Philippine Nationals Champion Biotech - Heller's Brew

Powar 225

This is the deck I piloted to winning a National Championship. It went undefeated in swiss (although I only played 2 games) and lost once in the cut to a runner that I later on defeated in the Finals. While the sample size is small, the victims of Biotech included the regional champion and the previous national champion, both no slouches. I played a much earlier version of this deck at the Vancouver regionals last year and went 4 -1. Unfortunately my runner bombed.

Biotech has always been my favorite ID. I love the Jinteki mind games and to have mind games even before the game starts just feels great. I admit, after round one of the tournament, I think there was no question that it was the Brewery.

This deck offers runners many horrible choices and sometimes a not so bad choice. It's Catch-22 in Netrunner form.

AGENDAS Basically you want 3 pointers because you are forcing the runner to have to steal three agendas, while you only have to score 2 (clones are not people). I went for TFP's defensive nature and the shards for some benefits. There was a game that I was able to score a Hades Shard turn 2, and that's just too good for a net damage deck.

ASSETS All the traps! Advancable, unadvancable, you name it. You can lose by running on an advanced or unadvanced asset. You can also lose by not running on an unadvanced or advanced asset. This is how the deck wins. It offers the runner horrible choices and one wrong move could cost you the game.

Almost always Mushin advance. Another line I took was install adv adv naked stuff. Chances are, they run it and usually it's a junebug / Overwriter. Whampoa is to bury agendas OR bluff out that you're burying agendas so they don't run your next mushin. Was that an agenda I just buried or is the agenda the one I mushin advanced?

I'm also using Bio ethics as the restricted card because if they refuse to run, then you can sometimes kill them even at 3 cards in hand. rez, rez, flip.

OPERATIONS Money, Mushin, Mushin recurrence and Clones are not People. Clones means that you can score a Mushin'ed out 3 pointer and make it 4 points. When you're at 4 points, runners tend to run everything you Mushin advance.

ICE Pretty standard stuff. Miraju is for indexing. Indexing is a BIG weakness of this deck. Glad to see this piece of ice. The Cortex Locks used to be Komainus but after worlds, there seems to be an abundance of hunting grounds.

PILOTING TIPS The deck is built to read players. If you get a good read on the player, chances are you'll win the game. Just remember, if they guess wrong once, they almost auto lose. If they guess right, well, they have to do it two more times to win. In the mean time, you only need to bluff out twice to score out 7 points.

The deck is also about your poker face. When you have neither traps nor agendas, be patient. Take 3 credits for a turn, it's not a problem. Remember, you have pressure on the runner, not the other way around!

If anyone has any idea on what to do with the last point of influence, I'd love to hear it!

DISCLAIMER - this deck is very difficult to play on Jinteki.net because you can't read your opponent. Chances are the runner will just get annoyed at your tricks and run on a 4 advanced mushin anything.

Special thanks goes out to the Vancouverites who may recognize this deck as I've brought versions of it to pubrunner for the past year and a half. A huge thank you to the Philippine Netrunner community for being very welcoming. I moved to Manila 7 months ago and am so happy that I can continue playing this game. Finally thanks to my wife, who is 39 weeks pregnant yet allowed me to spend an entire day playing card games. She's the best!

17 comments
19 Nov 2017 profwacko

Congratulations again Gerrett @Powar!

How well did it do against Haley with Levy?

19 Nov 2017 Powar

I tend to pressure shapers more because they won't run til they set up. I was on 3 points early and had clones are not people on the board. So basically he had to run any 4 advanced mushin out there. It wasn't a grind win, just bluffs and traps from there. Levy isn't an issue :)

19 Nov 2017 Sindarin

Congrats on the win, bud! Glad to see the deck that wrecked me so many times in Vancouver was piloted to be the nationals champion.

20 Nov 2017 Klopstock

I think Feedback Filter or Caldera would be much worse for this deck than Levy, especially if they are backed up by enough money (like in a German Geist that had time to set up or combined with Magnum Opus, for example). Could it be worth it to include hate against that? Or would you just play faster, attack their money and try to overwhelm them with damage?

20 Nov 2017 Powar

I was able to flat line 2 shapers with feedback filter down. Both games I was able to score a 3 pointer in the first few turns and from there they had to run four advanced anything. I think the way the deck dishes out net is different from PU or PE with the exception of bioethics.

A four advanced junebug is expensive and is still death. What feedback filter does is that it makes killing them with the flip identity, bioethics or snares harder. Still, they eventually run out of steam or you score can out.

20 Nov 2017 jrda25

Congrats, Gerrett @Powar!:D GG, flatlining thru my Feedback Filter.

25 Nov 2017 Pink

Thumbs up for awesome wife!

27 Nov 2017 Xh4rx4d

If more players would play this kind of Jinteki, Expose would become a thing. :)

28 Nov 2017 cinnadream

Excellent trap deck, I love it~

28 Nov 2017 Aryn

If you felt like you had the room for it, I'd use that last point of inf for a Back Channels; for the few times a runner doesn't gun the trap you can at least recover 12 credits.

28 Nov 2017 hammerdal

@Aryn I like the idea of a single Back Channels. And it's decks like these that make me want to try running Drive-By

28 Nov 2017 Zouavez

Congrats, cool deck! Thoughts on swapping the Bioethics for Obokata? Seems like it fits well with the deck's plan and makes flatlining easier.

29 Nov 2017 Powar

@Aryn - I used to have a back channels for econ in the account siphon days. But now, with the ice being cheaper and no siphon to deal with, you'll find that money isn't too bad. It's also good for trap decks that Peace in Our Time is so popular. Drive By and (my favorite) Singularity are counters.

@Zouavez - Thanks! While Obakata would be great in the deck, Bioethics provide some great surprise deaths. With Obakata, I think people will just opt not to steal, film critic, or have enough cards to survive the Obakata and flip. Sometimes they can run a Psychic Field or Snare! on click 2 and use their last 2 clicks drawing and still die to a single Bio-Ethics Association rez + ID flip. I wish we didn't have to chose between the two.

29 Nov 2017 DrTalos

This looks like a ton of fun. I rarely sleeve up netdecks with out any changes, but I think that is just what i'm going to do with this one . . .

30 Nov 2017 Aryn

@Powar Hrm, noted. Only other thing I could think of is a Closed Accounts since it could benefit from being a trap card and that could hit them where it hurts if they've got a better than average econ.

1 Dec 2017 Aryn

Ignore above, @Powar was meaning Reversed Accounts since it could take advantage of a Mushin advancement.

Alternative of that, a singleton of IP Block might be a nice AI hate addition.

27 Jan 2018 StaticSky

I wonder if Gene Splicer would fit into this deck? I have no idea what you'd drop for it, but it seems to fit nicely with the "lose if you run, lose if you don't run" idea you mentioned.