The House Always Wins

This is my favourite corp deck to play with and has probably changed the least throughout my time playing Netrunner. It's a standard flatline Jinteki Black Tree deck that uses the shell game to lay a mine field and score agendas amidst the myriad traps. So far I've had a great amount of success with the deck and am confident of victory whenever I take it to field.

Economy:

• Burst econ is nice and cards like Hedge Fund and Fundraiser allow for decent income but my personal favourite form of econ is Shell Corp sitting atop a trap like Cerebral Overwriter or Psychic Field. If you want to get really tricksy you can sit it atop a Ronin too and leave the Runner to decide whether or not they want to run the server. It's no loss to you to sit it on a trap so often you'll have a reliable bank of credits to draw from as well as an often reliable set up for a win condition. I don't like Celebrity Gift because of it's ability to let the Runner figure out what you're planning and Fundraiser doesn't hurt the deck too much as Ice is rarely the primary defense anyway.

Agendas:

• Often times I won't even score some of these things. Leaving an almost scored agenda in the open for more than two turns will often convince the Corp it's a trap. You can then rely on them late game for extra net damage or if you feel the flatline just isn't going to happen. The two agendas you do want to score however are Gila and House of Knives. Gila does wonders for economy when you need credits fast and House of Knives puts pressure on the runner's hand and can occasionally be used to set up devastating kill servers with Komainu.

The Flatline:

• There are a ton of ways to kill the runner with this deck. Kill servers can be set up to catch the runner off guard. Often I'll leave an almost scored agenda on the table to catch the runner after a bad run in with Psychic Field or the like. Philotic Entanglement makes for an amazing last hoorah if the runner starts taking control of the game and Ronin with Neural EMP means you don't have to rely on the runner making mistakes to force the flatline.

Tips and Tricks:

• Shattered Remains is a must in my opinion as Feedback Filter will often spell death against a wealthy runner. Fortunately, the runner is usually confident once the Filter is out and will run a bit more recklessly leaving you to trigger the trap as soon as they try the minefield. Cerebral Overwriter also laughs at Filters giving it a massive edge over Junebug in my opinion.

• As a pro-tip, you should always cover HQ against Criminals and Anarchs as an early Account Siphon or Vamp will ruin your day. Keeping a nice 8-12 credits is a must to ensure you can trigger traps when you need to.

• Try to advance everything to 4 if you have the credits and time to spare. Either everything will start to look like a Ronin or nothing will. This can force the runner's hand and punish them for it or lead them into complacency so you can burn them later.

• Jackson isn't just for agendas. He allows you to recycle traps just as well. Remember that archives is often the best way of finding out what a Jinteki player is up to so use Jackson to keep things ambiguous and keep you provided with Overwriters and Ronins so that you don't run out of options. Trashing exposed traps into archives face down can also lead the runner into wasting a click running on archives just to see what you brought back.

• Scorched Earth is scary. You don't ever need to play it. You need only make its presence known. And should the runner decide not to ditch a tag taken from a Snare!, well....