Deck of Knives

I love Tori + HoK...so sick. Have you considered ShiKyu instead of shock? ShiKyu works with philotic entanglement, and it is painful on it's own (but doesn't protect R&D :/)

Ive considered it, but I like the R&D protection shock provides. Also, shock is much much cheaper(aka free), and Shi-kyu will rarely deal much damage when it matters.

its on the list of things to try in the future, for sure.

I'm dying to build a new thousand cuts stabteki, but I just can't come up with a list that I think will be competitive. I assume you're playing Never Advance with no plans to ever score a Fetal, but most of your NA agendas aren't too threatening when scored. I think I like 2-3 False Lead, 3 House of Knives as my 3/1s. Either one of those in PE's score area is a nightmare for the Runner. Also, Janus with only 8 economy cards makes me nervous.

All of that said, I'm really not sure how I'd do it differently. I just hope that with so many deckbuilders working on this style, we can come up with something that finally brings it into the high-level tournament metagame.

Why medical research fundraiser? Why Janus?

Regarding Janus - its a win condition, and easier to land than you'd think. Both profiteering and celeb gift are rediculous. If they have 3 brain damage, you pretty much win the game right then. The econ is tight, but sufficient - lots of very bomby econ here. If you get a single profiteering off, that usually makes you have the econ to run out the rest of the game. The bad pub tends to make people more gung-ho about running than they should be as well.

Regarding fetal - sure, you'll score it. Ive seen so many situations with lists like this where the corp is on match point with a fetal down. If the runner steals it, they die, if they dont, the corp wins. I never was a fan of decks that run agendas they dont intend on scoring.

I mean, you've got 20 cards (22 if you count hokusai) that deal damage on access, 6 of which deal 3 damage, and you've got yagura and jackson to keep R&D a death trap. Now add 4 sources of significant brain damage and house of knives/philotic on top of that.
This is similar to a list that TravisRChance uses to great effect. the secret here is that the the goal isnt to kill the runner - it has some NA elements, but its a rush deck at its heart.

I think thats the mindset you have to go with. Sure, runners will die against it, but thats only because you can score so much, so fast.

Why medical research fundraiser? Why Janus?

Janus - see above. Its the best 'trap' you'll see out of PE. Also, with Inazuma, you probably just win immediately, setting their hand size 1 (if they dont die instantly anyway). Each click they use to break a janus sub is a click they didn't use to draw a card, so it basically deals damage no matter what.

Medical research is one more credit than hedge, and 2 less credits to play. This deck doesnt care as much about the runners credit pool - the key resource here is cards in hand more than credits.

I think I like 2-3 False Lead, 3 House of Knives as my 3/1s.

I see your point about false lead, but you might be discounting how good clone retirement is, just by virtue that its a 2/1 with PE. If the runner doesnt mulligan, score one out turn 1 - you'll get a point, and knock a card out of their hand before they get turn 1. Its super super powerful - its like a neural emp that also gives you points.

I can echo the medical research is worth it, in a lot of good jinteki decks, we don't care about taxing the runner, or that 3 credits will make much difference. Its about being able to put threats on the board and fuel them. The game is not infinite in length, and "swings" are not important. This deck doesn't compete on money like NBN or weyland decks, it competes on cards and actions (clicks). I'm looking forward to this among the piles of Jinteki decks I've built.

Yeah, I'm still thinking of this as a traditional PE deck that gets ~70% of its wins by flatline. I confess rush isn't a style I really know how to play. My fast deck is TWIY*; I'm terrible with Weyland rush/Diagnostics decks. :/

I think that Shi Kyu might actually be of use to you -- it isn't something I'd swap out Shock for, but one or two of your Snares. It fits the same role of costing credits to use, but it makes your archives/HQ all the more dangerous. Paired with Shocks, it's easy to force them to take the negative point or keep them out of Archives entirely, which either makes Philotic much better, or lets you dump there in comparative safety.

Snare is more likely to make a kill, but I think it's the better comparison for Shi Kyu, not Shock... and honestly, I find the prospect of paying four credits to give them a negative point more appealing than dropping Snares on them more reliably.

Thats a good point about Shi Kyu. It would trigger PE when stolen as well, and require them to steal more agendas, thus taking more damage. Hm.

Would it? It's not an agenda when its stolen or scored, it becomes one when it enters the scoring area. I'm not saying I know for sure, but as I interpret it, it wouldn't. Though, it does amp up philotic, which is great.

While the synergy with Philotic is cool, I dont think includes should be done for the sake of beefing up philotic. Since its a 1-of, its going to be too inconsistent to warrant dedicating deck slots to make it better.

And in hindsight, you're probably right about shi kyu. I'll run without it for now, but it'll likely make it in at the expense of a snare and/or a hokusai.

Well you can't discount the benefit it provides by itself, the philotic is just a great little synergy. I'm curious to see how this plays, be sure to post back here with updates.

Yeah, I don't think it goes with PE, but it helps boost Philotic. As you say, not worth an inclusion based on that alone... but it also requires them to potentially steal another Agenda, too. In THAT manner, it does fit in nicely with PE.

I'm very interested in this deck in general, anyway, and look forward to seeing where you go with this.

I feel like sliding in a Tsurugi somewhere.

Updates:

Played a few games last night, and worked like I expected - if you get to match point and they dont have net shield out, you will almost certainly kill them. I cut jackson for GLC, and cut one yagura and one Tori Hanzo for 2 quandry - Tori is really really expensive, but I think she'll do well as a 1-off surprise. I'll likely try cutting one snare and one tori for a couple shi kyu.

Is Edge of world worth slotting in over tori? You can get more brain damage out of it for less cost, and they pretty much appear the same way to the runner. Yes it trashes for 0 out of R&D, but how many accesses out of R&D are they going to get?

I think Tori works better because of it's synergy with Houksai. This and a Houksai means you don't run R&D without taking both of them out.

They do work well in concert, but you're talking 7 credits - thats a lot. Tori is great, and im still testing with her, but its insanely expensive. Thats almost half the cost of a janus, and a janus generally stays out forever and can do more brain damage.

Regarding Edge - dunno what I would cut for it - the important thing about snare/shock is the versatility - having stuff that only works installed is a huge downside. I'd rather just slap down a shock, cost me nothing, and make them run and take a damage and spend some bucks.

So, I spend 7 creds, they spend 6 (or leave it - even better!) and they take a brain damage? I'm strangely comfortable with that.

As am I.

I tested this deck this weekend and was a fan.

How does this deck beat Kit? She's one of the hardest runners to rush against due to being able to punch past gear-check ICE asap. Double-ICE a scoring server and blitz an agenda through?

Kit has a few weaknesses:

1. Easier to guess her influence, since there is much less of it.

2. Yogasaurus/etc kit - decent amount of setup time. This deck wants to score 4 points within the first 6-7 turns. If at all possible, my first agenda is installed turn 1 or 2.

3. Cypher kit - strangely, kit that mains cypher is actually MORE vulnerable to lots of code gates.

All that said - Kit isn't what im worried about. Its never going to be hugely popular in a big tourney.