Grindteki Global Food Lite (2nd @ Barcelona Regionals 2017)

vesper 236

giphy.gifChairman Hiro does not play golf.

My favourite chainsaw that carried me to the finals, where it got mercilessly milled out by a DLR Andy after a few mistakes and wrong bets. Losing against a good player is always a good lesson and I definitely got one there. :-)

START OF SPONSORED MESSAGE

Thanks to Kelfecil for coming to the Spanish Nationals and letting me watch him play Jinteki to learn a few extra tricks and to pspacekitten (Mar <3) for her input on the first versions of this deck that made it way more painful to deal with.

END OF SPONSORED MESSAGE

I also had a 54-card version of this with Philotic Entanglement and more painful goodness, but for 55-minute rounds I wanted something a teeny bit faster.

On the way to the finals, I happily chopped through a "good cards" Andy, a Lock Hayley running Faust (probably my favourite game of the whole day), drew on time (after 1 round) against I don't even remember which ID (sorry, Ivan!) and then IDed against a "good cards" Whizz. In the top cut, I chopped through the Whizz using pure luck (aka topdecking a second Neural EMP as my first click draw) and through a Chaos Theory in a very close match that left a lot of people shaking their heads at my playing style (Let's just say I was tired and going YOLO is one of the possible ways of beating people who are way better at keeping their focus than me).

What's in here and why:

Bio-Ethics Association - totally worth the stars, even if the Runner will run and trash it after firing it only once. After the traps and Ark Lockdown, probably the next best thing you should shuffle back into the deck if the board state allows that.

Snare! & Shock! - pretend to be a House of Knives (and vice versa).

Project Junebug - pretends to be The Future Perfect (and vice versa).

Ark Lockdown - the cherry on top of the Runner's grave. Once you netdamage out whatever it is that's vital for their game plan, this card makes the small cuts deadly. ALing two Levy ARs from a 40-card Chaos Theory deck felt waaaay too good to be legal ;-)

Enforced Curfew - I would have put 3 in if I had the space (the 54-card version of this deck runs 3). A cheap counter to Employee Strike (and other nasty Runner currents) that plays well into the "your hand is your life" pressure you usually get from Jinteki.

Medical Research Fundraiser - I'd rather give the Runner some money than show them my hand, so this works better than Celebrity Gift and is cheaper than Restructure.

Kakugo and Neural EMP were definitely the MVPs on the day, because a single point of net damage is actually two with PU and a double Neural EMP is like a finishing hadouken when the time is right. Chiyashi - I was considering using 2, but 12 credits a pop is a bit too much for this deck. One, placed in a good spot is usually good enough to make the Runner think twice about running. Tsurugi was great against Faust and DNA Tracker is an expensive piece of Runner nightmare that's worth having 2 of.

4 comments
3 Jul 2017 CaptainMark

Good job man! And "pure luck" my ass :) You got the upper hand almost all the game, and it was well played.

Congrats again!

4 Jul 2017 vesper

@EfildriewI had good teachers ;-) Thanks for being one of them!

26 Aug 2017 ChairmanHiro

Any thoughts on bloodletter or the new fractal threat matrix? Also after obokata came out which agenda do you swap for it?

10 Jul 2018 vesper

@ChairmanHiro whoa, talk about me reading all the comments on time ;)

Bloodletter - while nice and moderately cheap, I guess the in-faction Mlinzi and Anansi (arriving in Kampala, so way after you originally posted your comment) could be a bit more fun and pain at the same time.

Fractal Threat Matrix - probably more value than Bloodletter at a slightly higher INF cost - and a nice sort-of-replacement for Bio-Ethics... Thanks for this tip, I'll think about it for Grindteki 2018 ;)

Obokata Protocol - with both that card, Bio-Ethics Association and Global Food Initiative on the Restricted list... Hmmmm :) I guess I'd drop the Bio-Ethics and the Foods for Obokatas and go for Bacterial Programming with some upgrades to the kill package - maybe getting rid of the Ark Lockdown for some Hard-Hitting News & BOOM! love ;)