Philippine Nationals Champion Biotech - Heller's Brew

This is the deck I piloted to winning a National Championship. It went undefeated in swiss (although I only played 2 games) and lost once in the cut to a runner that I later on defeated in the Finals. While the sample size is small, the victims of Biotech included the regional champion and the previous national champion, both no slouches. I played a much earlier version of this deck at the Vancouver regionals last year and went 4 -1. Unfortunately my runner bombed.

Biotech has always been my favorite ID. I love the Jinteki mind games and to have mind games even before the game starts just feels great. I admit, after round one of the tournament, I think there was no question that it was the Brewery.

This deck offers runners many horrible choices and sometimes a not so bad choice. It's Catch-22 in Netrunner form.

AGENDAS Basically you want 3 pointers because you are forcing the runner to have to steal three agendas, while you only have to score 2 (clones are not people). I went for TFP's defensive nature and the shards for some benefits. There was a game that I was able to score a Hades Shard turn 2, and that's just too good for a net damage deck.

ASSETS All the traps! Advancable, unadvancable, you name it. You can lose by running on an advanced or unadvanced asset. You can also lose by not running on an unadvanced or advanced asset. This is how the deck wins. It offers the runner horrible choices and one wrong move could cost you the game.

Almost always Mushin advance. Another line I took was install adv adv naked stuff. Chances are, they run it and usually it's a junebug / Overwriter. Whampoa is to bury agendas OR bluff out that you're burying agendas so they don't run your next mushin. Was that an agenda I just buried or is the agenda the one I mushin advanced?

I'm also using Bio ethics as the restricted card because if they refuse to run, then you can sometimes kill them even at 3 cards in hand. rez, rez, flip.

OPERATIONS Money, Mushin, Mushin recurrence and Clones are not People. Clones means that you can score a Mushin'ed out 3 pointer and make it 4 points. When you're at 4 points, runners tend to run everything you Mushin advance.

ICE Pretty standard stuff. Miraju is for indexing. Indexing is a BIG weakness of this deck. Glad to see this piece of ice. The Cortex Locks used to be Komainus but after worlds, there seems to be an abundance of hunting grounds.

PILOTING TIPS The deck is built to read players. If you get a good read on the player, chances are you'll win the game. Just remember, if they guess wrong once, they almost auto lose. If they guess right, well, they have to do it two more times to win. In the mean time, you only need to bluff out twice to score out 7 points.

The deck is also about your poker face. When you have neither traps nor agendas, be patient. Take 3 credits for a turn, it's not a problem. Remember, you have pressure on the runner, not the other way around!

If anyone has any idea on what to do with the last point of influence, I'd love to hear it!

DISCLAIMER - this deck is very difficult to play on Jinteki.net because you can't read your opponent. Chances are the runner will just get annoyed at your tricks and run on a 4 advanced mushin anything.

Special thanks goes out to the Vancouverites who may recognize this deck as I've brought versions of it to pubrunner for the past year and a half. A huge thank you to the Philippine Netrunner community for being very welcoming. I moved to Manila 7 months ago and am so happy that I can continue playing this game. Finally thanks to my wife, who is 39 weeks pregnant yet allowed me to spend an entire day playing card games. She's the best!