The Cartographer's Dilemma v1.0

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Nothing But Net!!!!!!
Jinteki control
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WardOfTheWoods 710

Chronos Protocol: Selective Mind-mapping is the future of Jinteki. I think this ID will be tier one easily. The ability to turn Neural EMP or really ANY net damage cards into a Thoughtseize (from Magic: The Gathering, for the uninitiated it's a card that lets you look at the opponent's hand and lets you discard any one of their cards) is stunning. It lets you analyze the board state and you react. Eventually you just lock out the Runner after having trashed most of their breakers and their recursion. Power Shutdown helps you clean up any straggler breakers on the field.

I took a slight variant of this build to a Game Night Kit night for my local meta. No one objected to me playing the ID, so we let the games commence. I played against a Faust Noise build, Gang Sign Leela and Chameleon Hayley.

In game one against Leela, I eventually sniped all the sentries from their deck and still lost through a misplay on my part, leaving a House of Knives in Archives for the game. Outside of that, I had pretty much locked down a scoring server with a simple Rototurret. The deck had worked like a charm the whole time though.

In game two, I played against Chameleon Hayley and it was a massacre. Any time the Runner ran with Chameleon out, it was open season on their hand with EMP. Even though they used a Sacrificial Construct to save their Scheherezade with hosted Sahasrara/Femme, I eventually Shutdown the Scheherezade and solidified the win.

The last game was the toughest: the Good Things For Sale Noise deck of current deck of the week fame. Despite the Noise player getting into my servers a few times, the combination of EMP on programs/Clone Chips/Deja Vus along with Power Shutdown meant that they no longer had any cards to run with and I outlasted the deck for the win. Despite only going 2-1 for the night, it was stupidly dominant the whole time. With some extra tweaking I think I can get this perfected. But overall, Chronos is the new ID to watch out for/fear/have nightmares about.

21 comments
7 Aug 2015 Windave

Needs more Susano

7 Aug 2015 SlayerCNV

i think this deck would love Marcus Batty on Ichi 1.0

7 Aug 2015 WardOfTheWoods

@SlayerCNV I can test Marcus over Caprice and see how things work out. Personally I don't like Marcus and I think his ability is only solid for when you want to kill the Runner with NEXT Gold/some other ICE, but I can see how sniping a program would be good mid-run. I'll give him a shot.

7 Aug 2015 SlayerCNV

@WardOfTheWoods it permits not only to snipe a program. You snipe a program and if the runner is encountering Ichi he has to subish subroutine, so you have 3 program trashed potentially. Or 2 and etr with Roto

7 Aug 2015 Yoshi

Uhhh, imo it sounds like Criminal are getting kicked even further down into the dirt if this becomes T1/common, and also makes Anarchs even better (compared to other factions), especially Noise with current builds that don't really require a specific breaker.

Well, they kind of overdid the Crim nerfing and Anarch boosting thing.

Cool deck, I want to try it and try facing it.

7 Aug 2015 paddosan

If anything, this ID will make people add some kind of Net Damage protection to their decks once more. And a Feedback Filter can easily shutdown this ID.

I know you have 3 Power Shutdown, but it won't be so easy to target FF since it costs 2 credits. And you don't really have that many sources of Net Damage, if we disregard the ice... which is not exactly hard to break anyway.

I think @SlayerCNV is right, this calls for Marcus Batty.

This being said, I don't really see this deck as being one to watch out for... just look at the winning deck of GenCon 2015. With all that recursion, getting some cards trashed from your hand is really such a nightmare? You'll just have to install your programs as soon as you get them or be more careful when you run due to Neural EMP/Power Shutdown.

I can underestand the success you had at a GNK night, but I suspect it has more to do with people not being used to playing against Chronos Protocol, than anything else.

7 Aug 2015 Dydra

It just hit me ... screw Blacklist ... This deck needs Chronos Project

You get what you need with the EMPs from their hand then hammer it out of the game ... cba Clone Chip , Levy AR Lab Access or any other form of recursion.

Of course you play Biotic Labor or Trick of Light, so u can score the Chronos Project from hand.

7 Aug 2015 Brendan

Targeted Marketing?

7 Aug 2015 WardOfTheWoods

@Brendan It's not needed. Maybe if you were running Will-o'-the-Wisp, but the deck does that effect better with Neural EMP.

@Dydra I'd rather not add a Chronos Project since that means getting rid of a House of Knives which does work when scored but I do see your argument. I think I'll try it as a 1x and see how it goes.

7 Aug 2015 formerteen

i'd have to echo the Targeted Marketing. seems to me like it should have a place.

7 Aug 2015 Brendan

Honestly, being able to snip a breaker with Neural EMP, then play Targeted Marketing for Clone Chip or Sure Gamble or whatever they have in hand seems ridiculously strong...

7 Aug 2015 formerteen

also realised since making that comment that there is 1 influence sitting free and just begging for Targeted Marketing

7 Aug 2015 Myriad

Targeted marketing seems a waste though. How is +10 credits actually going to translate into anything useful?

Better uses for the x1 influence would be another blacklist.

7 Aug 2015 WardOfTheWoods

@Myriad Exactly my thoughts. It's not like I'm going for a Punitive/Scorch kill (which, you could totally use Marketing in a build like that in Chronos Protocol, just saying). This deck makes more than enough money to do what it wants to, and it wants to control the Runner's rig and setup processes to lock them out of servers eventually. Probably the only econ I'm iffy on is Mental Health Clinic, because it always gets targeted for trashing eventually.

7 Aug 2015 beladee

Hostile Infrastructure could fit in quite well if you're tired of the clinics etc being trashed - now it will also cost them the best card in their hand

7 Aug 2015 Myriad

I would say drop the mental health clinics or some combination of subliminal messaging and restructure. Or ignore sub and use the last slot for another piece of ice.

9 Aug 2015 akonnick

@WardOfTheWoods I like the shell of this a lot. I think your comparison to Thoughtseize is dead on - it seems like a small effect if you've never played with it, but I play 4 in my Legacy deck for a reason. I'm going to play with the ice a little, but the agenda composition, Shock/Neural/Power Shutdown package seems like an auto-include. The two cards I'm going to work in somehow are Kitsune and Marcus Batty. I think that have more damage or program trash that you can proactively trigger during a run seems valuable enough when you are playing for a lockout. Well done and thank you for posting and providing a writeup!

9 Aug 2015 Labbes

I don't really understand what your plan is if the runner just remote locks you. It seems insanely hard to score your TFP/Fetal with this deck if you don't have a Caprice ready.

9 Aug 2015 WardOfTheWoods

@Labbes If you're getting remotes locked from the Runner, you've already lost. You gotta be super aggressive and make the Runner run servers, make them hit the ETR ICE and force them to search for breakers if they don't have them yet. If you suspect the Runner has Inside Job (any Criminal deck ever) then fake an agenda with a Shock or Mental Health Clinic. You kinda have to play some Jinteki mind games with it. A lot of Runners are afraid to run against Jinteki until they get their rig out, so use that to your advantage and force a run by scoring agendas when you come across them. When they do run, you should have a turn to Power Shutdown and break tempo enough to score again.

19 Sep 2015 CommissarFeesh

I was going to ask why Rototurret and not Grim, but then I twigged that Roto has EtR built-in. I do worry about Parasite, but then doesn't everyone these days?

24 Sep 2015 formerteen

so is Crick just to protect power shutdown trash? in case an agenda takes one for the team? and was snare not included because it's too expensive? i could see why it wouldn't necessarily be included in this deck but it's also kind of an auto-include in jinteki for me so i'm hesitant to not slot it. at least the fear of snare is a powerful tool against runners imo.