YOU CAN NEVER* LEAVE SPACE CAMP

Bigguyforyou518 1761

Dear Mrs. Estevez,

We regret to inform you that your son, David, was caught throwing rocks at our camp counselor, Susanoo-No-Mikoto, after his third time trying to run away from camp. This incident has forced us to temporarily retire Counselor Susanoo for repairs, and has created a significant disruption of camp activities.

As of today, your son is permanently expelled from Space Camp, and we will be pursuing legal action to compensate our losses. Our lawyers shall be in contact with you shortly.

-Jackson Howard, Program Director

With the death of Camp Counselor Soo-Soo due to a naughty little brat named D4v1d throwing rocks at him, I don't have the heart to write up another camp brochure (not for this version, anyway). I will go over the deck in detail though, and offer some piloting tips for those of you who still hold that glimmer of child-like innocence in your eyes, and dream of someday running your own Tennin Space Camp.

AGENDAS

The agenda spread has changed considerably. Ideally this deck is looking to install and leave unadvanced, then on turn 2 either A: Tennin token + triple advance and score, or B: Trick of Light + double advance and score. It is also completely acceptable to leave an agenda to advance slowly on its own from Space Camps or Tennin tokens while you tidy up your other defenses or establish a more comfortable econ window. Pay close attention to the runner while doing this though - assess the threat of them actually breaking into the server on their turn. If you're worried, you can score it out, but often times (especially with a Caprice guarding it), it can be worth "sacrificing" a 2 pointer in order to tax the hell out of them in the process (especially if it's an NAPD or Fetal AI).

The Fetal AI's admittedly don't feat neatly into the 4/2 agenda spread, and they did used to be Medical Breakthroughs. I changed them for two reasons: first, I felt that I was leaving agendas installed so often that the extra cost of Fetal wasn't gamebreaking for me, and second (more importantly), I was running into too many situations early in the game where I didn't have targets to advance with Space Camp. With Tennin tokens, it's not the end of the world, because you can put them on literally anything and then ToL them off later. But Space Camp tokens can only be placed on advance-able cards, and I was completely influence capped from stuffing any more Wayland ICE in (no constellation ICE, sorry). I find I'm much more comfortable installing a weakly defended Fetal AI early in the game than my other agendas, even NAPD Contract. If they blow breaker credits or an Inside Job, 2 more 's and 2 net damage to steal the Fetal early, I'm generally fine with that (except maybe against Leela). The tempo loss that inflicts on them will help to guarantee that they're never getting into that remote again.

The single Philotic Entanglement used to be a single Braintrust, but screw Braintrust. I can't remember the last time I actually over-advanced it, and I'd rather harass them with some negligible net damage than do nothing.

ASSETS

On to the Assets. Jackson Howard needs no introduction, use him to overdraw into your Space Camps and Shock!, and to shuffle your agendas between your centrals (wherever they're safer). A note on the single Shock - If the runner is trying to turn off your flow of Tennin tokens, a single trashed Space Camp will be enough to discourage them from running on Archives. Unfortunately, you can't completely rely on getting a Space Camp early, even with Jackson hand-overflow, so the Shock! can also function in a similar (albeit lesser) role. If you've already got one of your asset traps in Archives, consider installing future ones on your scoring remote instead of immediately discarding them. If the runner actually runs on them, giggle maniacally while they waste heaps of credits climbing to the top of Space Mountain. If they don't go for it, just trash it when you actually need to use the scoring remote. You're only out a from the install.

Once you've established some wildly unpredictable agenda-advancing behavior from above, you can start to have some real fun with Junebugs. First let me say that in a Trick of Light deck, advance-able traps are never "wasted", because once the ruse is up, the runner will affably let you use them as advancement token banks. The most obvious way to use Junebug is to just install-advance-advance it in a naked server. Depending on the game state at the time, this creates some mild pressure on the runner to run on it - naked shell games are never out of the question for Jinteki. If they don't, that's fine - you left your actual scoring remote open for something else so you can ToL the tokens into it.

Now, if you're balling pretty hard, you can also install the Junebug inside your scoring remote, and advance it like an agenda. "But Bigguy," you say, "How will I know when I'm balling hard enough?" Great question, Billy. I would advocate trying this when:

  • The runner has become desperate, and can't really afford to let you score another agenda
  • The runner has just finally unlocked the ability to actually break your scoring remote (he just got that last breaker he needed, or his econ finally came online). This is the moment when they are the least cautious, and are eager to finally show you who's boss.
  • The runner has just trashed a Project Junebug out of your HQ or R&D, and isn't aware that you're currently holding a second one. Now of course, common sense tells them that when they see one copy of a card, you probably have more in the deck. But common sense often loses out to a pervasive probability fallacy here, where people assume that by trashing it, they've at least reduced their chances of seeing another one for awhile. It's like when you lose a coin toss 4 times in a row, so you figure you have a pretty good chance of winning the 5th one.

UPGRADES

Caprice Nisei is always at home in a Tennin deck (while Crisium Grid can be a nice alternative, especially the way it synergizes with Tennin's ability, I couldn't possibly spare the influence). I don't rely on an inherently unreliable card though, and as funny as it is to reinstall a second one after the first is trashed, I've done perfectly fine with just 2 (especially considering that by the time your scoring remote is secure enough to start using in earnest, you've gone through a good chunk of your deck). Cyberdex Virus Suite is just unabashed Noise-hate, although it can be situationally used for all sorts of fun stuff (Imps, Datasuckers, even Clots if you're trying to make some exceptionally goofy Trick of Light plays). Hilarious when installed on R&D against Medium, or HQ against Nerve Agent, it could also be theoretically used to fake the runner into thinking it's a Caprice Nisei, although I have yet to come up with a non-silly reason to do this.

OPERATIONS

Operations are straightforward Jinteki econ. I think I probably took out a single Medical Research Fundraiser awhile ago to make room for a Shell Corporation (bad idea), and then never put it back. I'm never a fan of giving the runner credits, so I haven't been regretting its absence. You could easily swap it back it for the Cyberdex Virus Suite or the Shock! according to taste.

INTRUSION COUNTERMEASURE ELECTRONICS

Finally, the ICE suite, which has been overhauled dramatically. Susanoo-No-Mikoto was an unintended casualty of the proliferation of D4v1ds to deal with all the Blue Sun shenanigans. Someday he may find a place again, but between D4v1d effortlessly ripping through him, and having to ICE up Archives because of rampant Security Testing, I just couldn't justify blowing 9's on a good laugh.

I've found Enigma to be a pretty awful taxer once he's been rezzed, and if he was only there for the gearcheck, I would just be using Quandaries. I needed more stopping power though, so I threw out him, Neural Katana and Shadow in favor of some Fire Walls, an Ashigaru, and another Lotus Field.

Swordsman is literally just for Eater, and frankly I don't know if I'm scared enough to bother anymore. The Pup's are cheap, solid tax and run discouragement.

The Wormhole doesn't have any fun subroutine targets, but it serves its purpose as token holder and a strong code gate run-ender (in contrast to all the barriers).

Tsurugi fulfills a similar role to the infamous Komainu, while also giving me the flexible option to end the run, which is unusual for a sentry, and especially important for Tennin Institute.

Overall I like the ICE variety, and am only concerned that most of the run-enders are a bit on the expensive side, which can make some of the earlier turns a bit dicey if you aren't lucky enough to draw an Ice Wall or two. I may consider bringing the Enigmas back, and possibly switch out a Lotus Field or two.

I hope you enjoy the deck, and as always, please post comments and suggestions! The discussions about this deck's previous version helped me out tremendously.

4 comments
12 Apr 2015 mDuo13

Seems like without Camp Counselor SooSoo, the last remaining Wormhole ride is just no fun. (Like -- actually what routines are you copying with it now? If it's just end the run, you probably have other options that don't cost influence...)

13 Apr 2015 1uck

I ran a variance of this deck (because I don't have all of the cards) that substituted in Thomas Haas to great effect. Unfortunately, I still I was still 0-3 with this deck at the end of the day.

13 Apr 2015 Bigguyforyou518

@mDuo13 Yeah, I totally feel you on the Wormhole ride, but even as just a run-ender it's decent in this deck. The reason why it's still worth the influence is that it's a 7-str advanceable code gate where the runner was expecting an Ice Wall or Fire Wall. A lot of this deck's economy is actually the ability to get free tokens, and Wormhole takes full advantage of that. A 7-strength end-the-run for 6s, or 3s, or free, is an excellent use of influence in a Tennin deck, in my opinion.

@1uck Sorry to hear your Space Camp experience was less than exemplary. Perhaps you weren't balling hard enough? I actually am very fond of Thomas Haas, and agree that he works quite well here (he's been in previous versions of the deck). Ultimately I found that I wanted to conserve as much influence as possible for advanceable ICE, so I dropped him, but he's much better than a Project Junebug when the runner thinks he's a Project Junebug :D

17 May 2015 manveruppd

Since you're no longer forcing the runner to get into your archives and encounter Space Camps, how about a Crick or an Architect so you can recur them more easily? Although since you have no economy assets I don't see how installing them in a remote would force the runner to go hit them...