(Core + Genesis One Box 3/6) Jinteki Chum Kill

Sharing the 6 decks that I built using a single Core Set box + a full Genesis proxy. The goal is to build a few decks that me and my friends can play on the fly once in a while without needing to scrap for cards and rebuild decks.

-- About this deck --

The 3 decks on the Corp side each represent a different play style. This deck plays with the iconic mind-games flavour of Jinteki. Flatlining is the main objective here, with the identity, various ambushes like Project Junebug and Snare! as well as an aggressive ICE suite with Chum and Neural Katana. Every card in the deck is there to kill the Runner.

Despite the lethal focus, there was some effort to ensure a decent scoring plan. Trick of Light does a good job to recycle failed traps for agenda points. Coupled with many cheap-to-boot economy like Beanstalk Royalties, Shipment from Kaguya and Melange Mining Corp., a dream scenario for this deck is to win a Corporate War early, then to engage in the mind-games with install-advance-advance on everything based on a healthy credit pool.

Still it is a race to finish. All the net damage can slow the Runner down as they cautiously refill their hand before the next run, allowing potential scoring opportunities. However, once the Runner has a good rig, they generally have no problems getting past the thin defence, and the Corp can only rely on mind-games to ambush or sneak out agendas in the late game.

-- Some deckbuilding thoughts --

There is a serious struggle between building a balanced deck with defences versus the signature net damage of Jinteki. In the end I opted for the latter for two reasons. The first is a limited number of good and cheap ICE. Having more ICE like Rototurret or Wall of Static would in turn require more investment in economy, which is also lacking in the 6-deck attempt. The second is trying to enhance the flavour of each deck. Setting up the proper defences will require cutting the net damage cards and borrow some ICE from the HB deck, which makes both decks more homogenous. I think it is more fun for our experience to have more diversified decks with different playstyles and require different responses from the runner, so here we are.

Previous iterations included Midori, Data Mine and more Whirlpools to consolidate the "death with one misstep" combo flavour. Matrix Analyzer has also been considered for more forward tempo. But in the end due to the lack of economy, some compromise has been made, the influence has transitioned into Adonis Campaign stripped from the HB deck and a more consistent damage dealing route with Hokusai Grid and Snare! was used, despite being more expensive.