The Needle Pit (Living in your head - rent free)

"The epicenter of genetic research and development. Pioneers of genome mapping and behavior management. Awarded with honors for their unparalleled contributions to medical science, and steering New Angeles towards something 'revolutionary'....What are you hiding?"

"Flint, it's late, and it's raining. Come inside. I'm not dealing with another partner re-assignment if you become too ill to be of use."

"Ever heard of a Jonlin Black?"

"No. Never heard of him. Who is he?"

"A Runner, more off the grid than most; an expert hacker, passionate about his cause, and someone who was willing to help me. He was an informant, the key to hacking that facility and exposing the true nature of Jinteki's experiments. Last night I learned that emergency services were called to his house, the same day he was to do 'the rounds' for me. Jonlin breached the facility's network, routine code-work for him, but this time something went wrong. His fiancee was by his side, she witnessed everything. She said it began with violent coughing, followed by aggressive convulsions. His body temperature began to plummet, describing it as being hit by an Arctic shock. His pupils changed as cold vapors began bellowing out of his mouth. The rest is too traumatic for her to recall. The reason you've never heard of him, is because the NAPD aren't interested. To them they see a criminal who got what he deserved, but they planned for his assault on their network, and the Underway has reported more of these incidents from similar Jack-ins.

Everyone who connects to the network is a potential lab rat, and if we don't start asking questions soon, do you want to dare imagine their next phase of operations?"

Would you like to play some mind games?

I've been very fond of Industrial Genomics for a long time, and have been refining this deck for months. Jinteki are excellent at mind games, and this deck has seen a lot of success, flatline after flatline, but mostly because the Runner never saw it coming. If you enjoy toying with the Runner, giving them difficult choices throughout, testing their confidence in running, then this deck just might interest you.

There are a number of cards that can be interchanged to vary this deck up, keeping the surprise, but I found these to be the most consistent tools I needed, (Written at the time of Chrome City expansion.) Many card choices, such as Snare! and Hostile Infrastructure don't need explaining, so let's take you through some of the choices you probably wouldn't expect.

Card Choices

Scorched Earth - When you are only running one, don't be surprised to watch Runners float tags from Siphons and Snares, all while casually discarding their plascretes because "IG isn't running Scorch, that's silly, especially since they clearly don't intend to tag me!" Many flatlines I have made with this deck was in thanks to Scorched Earth.

Checkpoint - Don't fear the bad pub, this is a frightening deterrent. Many Runners have jacked out after seeing this, and those who did beat the trace forked out good money for it.

Corporate Troubleshooter - This is my jewel in the crown, read the next segment on how to completely catch the runner off guard with this card.

The Hounds of Knives

Can you get a House of Knives safe for 1 turn and score it? If so, you've started the engine for a surprise flatline. Use your time to find out what servers your Runner is focusing on. If you're Celebrity Gifting a Snare! or three from HQ, chances are it's R&D. Get Komainu out, and let them use up any Deus X and Faerie to get through. Once they've settled on a standard Sentry breaker, preferably Mimic, they will get comfortable with getting through - this is when you line up the kill. Melange up to as much money as you can, then when the time is right, install Corporate Troubleshooter into the Komainu server they are likely to run. When they run and approach your Komainu, rez Blacklist and Corporate Troubleshooter your Komainu to boost its strength beyond it being breakable. As they get pinged for each bout of net damage you have a window to ping them for a House of Knives token, sealing the flatline.

Round-up

Get Shocks! and Shi.Kyūs into archives quickly. Never Celebrity Gift your Corporate Troubleshooter OR Scorched Earth. I've had worse will likely be pinged out over time through constant net damage. Keep the Runner guessing. Make multiple remotes with your traps. Ronins are the time-bomb for passive Runners, and learn how to balance Archives filling as desperate/ballsy Runners will always keep those cards flipped over, and you want to punish them each time they do. Don't trigger Shi.Kyūs until you get at least 2, and then set the damage for only 1 each time.

Let the game begin! And I welcome any questions ^^