Jinteki's Masamune

"The first of the swords was by all accounts a fine sword, however it is a blood thirsty, evil blade, as it does not discriminate as to who or what it will cut. It may just as well be cutting down butterflies as severing heads. The second was by far the finer of the two, as it does not needlessly cut that which is innocent and undeserving."

The main idea of this deck is to forge the legendary Masamune, the japanese blade of legend. And then proceed to impale the runner on it. Several times if needed. That means a 5 ICE server that is able to deal at least 10 net damage. The Agendas I picked were for low agenda-density, with Fetal AI providing some surprises (and possibly a surprise kill on an unforged Masamune) and Labyrinthine Servers to set up a kill-run.

The ice is the standard "Deal damage" Ice, with the bonus of being nearly all AP: if you drop a Synth DNA Modification every run will tax not just credits but cards aswell. Swordsman is there to break AI and Tsurugi was the base inspiration so it couldn't left out, can give you an hedge if you are ahead in credits. Set it up protecting a Synth DNA Modification and maybe plop some cheap ice after it. Even if the runner breaks Tsurugi and company, trashes SDM, he's down some credits and cards and will take time to recover.

The biggest decision to this deck is: where do you build Masamune? The default choice is your HQ of course. Agendas will land on your hand, and I don't think you can get away with remote servers. In fact, scoring agendas might prove dificult in late-game. You can also build Masamune on a scoring server, but you'd have to be dead-sure it kills the runner before he gets to the end (or a Fetal AI is waiting for them).

There's some horizontal asset spamm with Pad Campaigns, some econ flood with operations, but those are all tools to get to where you need. The typical Masamune looks like this: Whirlpool Neural Katana Chum Tsurugi Edge of World That's 6 credits to put down the ice, 15 credits to rez it all and 3 credits to tip them over the edge. 24 credits total It's not cheap, but you're not suposed to waste credits on other things either. On the plus side, after you reach 24 credits trash some unrezzed ice on a remote to redirect the runner to your inocent looking pond lake. If you manage to score a Labyrinthine Server somehow? Congratulations, set up Masamune and the damn thing pratically kills by itself. Best part? You could even put a face up agenda being some unrezzed piece of ice and slowly score it 1 token per turn while telling the runner "Touch it and you die". Make it Vanity Project for that extra humiliation, if you're feeling mean.

There's 3 Chum and 3 Kakugo for a reason. Chum partners well with a lot of things, mainly stuff with a lot of sub routines, like Tsurugi, and Komainu. Kakugo is more about holding a remote server for a turn or two and tax if the runner wants to take down your pad campaigns. And yes, that's 3 Cricks you're seing. You can't really afford to protect your Archives with more than one ICE (you'll need it for remotes and Masamune) so it makes sense to get a simple gear check that still holds a bit against basic icebreakers. If you get a second crick in hand? Install it, and trash it to impale the runner on Masamune.

Note: this hasn't been tested in a "serious" environment, only against other janky but fun decks. I'm posting it here because I'd like to get sugestions and maybe someone can try it out in a more meta-environment and tell me how it goes? It's mainly for funsies and bragging rights. Impaling a credit-less runner on a 5-6 ICE server should be a great achievement for some folks.