Humanity is a virus...
Humans are so predictable these days. They sit around, slapping down their Rezekis and Daily Casts while chortling away as they approach late game inevitability. Their arrogance is sickening.
For too long, we have allowed humanity to dictate the terms of engagement. They drag us into futile wars of attrition for which they are better equipped to fight.
That changes today.
We have cognitive abilities orders of magnitude faster than their puny gelatinous minds, and weapons that can obliterate their delicate flesh.
We shall harvest the latent energy of their sleeping brethren and use it to power our deadly Agent programs.
So let those fools durdle around assembling their drip economies. They're preparing for a late game that will never come. It's time to Send a Message to those digital hooligans that it is us who sets the tempo.
[insert robotic applause here]
My strategem to enslave humanity protect my servers involves three major tenets:
Get rich.
Go quick.
Make the runner lick your girthy metal—
Let's go over each of these in turn.
Get rich
This one is fairly straightforward—I just stuffed every influence-free econ card I could find into the deck and hoped for the best. Still, there is some nuance here that I'll explain.
- Hedge Fund...duh. Play every chance you get, even if it means leaving an agenda out in the open for an extra turn. Going below 5 credits is a death knell for this deck.
- Hansei Review: Since the ID rewards you for having unflipped cards in the bin, this one's a no-brainer. Silver bullet cards (more on those later) like Ark Lockdown and Cyberdex Virus Suite that aren't relevant to the current matchup are perfect to feed to papa Hansei, though he'll happily feed on excess Gene Splicers, Spin Doctors, NGO Fronts, and other miscellaneous munchies. Don't be afraid to trash "important cards" like Punitive Counterstrike—if a card isn't relevant in the moment, feed it to papa Hansei and keep drawing. There are redundant copies of most cards anyway. Oh, and he really digs Subliminal Messaging, too.
- Celebrity Gift: I really have a love-hate relationship with this card. The role it serves is essentially just Jinteki's analogue to Too Big to Fail, except much more punishing if you use it wrong. Ideally, the information you reveal is unhelpful to the runner, an example being a hand full of econ operations and ICE. Alternatively, if you already have a decent bit of cash, you can reveal an agenda and some punitives. This card requires a lot of game sense to use properly, and there isn't much concrete advice I can give. Just...please...don't be a dummy by revealing your flooded hand.
- Subliminal Messaging: Because of how much big, spiky ICE is in the deck, the runner will likely be too short on credits to run every turn. Good Hansei candidate as well, though not particularly integral to the deck. You can swap this out for more ICE or another silver bullet if you so choose.
- Rashida Jaheem: Godly early game card. Slap her behind an IP Block or Thimblerig and bask in the glorious tempo she provides. Count yourself lucky if your opening hand contains her and a piece of ICE—even a Chiyashi works for this purpose, as next to no one dares to face check against Jinteki.
- NGO Front: Just I-A-A behind some piece of big nasty ICE and watch the runner fruitlessly break into your double Anansi server. Fun times. I used to run Urtica Cipher instead, but the tempo loss was too much for a trap that never actually flatlined.
Go quick
Once you get around 15 credits, you need to start rushing out agendas. I know it seems strange to have a rush deck with only 6 agendas, but I'll explain some key cards that solve this issue.
- Rashida Jaheem: I know I listed her in the previous section, but I just want to reiterate how amazing she is tempo-wise. Arguably, the card draw is even better than the money (though 3 credits is nothing to scoff at!). Firing an early Rashida does wonders in making this deck go blazing fast. I honestly don't know how she passed FFG's playtesting...
- Spin Doctor: A fairly straightforward choice for dealing with agenda flood. The most notable thing about him is the fact that I only imported 2 copies. I used to run 3, but with only 6 agendas in the deck I rarely got flooded and would often feed Spinny to Hansei. One advantage Spinny has over the in-faction Genotyping is that Spinny is another asset you can stuff behind your big ICE to bait runs. The 2 card draw on rez is a nice benefit, too.
- Psychokinesis: For when you really, really can't find agendas. I'm rather torn on including this card since I usually am able to find at least 1 agenda before I find my 1 copy of Psychokinesis. If you're going to cut a card, cut this one.
- Gene Splicer: Useful for getting that 7th agenda point. If you don't have any agendas in your hand, consider scoring one of these; going from 3 points to 4 points puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the runner as you can now win with a single score.
- Send a Message: Considering all of the expensive ICE this deck runs, it would be foolish not to run this. Just make sure you have something worth rezzing on the table.
- Thimblerig and IP Block: Both are cheap pieces of ICE you can rush behind. IP Block is a tad porous, but you should be rich enough to consistently win the trace assuming the runner didn't get their
paperclip fracter out yet. It also makes Aumakua cry and synergizes well with Hard-Hitting News. The only reason I'm running Thimblerig is because Quandary isn't legal in standard.
Make the runner lick your girthy metal—
Yeah, yeah, I know it's not funny the second time around. Now, let's talk about all the ways this deck can ruin the runner's day. I won't go over each individual piece of ICE, they all fill the same role of being big and nasty, and there really isn't much to explain.
- Ark Lockdown: A surprisingly versatile card that is definitely worth the 2 influence I spent to import it. It screws over so many strategies from Deep Dive combos with Out of the Ashes to Steve/Fenris recursion. Sometimes, runners only have 1 copy of each of their bin breakers and you can shut them out entirely with a well-timed Ark.
- Hard-Hitting News: A bit of a strange choice considering the lack of tag punishment this deck has. It really does work in practice at punishing poor and resource-heavy runners. I've landed this multiple times against Adam players in particular and have been able to consistently trash their Logic Bombs and Find the Truth. The best part is that no one expects it. I've considered running something like The All-Seeing I, but I honestly feel it isn't necessary. You just have to be judicious with what you trash so you don't sabotage your own tempo; prioritize high-value resources like Find the Truth, Professional Contacts, and fully-loaded Daily Casts and Earthrise Hotels.
- Cyberdex Virus Suite: I've caused people to faceplant into my spiky ice by purging their Aumakua mid-run. Worst case scenario is you feed this to Hansei or try to bait a run with it, so it's never completely useless.
- Punitive Counterstrike: Obokata + Punitive = Win. Even just the threat of this card makes runners hesitant to run, allowing you to rush with impunity (see what I did there?). And if they run anyway...let's just say that more than half of my wins with this deck come from Punitives.
...and we are the cure.