan is to abuse the hell out of them.” In the video KP steals 2 Gigs with it in one attack.

MoTheMonster only had Gorilla Arms on the test list: “I could see this as a one or two off”. In River lists with a red Legend the rate is 44%, at 2.34 copies on average. Next to that, KP’s full playset looks aggressive to us.

3× Secondhand Bombus

Bombus is the blocker a River Gear turns into a fight winner, and on the side it’s fodder for Live with the Aftermath and bait for Les Élémens. It costs 2 and has 0 power.

With 0 power Bombus can’t kill anything in a fight.^*6 Without Gear it doesn’t defeat an attacker. According to the FAQ it can block on the turn it’s played. MoTheMonster: “I think secondhand Bombas is easily worth running”.

3× Swordwise Huscle

Swordwise only attacks with a +2 Gear, because it draws a card on attack only from 5 power up. Against blue it’s the first Unit you give up.

It costs 3, has 3 power and is the only Unit of that size in the deck. Naked, it dies to every piece of blue removal. The rate is 40%. KP played a Swordwise on turn 2 and equipped it with Mantis Blades on turn 3, while a Swordwise played later stood there without Gear and promptly got removed by Maman Brigitte.

3× 6th Street Recruits

6th Street is your default 4 €$ play, already on turn 1 when you’re going second. The Unit survives Pyramid Song and Towerfall even without Gear, as long as BBG doesn’t add Floor It on top. When one of your Units steals a d6, you may raise any Gig by up to 6.

For 4 cost you get 6 power. MoTheMonster counts it among the core Units: “Six Street Recruit dodges the most removal outright as soon as you play it. Towerfall doesn’t kill it by itself. Pyramid Song doesn’t kill it by itself. and Bonnie and Clyde doesn’t kill it by itself”. The rate is 34%. KP found the card late in the video: “I finally found a six street recruits, but it was like on turn a bajillion.”

3× Meredith Stout: Stone Cold Corpo

Against Legends that hit the field as Units via Go Solo, Meredith is your blocker, because she gets +2 in fights against Legends. When your opponent adjusts or swaps your Gigs, you return a card from your trash. Against Johnny in the mirror she always loses, because she’s CORPO.

Meredith costs 4 and has 5 power. A Legend on the field is still a Legend, so her bonus applies against Go Solo too.^*7 The rate is 69%. KP in the intro: “We have Meredith in here. Gear him up and steal a bunch of gigs.”

MoTheMonster cut Meredith from the V3 list (“Her five power is kind of awkward”), but rates her highly alongside River: “With Meredith Stout ready and River Ward ready, six power attackers can’t really attack us”.

2× Jackie Welles: Ride or Die Choom

Turn one of your Gigs to an even value before attacking, because Jackie gets +2 on attack for each friendly even Gig. A single even Gig already brings the Unit to 10 without Gear. If Jackie gets defeated, you draw a card for each friendly odd Gig.

Jackie costs 6 and has 8 power. Muamar and Zetatech, which shift a Gig by 1, help with parity. Dexter’s Spend can raise a Gig by 2 and keeps an even value even. Because Jackie reaches 10 without Gear, Detonate can’t shrink this attack.

Only two copies, because the deck already runs five cards at cost 6. After Johnny, Jackie is the priciest single card in the main deck, €5.81 per Cardmarket. The rate is 22%, 2.07 copies on average. Two is the usual number. KP noticed that in the video too: “Oh, I only played two jackies. Never mind. Deck only plays two jack.”

3× Johnny Silverhand: Never Stop Fighting

Attack with Johnny into a spent enemy Unit or a blocker first. After the first fight he wins each turn he readies, and then you go for the Gigs. Against CORPO Units he wins every fight: “This Unit wins all fights against CORPO Units.”

Johnny costs 6 and has 8 power. His “ready it” needs a fitting target.^*8 If no spent enemy Unit is around and nobody blocks, Johnny goes straight for the Gigs. CORPO Units include Hanako, Corpo Security and, in the mirror, Meredith and Augmented Negotiators.

MoTheMonster: “I run three Johnny Silverhands. I would not fault you if you only run two”. The rate is 54%, 2.29 copies on average.

3× Live with the Aftermath

Play Live when your opponent has exactly one Unit and you can sacrifice a Bombus or an equipped cheap Unit. Each player defeats one of their own Units, and if your sacrifice is equipped, River’s filter triggers on top.

The card costs 3, the rate is 38%. KP in the video: “Let’s three live with the aftermath. We’re both going to defeat […]”. The video adds: “Second best removal spell in the game, some might say.” If a Go Solo Legend is the only Unit on their side, it gets defeated and is out of the game.

If your opponent has a second Unit, Live fails, because then they choose. Same if all you have are valuable Units or the enemy Unit can’t be defeated thanks to an effect.

2× Over the Edge

Sell Over the Edge early and play it late. Without a d20 of your own it’s dead, with a stolen high d20 it kills almost anything.

You only roll in your own d20 at the very end,^*9 so the card only comes online late. KP runs two copies. At a 17% rate it’s KP’s rarest pick. KP sold a copy as early as turn 2. In the video the d20s changed hands several times, including via a steal: “I’ll take your d20 at three”.

A niche case on the side: “Defeat a Unit” without “rival” also allows your own Unit according to the FAQ, and if that one is equipped, you get River’s filter.

3× Bootleg Black Sapphire Show

Sell a card from your hand first and only then play Bootleg. Make sure beforehand that you have one even and one odd Gig.

Sell the top card of your deck. If you control a Gig with an even value and a Gig with an odd value, draw 2.

The order matters because only this one is officially confirmed.^*10 KP did it right in the video: “Let’s sell a mantis blades. […] Play a bootleg black sapphire show. […] So, I’ll sell the top card and then draw two.” The Eddie from the sale is ready immediately, so Bootleg effectively costs you just 4.^*11

Bootleg is the list’s only real draw card. In River lists with a red Legend the rate is 32%, in lists with Muamar or Dexter it’s 66%. Fixers and Bootleg go together.

KP deliberately keeps the friendly dice different: “I’m just going to keep rolling the opposite of what you want because I don’t much care about my dice other than just them being different.” Different values feed Bootleg with even plus odd and Zetatech with three distinct values.

Keep the draw conditions alive, or your hand runs dry. Apart from Bootleg, the list only draws under conditions: Muamar and Dexter on the Call, Zetatech at three different values, Satori after a won fight, Swordwise when attacking with 5 power, and Jackie has to be defeated for it. KP still had plenty of cards in hand in the video. What was missing were the big Units.

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Ten power is the number everything builds toward

Before every attack, check whether one Gear gets you to 10 power, ideally for free through River. Never let Johnny or Jackie attack without Gear when a 2-power Gear is available. The reason is a hard threshold: from 10 power a Unit steals 2 Gigs instead of one.^*12

The list is built so that a single Gear lifts the big Units over that line. By our math from the card texts it looks like this:

Unit	Gear	Power	Gigs
Johnny (8)	Mantis, Satori or Zetatech (+2)	10	2
Johnny (8)	Adrenaline Converter (+3)	11	2
Jackie (8)	+2 Gear	10	2
Jackie (8)	none, one friendly even Gig	10	2
6th Street (6)	Gorilla Arms (+3) and Mantis (+2)	11	2 plus Gorilla

With Gorilla Arms, a Unit at 10 or more power steals three Gigs. You need seven to win, twelve are in play, so one such attack is almost half the distance.

MoTheMonster says about the V3 list: “This can easily read deal three gigs in this deck. Royce, Rock and Rocker Boy, and Johnny all get to 10 power with Gorilla Arms.” In KP’s list it’s Johnny and Jackie.

Gorilla has one catch: your opponent has to own a Gig with a value you don’t have yourself. Share all values and the bonus steal is gone, so shift one of your own values with Muamar or Dexter beforehand.

Take Control lowers your steal by 1. A Unit at 10 power still has one steal left, and Gorilla still fires. A Unit at 1 to 9 power drops to zero, and Gorilla Arms doesn’t trigger at all.^*13

The Gear chain to three Gigs

A Unit with at least 6 power gets Gorilla Arms for 4 €$ and a River Gear for 0 €$, stands at 10 or more power and attacks the Gigs. It steals two on its own, and Gorilla grabs a third with a value you don’t have yet.

The chain breaks if your opponent only has values you already own, or if Take Control comes down and costs you a steal. Detonate destroys a 2-power Gear in the React Step, and the power drops below 10 (against Converter and Gorilla at power 3 Detonate doesn’t help, per its card text it only hits Gear with power 2 or less). And if your opponent has fewer Gigs, you steal however many are there.

One Spend serves Jackie and Bootleg

With a Muamar Spend or a Zetatech trigger you flip the parity of your Gigs. Jackie wants even Gigs, Bootleg one even and one odd, which obviously doesn’t work with just one friendly Gig. You can’t adjust past the edge of the die or onto the same value.

If your mirror opponent plays Meredith, read her text closely: she rewards her owner when a rival adjusts that player’s Gigs. Your adjustments to your own Gigs don’t trigger her.

Zetatech draws on every attack

Put Zetatech on a Unit that gets spent regularly, meaning an attacker or blocker. With each Spend you shift a Gig by 1, and if three or more different values are showing afterwards, you draw a card. With fewer than three friendly Gigs the engine doesn’t run.

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Three turns show the math

Count your resources the same way every turn: ready Legends plus Eddies. Once per turn you sell a card from your hand, the Eddies stay on the table and ready up again at the start of each of your turns.

By our math that means: going second, you have exactly n plus 3 €$ on turn n if you sell every turn. All three Legends in this list have a Sell tag and can therefore be spent as 1 €$. The player going first has only 2 €$ on turn 1, because their two leftmost Legends start spent. MoTheMonster counts the same way and talks about “very efficient turn one plays” and getting “onto our five resource turn”.

Turn 1 going second: 6th Street for 4 €$

Going second, you open with 6th Street Recruits. In hand: 6th Street, Swordwise, Mantis, Zetatech, Bootleg, Live with the Aftermath and the card you drew. You don’t sell Bootleg, that’s your draw card from turn 2 on. You sell Mantis and have 1 Eddie.

Option A: 6th Street for 4 €$, paid with the Eddie and three Legends. No Legend is left free afterwards, so no Call. In exchange you have a 6-power Unit on board that Pyramid, Towerfall and Bonnie and Clyde can’t kill on their own. Your opponent needs Les Élémens, Placide or Maman Brigitte, and Maman only works while 6th Street carries no Gear.

Option B: Swordwise for 3 €$, with the fourth resource paying for a Call. Everything is spent afterwards, and Swordwise with its 3 power dies to every piece of blue removal. Two times in three the Call brings a card, the third time it flips River. He stays spent, though, and his Spend isn’t available until your next turn.

Our verdict: Option A. Against BBG, Swordwise without Gear has no attack that draws a card, for that it needs 5 power.

Going first, you only have 2 €$ on turn 1, so you sell and Call for 1 €$. KP did exactly that: “sell this Zetate Tech face plate. Then I’m just going to go ahead and call Mumar. Uh I’ll draw a card.” The alternative is Bombus for 2 €$ as a blocker.

Turn 3 going second: the three-Gig attack

Here the list grabs half the distance to a win in a single attack, and you also see what can stop it. The board state:

• 6th Street Recruits has been out since turn 1, so it has no Lag anymore.
• Muamar was Called on turn 2, you took the card. Meredith has been out since turn 2.
• River and Dexter are face-down.
• In hand: Gorilla Arms, Zetatech, Satori, Over the Edge.
• Your opponent has 3 Gigs, including a d4 showing 1. You also have 3 Gigs.

You sell Over the Edge and now have 3 Eddies. With Muamar (face-up, with a Sell tag) and the two face-down Legends that’s 6 resources.

You Call for 1 Eddie. Since the first Call brought Muamar, it’s now 50/50 between River and Dexter, and here it’s River. He stays ready after the Call, because you paid for it with an Eddie.

River puts Zetatech on 6th Street for free, and the Unit now has 8 power. Gorilla Arms costs 4 €$, paid with 2 Eddies, Muamar and the face-down Dexter, and 6th Street sits at 11. You have 0 €$ left, and Meredith is ready as a blocker.

6th Street attacks the Gigs. Zetatech triggers before the React Step and shifts a Gig by 1, but you only draw a card if you yourself have three different values.

After your opponent’s React Step you steal 2 Gigs with 11 power, and Gorilla grabs a third with a value you don’t have yet. If a d6 is among them, 6th Street lets you raise a Gig by up to 6.

Score afterwards: 6 to 0 Gigs. That doesn’t win you anything yet.^*14 An empty Gig area isn’t a valid attack target either, your opponent first has to roll in a new die before you can follow up.

Opponent’s answer	Effect	Result
Take Control (Quick)	one steal fewer	1 plus Gorilla, so 2 Gigs
Floor It (−1 power)	10 power	still 2 plus 1
Detonate on Zetatech (red opponent)	9 power	1 plus Gorilla, so 2
Blocker	fight instead of steal	6th Street at 11 beats almost anything, but steals nothing
Opponent only has values you share	no Gorilla steal	2 Gigs
River doesn’t show up on the Call	pay 2 €$ for Zetatech, 4 €$ for Gorilla, no Call	6 €$ is exactly enough, same result

The last row shows what River brings to this turn: he saves 1 €$, and that’s exactly the Eddie the Call cost you before. Net zero. What you gain is a face-up River for the turns that follow.

Turn 4 going second: Johnny and Converter claw back two Gigs

KP couldn’t play this catch-up turn for three turns straight in the video. If you know it, you save Converter and Johnny for it on purpose. The board state:

• The BBG opponent has 5 Gigs, you have 3. The Converter’s condition is met.
• Your opponent attacked with Jacked-In Voodoo Boy (2 power), and the Unit is now spent.
• River is face-up and ready, Muamar face-up, Dexter face-down.
• You have 3 Eddies. In hand: Johnny, Adrenaline Converter, Satori, Live with the Aftermath.

You sell Satori, that’s your fourth Eddie. With Muamar and the face-down Dexter you have 6 €$, River you count separately. Johnny costs 6 €$, and after that nothing is left.

River puts the Converter on Johnny for free, and he now has 11 power and Adrenaline. Johnny attacks the spent Voodoo Boy, 11 against 2. Voodoo Boy gets defeated, Johnny readies and goes for the Gigs on the second attack. Since your opponent still leads 5 to 3, Adrenaline still holds, and 11 power steals 2 Gigs.

Result: 5 to 3 for you, and your opponent is down a Unit. MoTheMonster’s “seven Eddie turn” is exactly this math, and it adds up.

Without a spent target and without a blocker you get only one attack and 2 Gigs. If your opponent blocks, Johnny fights the blocker and still readies on a win (against CORPO blockers he always wins). Take Control pushes the steal down to 1 Gig.

Your opponent’s lead can’t drop below 2 between the attacks, because the first attack steals nothing. Chrome Reverie from the previous turn doesn’t affect Johnny, since he wasn’t in play yet.

Often you won’t get this turn. By our math you see Johnny and Converter together by the tenth card in 33.3% of games, with Jackie as a stand-in in 44.9%. Jackie doesn’t ready after a won fight, though, and then only steals 2 once. Treat this turn as plan B for games where you’re behind, which lines up with KP’s experience in the video.

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Keep every hand with a Unit and a cheap Gear

Keep any opening hand with at least one Unit costing 4 or less and at least one Gear costing 2 or less. That’s roughly four hands out of five. Hands without a Unit go back, and you don’t mulligan to find Bootleg or Johnny.

You get one mulligan: whole hand back, shuffle, six new cards. The player going first decides first. In a best-of-three the loser of the previous game picks who starts. The player going first draws normally on turn 1, and KP does that in the video too: “So, let’s draw.” By turn n you’ve seen 6 plus n cards, plus whatever Calls bring.

Our math for a six-card opening hand:

Event	Probability
at least 1 Unit (17 in the deck)	97.4%
no Unit (KP’s case)	2.6%
Units: 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5+	2.6 / 14.9 / 31.4 / 31.4 / 15.7 / 4.0%
at least 1 Unit costing 4 or less (12: Bombus, Swordwise, 6th Street, Meredith)	90.2%
at least 1 Gear costing 2 or less (12)	90.2%
both at once (keep criterion)	80.6%
at least 1 of 6th Street or Meredith (6)	65.0%
at least 1 Bootleg (3)	39.4%
at least 1 eight-drop (5)	57.7%
at least 1 eight-drop by the 10th card	78.3%
at least 1 sellable card (23)	99.7%
no Unit twice in a row	0.07%

Mulliganing for Bootleg isn’t worth it, the card only shows up in 39.4% of hands. Same with Johnny: at least one Johnny is also 39.4%.

KP sent the first hand back without a precise reason: “I don’t think I can keep this. I think if you have what I don’t want you to have, then I’m going to feel real bad.” The new hand had no Unit: “Well, I have to keep this hand regardless of if I like it or not.” Later KP described it as “five gear and a bootleg”.

So the 2.6% event hit right after the mulligan. In our view the mulligan still wasn’t wrong, the outcome just couldn’t be changed afterwards.

What a hand is worth shifts with the opponent, at least as we see it. Against BBG a hand with 6th Street or Meredith weighs more: 6th Street survives Pyramid Song and Towerfall without Gear, Meredith needs one Gear against Towerfall, and against red aggro decks Bombus and Meredith count as blockers. A hand without a 4-drop but with two Gear and Bombus is still playable against BBG. Against Smasher, not so much.

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Against BBG the fixers protect you from removal

Against BBG you strip away the conditions their cards need to work. To do that you deliberately turn their dice with Muamar, Dexter, Zetatech and 6th Street: min Gigs up, value-pairs apart, and above all the enemy d4. You keep your Units above 5 or 6 power and equip every important Unit. You only use the Converter once BBG is ahead, and then you attack on the turn you play the Unit.

The details are in the BBG guide. Here we stick to the Gear player’s side of the table.

BBG cards need conditions, and the fixers wreck them

Every Gig adjustment on the other side can shut off a BBG card, because many of them only work under a condition per their card text. Pyramid Song only picks both modes “If a friendly d4 is a min Gig”. Chrome Reverie gives a free Call “If you control a min Gig”. Alt Cunningham: Soulkiller Architect gets cheaper “for each friendly min Gig”. Jackie Welles: Pour One Out draws “If it becomes a min Gig”. Hanako Arasaka: Daughter of the Emperor draws “for each friendly value-pair”.

Muamar and Dexter may adjust enemy Gigs too, within a few limits.^*15 KP showed it in the video: “let’s go ahead and turn your D12 into a three. […] This is why the fixers are super super good.” Right after that the video says: “You will not be drawing any extra cards while I have any say.”

Shortly before, the opponent had still drawn: “Uh I control a min gig, so I’d like to draw a card.” Later the other side complained: “Not that it matters because you can just dexter it back.” The reply: “I sure can. As I have been doing all game.”

MoTheMonster sees the same role for 6th Street Recruits: “If they ever do roll their d6 and we steal it, we can start pumping up their other numbers to make mining gig decks almost unviable.” The intended word is “min Gig”, the auto-transcript garbled it.

That’s why KP runs Muamar and Dexter instead of the popular Dum Dum and Viktor. We read it as a meta answer to BBG, and the choice has little to do with the Gear itself.

Five and six power are the thresholds against blue

Against BBG and Judy, get every Unit you want to keep to at least 5 power. Against Towerfall it needs at least 6. If BBG plays Floor It (−1) on the Unit first, it needs 6 against Pyramid and 7 against Towerfall. Never leave Bombus standing at 0 power, and against Maman Brigitte equip every important Unit. Here, Gear is armor.

The card texts explain why.

Pyramid Song: Give a rival Unit -4 power this turn. // Bottom-deck a rival Unit with power 0.

Towerfall: Give all rival Units -5 power this turn. // Bottom-deck all rival Units with power 0.

Pyramid Song only gets both modes when the BBG player’s own d4 shows 1. Then your Unit first gets −4, and if it’s at 0 power afterwards, it goes to the bottom of the deck, which takes out every Unit with 4 power or less. Towerfall picks both modes when BBG has less Street Cred than you, and then catches every Unit with 5 power or less. For this math, the Unit’s power plus its Gear is what counts.^*16

On top of that come Les Élémens (“Bottom-deck a Rival’s lowest-power Unit.”) and Maman Brigitte. After discarding two Programs, Maman puts a Unit without Gear on the bottom of the deck (“bottom-deck a rival unequipped Unit”). These thresholds match the ones in the BBG guide. That guide also covers the Floor It case: Towerfall pushes a 6-power Unit down to 1, and with Floor It beforehand it needs 7.

For KP’s list our math gives this table:

Unit	Power	survives double Pyramid (5+)	survives double Towerfall (6+)
Secondhand Bombus	0	with two Gear totaling at least +5, e.g. Converter and Zetatech	with Gear totaling at least +6 power, e.g. two Gear with power 3 (Converter or Gorilla) or three +2 Gear
Swordwise Huscle	3	with one +2 Gear	with Gear totaling at least +3 power, e.g. Converter, Gorilla or two +2 Gear
Meredith Stout	5	yes, without Gear	with one Gear
6th Street Recruits	6	yes	yes, without Gear
Johnny, Jackie	8	yes	yes

Floor It isn’t factored into the table. If it lands on a Unit as well, that Unit slides down one tier. Meredith then needs a Gear against Pyramid too, and so does 6th Street against Towerfall. Johnny and Jackie at 8 power still need no Gear.

Watch your Street Cred around Towerfall. If you steal high dice against BBG or turn your own up, you unlock the double mode.^*17 Messing with the enemy dice beats maximizing your own.

The video shows the protection in action. KP put Mantis Blades on Swordwise Huscle on turn 3: “Go ahead and insulate ourselves with a Mantis Blades a little bit.” That gave Swordwise 5 power, enough to survive double Pyramid Song too. Bombus only came into play on turn 4. The opponent then sold Pyramid Song: “I think you’re built to beat this. So I think I might actually sell the pyramid song.” KP replied: “We did put a mantis blades on my guy for a reason. And that was one of the two reasons.”

Against blue, then, Gear lifts your Units over the minus thresholds and makes them immune to Maman. And a cheap equipped Unit parked next to a stronger one pulls Les Élémens onto itself.

River’s filter does nothing against blue

Spread your Gear generously against red and yellow, because every loss brings a filter card. Against blue, concentrate it on a few Units and expect to lose Unit and Gear together.

That’s down to River’s second effect: “When a friendly equipped Unit is defeated, search the top 2 cards of your deck and trash 1.” According to the FAQ the trash is mandatory, and the other card stays on top. The effect only reacts to “defeated”. If your Unit gets bottom-decked, nothing happens, and the Gear goes along with it.^*18

BBG’s removal mostly bottom-decks: Pyramid in its second mode, Towerfall in its second mode, Les Élémens, Maman. Red and yellow work with “defeat”, for example Bonnie and Clyde, Over the Edge, Royce: Don’t Call Me Simon, Detonate against Gear, Live with the Aftermath and Adam Smasher: Ender of Legends.

The filter never gives you an extra card anyway. You see two, trash one and keep the other on top, so you only improve your next draw, and against blue even that goes away. Which is why the list is tougher against red and in the mirror than against blue.

The Converter catches up against stall decks

Save the Adrenaline Converter for the moment your opponent is 2 Gigs ahead. Then you play an 8-power Unit, put the Converter on it for free through River and attack the same turn. Against blue this dodges removal that can only be played on their own turn.

KP was counting on exactly that: “Alt is undoubtedly very strong, but uh we’re going to see what Adrenaline Converter can do. It’s a pretty good card against blue shells for the same reason that like ghost [go] solo legends are not bad. for the same reason that cards like Nadia are pretty good.”

In the video, BBG gets described like this: “it just wants to stall. It wants to steal like one or two gigs and then just stall.” Against a deck that steals one or two Gigs and then blocks, you’re almost automatically 2 Gigs behind, so the Converter is often live against BBG. The lead has to actually exist when you attack, though.^*19

Pyramid, Towerfall, Les Élémens, Chrome Reverie and Nocturne don’t have {Quick} and come too late for a Unit that attacks on the turn it’s played. Chrome Reverie only hits Units that are already out (“A rival Unit can’t attack until your next turn”). The effect from the previous turn doesn’t touch a freshly played Adrenaline Unit.

MoTheMonster runs the numbers on the turn: “as little as the seven Eddie turn we can go Johnny Silverhand tap river ward play adrenaline converter on Johnny Silverhand kill a unit cuz Johnny Silverhand is swinging for 11 […] readies steals two gigs”.

KP was self-critical about misusing it: “Using my adrenaline converters on Bombases feels really bad, by the way. […] This is not what you’re supposed to be doing with this card.” And: “There were three consecutive turns where if I have got to play like a Johnny on an adrenaline converter, I would have […] Oh, I would have been so good.”

How the game in the video went

The opponent played a Hanako Control deck with Hanako, Alt and Jackie, and the game was a single Bo1. KP only won it on paper.

The opponent stopped KP’s attackers several times with Chrome Reverie and Nocturne. “Chrome revery uh so that your sword wise hustle cannot attack”, came the call, and later: “Noctturn turn again so that um Sixth Street cannot attack”. Les Élémens removed a Unit, and Maman Brigitte took a Swordwise without Gear, played later, off the table.

About the BBG deck, the video says: “tempo is so wildly important when you only get like seven turns” and “just having the full six, you know, your guys can’t attack effects, the chrome rearies and the nocturns is enough.”

The game turned on a mistake from the other side, which played two Units instead of a Program. Jacked-In Voodoo Boy can only attack if a Program was played that same turn. KP: “fun fact, the two cards you played this turn were units.” The opponent admitted: “if I wasn’t being cute and stupid with the Breijit, I I had Towerfall and uh take control in my hand that I could have just played.” KP summed it up: “I know on a technical level I won this game, but […] on a realistic level I did not.”

The plan against BBG in five steps

From the card texts we derive this plan:

1. Play 6th Street early. The Unit survives Pyramid and Towerfall as long as no Floor It joins in. Against Maman you equip it, against Les Élémens and Placide no Gear helps.
2. From turn 2 on, aim the fixer Spends at the enemy d4 and at value-pairs.
3. Concentrate Gear on Units with 6 or more power. Bombus with Mantis stays on board as bait for Les Élémens.
4. Save Converter and Johnny for the late turn when BBG blocks with one or two stolen Gigs.
5. Don’t push your own Street Cred above BBG’s without need.

Expect answers during combat. Take Control has {Quick} and subtracts a steal. Floor It has {Quick} too: it drops power by 1 and can push an attacker below 10 that way, and the common BBG list from our BBG guide runs two. Reboot Optics also has {Quick}. Placide bottom-decks a Unit on play and on attack after discarding a Program, no matter how big it is (“{Play} {Attack} You may discard 1 Program. If you do, bottom-deck a rival Unit.”).

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Against Smasher, Judy and the mirror we only have paper math

For these three matchups our sources contain no game and no matchup stats, only deckbuilder numbers.

Red with Adam Smasher

Keep Meredith and River ready against Go Solo. Expect Detonate and prefer power-3 Gear in your own attacks, and save Live with the Aftermath for the moment Smasher stands alone.

Adam Smasher: Ender of Legends has Go Solo, costs 9, has 9 power and defeats an enemy Unit on play (“{Play} Defeat a rival Unit.”). As a partner Legend he shows up in 43 River lists, that’s 10.3%. We didn’t analyze a dedicated Smasher list for this guide.

What red has against this list is in the card texts. Detonate (“{Quick} Defeat a rival Gear with power 2 or less.”) hits your 2-power Gear. Royce: Don’t Call Me Simon hits Units with power up to 2, up to 3 with more Street Cred. Bonnie and Clyde hits Units with power 4 or less, two targets when two Gigs behind. Minotaur hits Units up to 5 power when its player has more Street Cred.

At 9 power without Gear, Smasher steals only one Gig. Meredith blocks with 5 plus 2 against Legends, so 7, and the Converter via River makes that 10, more than Smasher’s 9. Smasher gets defeated and is out of the game. A Muamar Call makes your blocker indestructible, and then Smasher’s attack goes without a steal. Over the Edge kills Smasher with a friendly d20 at 9 or higher.

Against Detonate you reach 10 on Johnny and Jackie with the Converter or through Jackie’s parity. Jackie doesn’t need any Gear. Since Smasher’s on-play effect hits your best Unit, don’t stack everything on one Unit when your opponent has 9 €$.

Blue with Judy Álvarez

Stay above 5 and 6 power, same as against BBG. Clear out small Judy Units like Voodoo Boy (2 power) or Evelyn: Scheming Siren (0 power) in combat. Expect every Braindance card to make an enemy Unit 1 stronger.

The text of Judy: Braindance Maestro reads: “When you play a BRAINDANCE Program, give a friendly Unit +1 power this turn. {Spend} Trash the top card of your deck. If it’s a Program, you may add it to your hand.” Braindance Programs include Pyramid Song, Towerfall, Chrome Reverie, Afterparty at Lizzie’s, Bootleg, Shattered Memories, Bonnie and Clyde, Carnage at the Colosseum, Industrial Assembly, Peace Offering and Memory Relapse. At Gamertag Mythras, Judy is the second most common Legend with 168 of 716 decks, that’s 23.5%.

The removal thresholds are the same as against BBG, and with a red splash Bonnie and Clyde may join in. Judy’s +1 makes ties on blocks unreliable, so pick +3 over +2 there. Memory Relapse spends a Unit that doesn’t ready until the Judy player’s next turn, which aims it at your main Unit. So spread your Gear across two Units.

Which Legend combination and which removal density “the” Judy deck runs isn’t documented in our sources.

The mirror

Never attack into a ready River without counting in +3. Aim Johnny at CORPO blockers like Meredith and Augmented Negotiators. From the sideboard come Detonate and MaxTac.

If you see the enemy River spent, attack in the same turn cycle, because that means your opponent played Gear or paid 1 €$ on their own turn. Against an opponent with the same values Gorilla loses its bonus steal, so keep your Gig values different from theirs with Muamar and Dexter.

An enemy Meredith returns a card from the trash when you adjust or swap their Gigs, and your Zetatech, Dexter and Muamar effects on their Gigs feed her. Live with the Aftermath is weaker in the mirror, because both sides have Bombus to sacrifice.

MaxTac Suppression Team (“Rival Units can’t attack the turn they’re played”) stops attacks on the turn a Unit is played, even with Adrenaline and, according to the FAQ, also with Go Solo.^*20 That makes the card interesting in the mirror and against Smasher.

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You have to build the sideboard yourself

Without a seven-card sideboard you can’t submit the list at Competition events with decklists. KP’s list doesn’t have one, so for a tournament you need your own. The seven cards below fit the color budget and are derived from comparison lists and card texts. Nobody has tested them.

Per the tournament rules you swap one for one, Legends can’t be changed, and after the match the deck has to match the submitted state again.

The color budget gets tight: yellow goes up to RAM 4, red only up to RAM 2. Bonnie and Clyde and Carnage at the Colosseum need red RAM 3 and are therefore not legal. Royce or Smasher lists have those cards, River’s Closet can’t run them.

Qty	Card	Core text	against	Where the idea comes from
2	MaxTac Suppression Team (yellow, 5 €$, 7 power)	Rival Units can’t attack the turn they’re played.	Smasher with Go Solo, Adrenaline in the mirror, Nadia	TimFandango’s sideboard (3×), in 10 sideboards of River lists with a red Legend
2	Detonate (red, 1 €$, Quick)	Defeat a rival Gear with power 2 or less.	mirror, red Gear decks	most common sideboard card in River lists with a red Legend (16 sideboards)
2	Royce: Don’t Call Me Simon (red, 5 €$, 4 power)	{Play} Defeat a rival Unit with power 2 or less, 3 or less with more Street Cred	small BBG and Judy Units	7 sideboards in River lists with a red Legend
1	Safety Override (yellow, 2 €$, Quick)	The next time a friendly Unit loses a fight this turn, defeat the opposing rival Unit.	Smasher and big attackers, together with Bombus	MoTheMonster (2× in the main), TimFandango (1× in the sideboard)

According to the FAQ, Royce: Don’t Call Me Simon has to destroy when it can, and without an enemy Unit at power 2 or less nothing happens. So only bring the card in against decks with such Units, like Voodoo Boy (2), Hanako: In a Gilded Cage (1), Lizzy Wizzy (2) or Evelyn (0).

We dropped three candidates. Heywood Ripperdoc hits Gear of any power, but costs 6 €$ and competes with Johnny and Jackie. Mandibular Upgrade gives River another blocker, but closes no removal gap. Cyberpsychosis may target enemy equipped Units too per the FAQ, and if you play it as a Quick on the attacker, the attacker dies at end of turn. It didn’t make the seven slots, but in the mirror Cyberpsychosis is strong and the best replacement for Royce: Simon.

Matchup	in	out	Why
BBG	+2 Royce: Simon	−2 Swordwise Huscle	Swordwise dies to everything blue. Simon clears the Program Units that BBG needs for stealing.
Red with Smasher	+2 MaxTac, +1 Safety Override, +2 Detonate	−3 Bootleg, −2 Swordwise	Bootleg is too slow here.
Judy	+2 Royce: Simon	−2 Swordwise	same as against BBG
Mirror	+2 Detonate, +2 MaxTac	−2 Over the Edge, −2 Swordwise	Over the Edge depends on the d20.

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Twelve mistakes cost you games with this list

KP named some of these mistakes in the video, the rest follow from card texts and rules.

• Burning River as 1 €$. On your own turn, pay with Eddies and fixers first, River last. A spent River is gone until your next turn, and the threat goes with him.
• Putting the Converter on Bombus on your own turn. Save it for an 8-power Unit or for a block. KP said in the video that it feels wrong.
• Playing Bootleg before the hand sale. Sell first, then Bootleg. The FAQ explicitly allows this order; the reverse, by our reading of the rules, is not allowed.
• Leaving Bombus at 0 power against blue. With Mantis on it, a single-effect Pyramid Song no longer does the job; against both effects Bombus needs Gear worth at least +5 in total.
• Holding Over the Edge too long. With no d20 in sight, sell the card. KP did that on turn 2.
• Stacking all Gear on one Unit. Against red and Smasher you spread it. Against Les Élémens you leave a cheap equipped decoy out.
• Driving up your own Street Cred against BBG. Mess with the enemy dice instead. Higher friendly values unlock Towerfall’s double mode.
• Attaching Zetatech only after spending the Unit. Equip before the attack or block, or the plate doesn’t trigger.
• Gorilla against an opponent whose values you all share. Shift one of your own values with a fixer first.
• Blocking into ties. If the attacker has exactly 2 power, use +3 instead of +2.
• Attacking with Swordwise below 5 power. Gear first, then the attack, or there’s no card.
• Not inviting your opponent to make mistakes. A ready River and open €$ tempt BBG into complicated lines. At the end of the video someone says: “The bigger takeaway […] is don’t try to be cute and stupid.” Who says it can’t be pinned down for sure.

The biggest lesson from the video is about deck density. Don’t keep a hand that’s only Gear and Programs, and don’t risk Johnny and Jackie for small edges, because the deck only has five of them.

KP after the game: “I could not for the life of me find any of the large units this deck plays. And fanning through the deck, I’m beginning to see why. Because um here’s two of them clumped together. […] Here’s another three clumped together at the bottom of the deck.” And: “because I drew so many cards and I just I could not find the important things I needed which were the big dudes to get advantage back off of my adrenaline converters”.

The opening hand was, per KP, “like five gear and a bootleg. […] I did not have a unit when the game started.” The conclusion: “I think variance really got me in this game.”

Variance is a convenient explanation, but here you can actually run the numbers. An opening hand without a Unit happens 2.6% of the time, so KP really was unlucky. Then again, you only see at least one 8-power Unit in your first ten cards 78.3% of the time. MoTheMonster’s version 3 of the list runs six 8-power Units plus Royce as a Go Solo threat. KP bets on six 4-drops instead, 6th Street and Meredith.

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To beat River’s Closet, bottom-deck its Units

This part is for players sitting across from the list. If you’re the Gear player, read it as a checklist for your own plan.

Bottom-deck Units instead of defeating them, and River draws nothing while the Gear leaves too. Blue does that.

Attack when River is spent. A ready River means +2, +3 or a blocker, per MoTheMonster. If the River player used him on their own turn, the window stays open until their next turn.

Detonate belongs on a 2-power Gear in the React Step when exactly that Gear produces the 10 power. Against Converter and Gorilla at power 3, Detonate does nothing.

Keep Take Control ready for Gorilla attacks: against attackers under 10 power, it stops the bonus steal too, per the FAQ.

When Johnny or Jackie threaten with a Converter, keep your Gig lead below 2 or play MaxTac.

Answer the five 8-power Units specifically, the deck has no more than that. And don’t put CORPO blockers in front of Johnny.

While Meredith is out, be careful with Gig manipulation. Every adjustment or swap of the Gear player’s Gigs hands them a card from the trash.

As the Smasher player, better not leave Smasher as your only Unit, or Live with the Aftermath comes down.

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Four to six slots are open for swaps

Feel free to tune the list to your local meta, as long as you know what you give up. The rates come from the 206 River lists with a red Legend, and KP leaves out some common cards: Mandibular Upgrade (62%), Viktor Vektor: You Might Feel a Little Pinch (49%), Augmented Negotiators (45%), The Heist (45%), Safety Override (40%), Sketchy Ripper (36%).

Candidate	in for	Pro	Con	Source
Mandibular Upgrade (1 €$, +0, Blocker)	Swordwise	River turns any Unit into a blocker	no power, doesn’t help toward 10	MoTheMonster V3
Kiroshi Optics (1 €$, +1)	Over the Edge	{Attack} Look at a friendly face-down Legend. The blind Call becomes an informed one.	+1 rarely gets you over 10	V3, V4, V6
Safety Override (2 €$, Quick)	Live with the Aftermath	counters attackers without needing your own sacrifice	needs a lost fight	V2, V3 (“I’m not married to safety override”)
Offduty Malfini (4 €$, 5 power)	Meredith	“Basically, use him as a removal spell”	mandatory effect, “we can’t just ignorantly play him”	V3
Rockn‘ Rockerboy (5 €$, 8 power)	Swordwise	a sixth or seventh 8-power Unit for the Converter plan	no effect, no Sell tag	V3
Viktor Vektor: You Might Feel a Little Pinch (3 €$, 3 power)	Swordwise	reuses a Cyberware costing 2 or less from the trash	“He’s just naturally weak” (MoTheMonster)	V3, V4 to V8
Arasaka Emergency Radioport (2 €$, +2)	–	one more +2 Gear, and spending it gives a look at a face-down Legend like Kiroshi	the free Call is useless, KP’s Legends are neither ARASAKA nor Go Solo	V3, our take

V2 to V8 are comparison lists from other players, V3 is MoTheMonster’s list. Kiroshi comes with a rules consequence: a Legend you’ve looked at has to be marked as “known” to your opponent without revealing it.

KP’s list deviates on exactly the cards the Gear community plays most, Mandibular and Viktor. It leans on removal with Live and Over the Edge and on draw with Bootleg instead. In our view that fits the anti-BBG profile of the fixers.

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The deck costs about €41, nearly all of it for five cards

Buy the 35 cards without Johnny and Jackie first, and you’re already playing for under €5. The five 8-power Units make up 91.5% of the main deck price.

Prices come from the Cardmarket price guide as of October 14, 2026, 02:53, which doesn’t separate by card language. Each line uses the cheapest version excluding the Alpha Kit, based on the trend price, falling back to the foil trend or the lowest price. Only Beta, Starter and Pre-Release prints are listed, retail singles join on November 6.

Qty	Card	Basis	Each €	Line €
1	Dexter DeShawn: Off the Grid	foil trend	0.39	0.39
1	Muamar Reyes: El Capitán	foil trend	0.27	0.27
1	River Ward: Detective on the Hunt	foil trend	0.37	0.37
	Legends			1.03
3	Secondhand Bombus	trend	0.07	0.21
3	Swordwise Huscle	trend	0.05	0.15
3	6th Street Recruits	trend	0.08	0.24
3	Meredith Stout: Stone Cold Corpo	foil trend	0.29	0.87
2	Jackie Welles: Ride or Die Choom	foil trend	5.81	11.62
3	Johnny Silverhand: Never Stop Fighting	foil trend	8.44	25.32
3	Mantis Blades	trend	0.10	0.30
3	Adrenaline Converter	trend	0.06	0.18
3	Satori: Sword of Saburo	trend	0.14	0.42
3	Zetatech Faceplate	trend	0.10	0.30
3	Gorilla Arms	trend	0.06	0.18
3	Live with the Aftermath	trend	0.05	0.15
2	Over the Edge	trend	0.07	0.14
3	Bootleg Black Sapphire Show	trend	0.09	0.27
	Main deck			40.35
	Legends and main deck			41.38

Johnny comes to €25.32 in total, Jackie to €11.62, which makes €36.94 or 91.5% of the main deck. Without the five 8-power Units the main deck costs €3.41. The suggested sideboard costs €0.49 (2 MaxTac €0.12, 2 Detonate €0.18, 2 Royce: Simon €0.14, 1 Safety Override €0.05). With sideboard it’s €41.87.

Not included are the Iconic prints, whose foil trend sits at €118.16 for River Ward, €85.58 for Dexter, €79.35 for Muamar and €48.83 for Johnny. River Ward also exists in a print for €11.35.

For sealed product the same price guide lists these trend prices: a Welcome to Night City retail booster €5.00, the retail display €105.16, the starter Embracing Power €27.76, the starter The Heist €28.11. Johnny and Jackie are Epics from the booster. Embracing Power contains Mantis Blades, Satori, Swordwise Huscle and Over the Edge. The Heist contains Zetatech Faceplate and Secondhand Bombus, plus Heywood, Mandibular and Kiroshi for flex slots or the sideboard.

As Epics, Johnny and Jackie may move in price once retail launches, though nothing confirms that. For comparison, from the same price guide: our previous reference lists “Relic Smasher” and “Chrome Dome” came in at €24.93 and €23.76.

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For tournaments you need a sideboard and Gigs at the end of the round

If you take the list to a Brawl or Showdown, you’ll usually need a sideboard, and always for Bo3. Per the tournament rules, stores may also run a Brawl as a quick Bo1 without sideboards. And a tempo deck has to be able to hold Gigs at the end of the round. The Pre-Release runs from October 30 to November 1, and per the announcement the Brawls run weekly from November 6. When and how often stores get Brawl kits, WeirdCo hasn’t published. The first Showdown window runs from November 13 to December 6, 2026, per the announcement. The EOR in Warsaw takes place on January 30 and 31, 2027, per the official announcement.

Best-of-three runs 50 minutes, 75 in the top cut. Best-of-one runs 30 minutes. Competitive Bo1 adds 3 minutes of sideboarding before the game, Quick Bo1 has no sideboard. Between games of a best-of-three you get 2 minutes to sideboard. At Competition events you submit three Legends, 40 to 50 main deck cards and exactly seven sideboard cards via Melee.gg.

Your Legends get shuffled and your opponent cuts. You choose freely on a Call (rolling for it is forbidden), and after the match you reveal all three.

When time runs out, you finish the current turn and each play one more, 5 minutes in total. Whoever controls 7 or more Gigs after that wins, otherwise the game is a draw in Swiss. In single elimination you keep going until someone has more Gigs. Our take: a deck that steals two to three Gigs in one turn with Gorilla and Converter has a real edge there against a stall deck.

Without a tournament clock, the base rules‘ overtime decides. It starts after two consecutive turns with empty Fixer areas, “Usually, after both players have completed 7 turns each”, and from then on 7 Gigs win immediately. That’s what the BBG player in the video meant with “when you only get like seven turns”.

Since this deck works with die values constantly, one more note: per the base rules, each player needs their own set of six dice from d4 to d20 (polyhedral dice sets (affiliate link)).

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The rules behind the asterisks

*1 Rule 9.7.1: during an enemy attack only the defender may react. The official FAQ also forbids answering a Quick with a Quick. In your own attack, on the other hand, your opponent can react to your freshly played Gear, with Detonate for example.

*2 Rules 5.7.4.1, 7.7.1 and 11.11.1.1: not even their owner may look at face-down Legends, and on a Call you freely choose a face-down card. Tournament rule 3.4.2 forbids rolling for the choice.

*3 Rule 11.11.2.2 allows a Call as a reaction during an enemy attack. According to the official FAQ a Legend may use its Spend on the turn it’s Called. A Spend without {Quick} isn’t a reaction there, though: per rules 9.7.1, 9.8 to 9.10 and 11.26.1 only Calls, blockers and Quick effects are allowed in the React Step. That another Call is possible during your opponent’s turn is our inference from the wording “once per turn”.

*4 Rule 9.19.3: a Unit that can’t be defeated in a fight still loses and merely stays on the board. Per rules 9.15 and 9.21 there’s no steal if the attacker attacked that Unit or was redirected to it as a blocker.

*5 Official FAQ on Zetatech Faceplate: on attack the plate triggers before the React Step, on a Spend effect only afterwards, when paying only after the card is played. A blocker that only gets equipped after blocking is already spent and doesn’t trigger it.

*6 Rule 9.19.2: a Unit with 0 power can’t defeat anything in a fight. Per rule 9.17.1 it only wins a fight with more power than the enemy Unit.

*7 According to the official FAQ, a Legend played via Go Solo stays a Legend, which is why Meredith’s +2 applies. Per rule 11.25.1 it’s removed from the game when defeated and doesn’t come back.

*8 Rules 9.3.2.1 and 9.3.2.2: Units may only attack spent enemy Units or the Gig area. Johnny’s second attack therefore needs a spent target or a blocker in the first fight.

*9 Rule 8.6.5.1.1: you may only roll in the d20 once all other dice have left the Fixer area, so on your sixth turn at the earliest. Before that you only get a d20 of your own by stealing or swapping.

*10 Official FAQ on Bootleg: “If I already sold a card during my main phase, can I still sell a card from Bootleg Sapphire’s effect?” Answer: “Yes.” Selling from your hand first and then using the Bootleg sale is therefore allowed. Only the reverse order is unresolved, and per rule 11.9.2.2 a hand sale after Bootleg is likely not allowed.

*11 Rule 5.8.2.1: a sold card enters the Eddies area ready. You can spend the Eddie from Bootleg the same turn, so the card effectively costs you 4 €$.

*12 Rule 9.23.2.2: a Unit steals 1 Gig at 1 to 9 power and 2 Gigs at 10 to 19 power. Per rule 3.17.2 the Gear’s power counts toward the Unit.

*13 Official FAQ on Take Control and Gorilla Arms: if Take Control drops the steal to 0, Gorilla Arms doesn’t trigger. That Gorilla still fires on a Unit at 10 or more power is our inference from the card text “steals 1 or more”.

*14 Rules 1.10.1 and 8.6: you win with 7 Gigs at the start of your turn, and the check comes before rolling in the new die. Six Gigs plus a roll-in aren’t enough, you need another steal and have to survive your opponent’s turn. In overtime, 7 Gigs win immediately.

*15 Rules 6.1.4 and 6.4.5 plus the official FAQ: an effect that adjusts a Gig without “friendly” may also hit enemy Gigs, but not dice in the Fixer area. You can’t set a Gig to the value it already has, and “up to” with 0 doesn’t count as adjusting.

*16 Rule 2.10.1: negative power counts as 0. Per rules 3.17.2 and 3.17.3.3 the Gear’s power is added to the Unit, and minus effects don’t hit the Gear itself. Whether “−4, then bottom-deck at 0” lands is decided by the sum of Unit and Gear.

*17 Rule 11.2.1: Street Cred is the sum of your own Gig values. Turning your own dice up against BBG makes Towerfall stronger.

*18 Rules 9.19.1.1, 4.12.3 and 11.12: defeated means into the trash, bottom-deck means under the deck. River’s trigger and effects with [DEFEATED] like Jackie’s only fire on a defeat. When a Unit gets bottom-decked, its Gear goes along.

*19 Official FAQ on the Adrenaline Converter and rule 11.23.2: a Unit with [ADRENALINE] may attack despite Lag, but only while the opponent really has 2 more Gigs. Stealing first and then hoping for the same bonus on a second Unit doesn’t work.

*20 Rule 2.6: if one effect allows something another forbids, the prohibition wins. The rules example quotes exactly the MaxTac text against Adrenaline. For Go Solo the official FAQ confirms it: a Legend played via Go Solo this turn can’t attack against MaxTac.

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The data shows popularity in the builder

Take the list as a well-thought-out starting point and tune the flex slots to your meta. A proven best deck it isn’t. There’s simply no data for that.

River Ward sits in 417 of 1,422 public lists in the official builder, that’s 29.3% (as of October 14, 2026). At Gamertag Mythras he’s the most-built Legend at 27.8% (as of September 16), and on ExBurst he appears in 585 lists. With 1,265 views, River’s Closet has the most views of any River Ward list in the official builder. Part of those views come from KP linking the list in a video with 18,803 views, so what they really measure is attention.

Among River lists this one is an outlier. Muamar appears in 64 River lists, Dexter: Off the Grid in 25, and both together only here, in one of 417 lists. None of the other 416 lists shares 34 or more cards with it.

There haven’t been any official constructed tournaments yet. ExBurst reports “Event wins: None tracked yet”. Mythras writes: “This is deckbuilding, not a meta.” The only play evidence is KP’s Bo1 against BBG, which KP won through a mistake on the other side. For Smasher, Judy and the mirror there’s no observation at all. For some quotes from the video the speaker is inferred, because the transcript names no names.

The Cardmarket prices apply to Beta, Starter and Pre-Release prints as of October 14, 2026. Retail singles from November 6 aren’t included yet.

Sources: KP, “River’s Closet” decklist in the official builder · KP, video “Trying our best to play COMPETITIVE decks in Cyberpunk TCG!” (09/30/2026) · MoTheMonster, deck tech on the River Gear list · Cardmarket and Cardmarket price guide (as of 10/14/2026) · card API · Comprehensive Rules, official rules FAQ, tournament rules · ExBurst, River Ward stats · Gamertag Mythras, community decks · our BBG guide