Jerkteki Three-Time Store Champ Top 4 deck

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22 PLAYER INDY STORE CHAMPS Jerkteki 3.0 2nd place 2/7/15
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travisrchance 2261

I have posted this deck in a more recent iteration here: http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/15548/22-player-indy-store-champs-jerkteki-3-0-2nd-place-2-7-15

I have since played in two smaller Store Champs, going into Top 4 as top seed both times, ending up second and fourth. While in these three Store Champs my corp side performed less than my MaxX deck, I was happy with the performance overall, chalking two of my losses to variance and another to me being too meek to score out Fetals early when I had the opportunity.

After my first Store Champs, I decided to make some pretty drastic swaps to the deck:

1.) Janus and Scorched were fine, but I was never really in love with them. I decided to rework the influence trying out 2 SanSan City Grids. As I have played this pretty much for 18 months without fail, my meta is well aware of the build. I decided to play to the strengths of the no-advance agendas in the deck. The trash cost is a nice buffer to create a scoring window as well. This is a welcome addition to the deck for sure, despite my reluctance to dip a toe into the fast advance pool.

2.) Alas, with Anarch on the rise, Jackson Howard is necessary. With the runner choosing the access order for Archives, Shi Kyu just isn't AS good as it was--esp. since I cut Susanno, as Anarchs WANT to be all up in your archives these days. I am eating my hat on this one, as I have long believed that the deck can combat Noise. The issue here is Indexing in things like Leela and the dreaded Keyhole/Eater combo, which certainly just hits agendas without issue given the density of them in the deck. Jackson also can help keep the early scoring tempo up, feint as a no-advance agenda, and also make your Celebrity Gifts consistent. He also can shuffle back in things like Snares and Shocks, as needed to help with the net damage disruption.

I tried Hokusai Grids again after about a year of them being out of the build, and kind of want there to be two in the deck as it is a great feint, esp. with SanSan, but, alas, I want to play 16-17 ice. Perhaps I could cut the Chums, but at the moment, I am omitting Hokusai instead.

3.) I did some ice swaps as well. I was just playing 1 Swordsman, but found it to be a mere tempo hit for Eater decks. However, after playing two more Store Champs, I def think that this tempo hit equates to scoring windows for this deck. I also like Swordsman as a taxing ice against things like Criminal that lean on Faeries.

I also went up to a full set of Komainu, dropping the Lotus Field, as it just such a good taxing ice now that the deck is playing SanSans.

The deck wants to push out agendas as early as possible. You want to start scoring in the first three turns, so mulligan to do so. You obviously have to know your matches, but against non-Criminal, a 1-ice deep remote on turn 1 or 2 is often a safe bet. You are not trying to flatline here; net damage is merely a form of disruption with the potential to kill reckless runners or by putting them in a game state where they have to take risks.

Much of the same rings true from my original post(s) about this deck. It was resilient up until Order & Chaos and still quite good. The issue was my reluctance to try new things, as the deck just performed so well as is. Heavy aggression from things like MaxX means it's time to evolve.

4 comments
23 Feb 2015 Spaceman_Spiff

How did your economy hold up in these games? It seems a bit sparse if you want to pay to rez SanSan's, trigger Snares, and rez all that ice. Of course most of the ice is cheap, but still. Siphon seems like it would be troublesome.

Also, I wonder how a similar deck would perform out of Harmony Medtech. Of course it would need some reworking to fit that identity, but if you're not trying to kill the runner and just looking to rush out agendas quickly it might work.

23 Feb 2015 travisrchance

@Spaceman_Spiff I don't generally have econ issues with this deck, but, at a glance, I can understand how it may seem this way. A few points on this topic:

1.) Celebrity Gift is a big swing in terms of credits. Unless you are holding mostly agendas, you have no issue showing your hand. Usually it will have some psychological implication. For example: I Gift on turn 1 and then reveal I have Komainu and Quandary. This is usually enough to keep a runner off running your hand blind, agendas or not for fear of Komainu.

2.) The best Jinteki cards are facedown cards. You don't want to just rez ice because you can. Leaving R&D open is often okay in the early game. I tend to only start rezzing ice unless they randomly hit 4 or more points out of the blue. This is especially true on remotes, where you want to keep them guessing.

As you indicated, the ice is cheap and efficient. Runs become taxing when House of Knives is sniping cards. Let them run HQ if you have Fetals and Snares in your hand--don't bother rezzing ice. The early game is where it matters for this deck.

3.) 9 econ cards is not really a small amount, all things considered. Siphon sucks for most non-Weyland decks, it's true, but I would argue that SanSan is an ANSWER to Siphon more than it is a problem. You can respond and dump credits into it.

As far as Harmony Medtech, apples and oranges. I know that Cambridge is the trending PE deck, but this deck utilizes the net damage as a form of taxation. I do flatline people, but I do not put conscious effort into by trying to cobble together EMPs or use Mushin, etc.

The identity is the strongest part of this deck. You are playing 13 agendas, 6 of which are 1 pointers. You have Fetals, Shocks, and Snares, as well as House of Knives. This means the runner is losing cards to splash damage and typically forced to spend actions drawing instead of just bowling you over given the higher density of early game ice. Harmony gives the runner an equal advantage here rather than you have a sole advantage like with PE.

I play this deck the same way I play Noise: aggressively. I treat the ID ability as incidental collateral damage and not the main conceit of the deck. With Noise, I play viruses but to support a run-based strategy. With PE, I use the pervasive damage to open scoring windows for me. I def get raised eyebrows when playing this with people outside my meta, but the deck has placed me as top seed twice in two store champs and second seed in another. The fact that it is different and not a group think cookie cutter build is part of what makes it tick. This thing has been the bane of my meta for a looooong time. There are def some good players who know how to workaround the constant risks in the deck, but on the whole I am confident this deck still is a contender.

Hope this helps!

25 Feb 2015 PaxCecilia

Aww, one of the things I always loved about this deck was that it didn't have Jackson Howard (so I could bring multiple decks to my weekly game night without resleeving). That and the fact that it is incredibly powerful! Thanks for sharing @travisrchance

25 Feb 2015 travisrchance

@PaxCecilia Alas, times they are a changin'.