WHAT DOES MTI DO (1st Fresno regional, undefeated)

I tried so many Mti builds trying to get it to work. The ID doesn't necessarily take you in any particular direction—you can play kill, asset spam, glacier—but you have to justify it very well because Jinteki already has such strong IDs. I tried a Mushin build and actually had success but all the wins were cheesy, I could tell it wouldn't work over time. I played a Moons build against Joseki's Val and he quickly figured out he could just run and trash everything because I couldn't present a credible kill threat to backup Cortex Lock. Bioethics has promise as a build but problems with clearing Strike. I knew there'd be a ton of Employee Strike so I pivoted to a Scarcity-based build in hopes that it would give me a fighting chance. The Euros-winning Palana was an obvious reference point. I actually wanted to play Special Report but didn't bring the card so I ended up playing Standard Procedure which paid out 0 credits a couple times. So that was cool.

So I'll admit it—I basically played with a blank ID at the Fresno regionals. There were entire games where my ID never triggered. Strike was everywhere and so was Clan Vengeance and Wanton Destruction. You can't really plan to hold cards in hand as a corp right now. But it turns out that Jinteki ICE is really good, especially against Anarch's terrible breakers. Obokata behind a Loop and a Kakugo is still very difficult to contest. NGO and Rashida are just the best corp cards you can play. Stinson won the one game where he fired. Bio Vault was never relevant because it's too slow but I'll be damned if I'm not playing one because I want to have two double-advanced cards in the same remote.

Glacier has been underrated for a while. I played Aginfusion throughout store champs and won a lot. There are many terrifying runner cards like Maxwell James but you can beat them with careful play. This Mti didn’t drop a game at Fresno, beating Security Nexus Reina, self damage MaxX, reg Val, Timmy MaxX, & another reg Val. You have play in most matchups and cards like Batty that can win you games from difficult positions. I killed two runners in the cut with just incidental net damage even though my deck isn’t meant to flatline.

If you like this style you should probably play Palana instead because the Mti ID rarely works. It is a deterrent to early runs but not a consistent one. You can’t even proactively play Scarcity to tax runners because you so desperately need it as a counter current.