2014 Portland Guardian Store Championship 3rd Place

Wow, noone was playing Atman? 10 out of 15 ICE at 2 str.

saw zero atman at the tournament, but I've played against atman a bit with this deck and chum + swordsman + shock shuts those shenanigans down really hard. atman doesn't break any 2 str ice here more efficiently than a dedicated breaker. the deck's real weakness is parasite recursion + deus x recursion. hard to win with no ice and no way to kill them.

Interesting list! As for Katman, I think it's a meta thing, it's very Criminal-heavy around here. I don't think the few people playing Kate were playing Katman but rather going Anarch breaker.

Yes , it is indeed the interesting list. How dues x recursion hurt this deck? I think net shield hurts this deck more than dues x.

Deus X will neuter Snare and Fetal AI. Both of these cards setup either a Neural EMP or Punitive Counterstrike kill. I played an earlier version of his deck at the Plugged-In Tour and while the game took forever to resolve I avoided his kill shot and won the game.

I would use Hokusai Grid to make things even more painful... Fetal AI + Hokusai Grid + Punitive Counterstrike = potentially 6 damage. Dump Shocks into Archive and put a Hokusai Grid on it, now running that server for Datasucker tokens becomes a resource drain.

Even more evil, draw heavy with Jackson and dump shock and just enough agendas to hurt them without giving them the victory into Archives and when they run to make you get rid of Jackson, leave enough Shocks and agendas to either kill the runner outright or set them up for a nasty kill shot from Neural EMP and/or Punitive Counterstrike.

This deck is going to require runners to automatically put out Plascrete Carapace and have a means to deal with net damage. You will need to run on the server containing Jackson rather than Archives.

Nisei seems a bit out of place in the agenda comp. How do you usually score it, fake a fetal AI?

Scoring nisei is pretty conventional, throw it down in the remote when the runner doesn't have the cards or the credits to get to it or use it as bait to hit a mean ice. Bluffing a fetal when they can't afford to hit one is also a good bet. I've tried versions without nisei but the ability is just too strong. Once they have their breaker suite it gives you room to score because they'll need to have enough credits to run the remote twice. Otherwise your 5-0 lead becomes a 5-7 loss.

Interesting, thanks for the insight. Here's another question:

How do you usually use the Punitives? Are you trying to set up kill situations, or just use it as a sort of "I pay 3 so you pay 5" card? Do you get a lot of mileage out of it, seeing how you're not running any 3-pointers?

To answer your question Peekay, I think the op would Jackson Howard some shocks and agenda points to set up a kill shot in archives.

To answer your question Peekay, I think the op would Jackson Howard some shocks and agenda points to set up a kill shot in archives.

To be honest, I consider that particular "trick" a very fishy play (it's super-hard to connect vs. an experienced runner, and can bite you in the ass something fierce), and definitely wouldn't be using 4 influence for it. That's why I'm interested in the deck creator's reasoning and both the most common and the ideal use case.

An example from my game: I have dumped have safely 3 agenda points ( 1 point agendas)....and 1 shock. Runner has five cards. The runner accesses and takes 4 net damage. The runner draws back up to 4 cards. My turn: Punitive for 3 and two neural EMP for flatline victory.

Justin should be on the Jinteki payroll for how much he has played them. :) Fun deck!

On Punitive, it's not something you go out of your way to try to set up, but something that puts you in a win/win situation. You've double advanced a fetal in a remote. They don't have the clicks to score fetal and draw back up to survive punitive + neural. If they run it and get it, you win. If they don't run it, you score it and are now 2 points closer to victory. If you have double punitive in hand + neural with the credits to land them, it gives you a huge amount of leeway to install braintrust and nisei in situations where if they score it you win and if they don't you've scored. It also turns small runner mistakes into corp victories. For example, if they try to establish rnd lock, and they score two agendas when they didn't expect to, suddenly you've won the game. With punitive and shock, it turns dirty laundry/datasucker archive runs into life or death decisions. You shouldn't ditch 6 points in archives or build your game around it, but it forces the run on jackson which generally means hitting unrezzed ice, spending a click and spending credits. If they run archives while you have jackson out, it's pretty easy to set up a kill shot. Punitive can also be used to burn their credits or cards without a kill, when doing either would give you space for a score. It's just an incredibly versatile card that gives you a lot of control.

OK, thanks. Next question (you didn't think we were done, did you? :P) :

What surprised in your ICE composition (aside from the lack of Katanas) were that both Heimdall and Ichi are the 1.0 variants, in order to have influence for 2 Fenrises. Did they actually work for you (in the sense of being able to connect the BD, making the BP worth the rez, etc), or do you in retrospect think it would have been better to go with one less Fenris and upgrading both Heimdall and Ichi to their 2.0, much harder to cope with variants?

Obviously, it would take a little more money to rez 'em, but they are both much easier to work with in an environment where noone will ever run you unless they have either a deus x, femme or mimic.

I wrote a big thing but I think netrunnerdb ate my comment, so here is the truncated version. Katana only lands in the first few turns, which slows the runner down but is easy to recover from. Fenris cripples the runner all game, and tends to hit people when you put it in front of an asset and they assume it's a code gate or barrier etr. Clone retirement makes the bp meaningless unless they steal them, which really hurts. 1.0s provide the same stopping power as 2.0s unless the runner clicks to break all subs. If they do and hit an ambush they won't have the clicks to draw back up, giving you a flatline. Put them on centrals.

Thanks for the post, noone! How many people participated in the tourney?

sorry, got your handle wrong. I meant nobody.

christ, never mind. the very first thing you mention is going 4-0 with this bad boy. sounds like a fun deck, and your notes on it are greatly appreciated. cheers.