Palana Kills

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yang573 31

Loosely based off of Yin, this is a kill deck. Using a variety of traps and operations, it combos multiple sources of damage to slowly whittle the runner into nothing. Yet, it is also reasonable to score with this deck. Only three agendas are required, and if the runner nabs them, you can simply flatline them on the next turn.

There are multiple ways to kill the runner, and you will rarely - baring a reckless run - kill in one click. That's okay though. You may also actively damage, but not kill, your opponent during a turn. That is also fine. You're slowly building up until either you can score out or the runner makes a single mistake.

1. Brain Damage

Cerebral Overwriter is one of the most important cards in this deck. It is much easier to kill the runner when they are down to even 4 cards in their hand. Any opening hand with an overwriter is a good hand, as long as you can convince the runner to take a peek.

2. Meat Damage

Punitive Counterstrike is the cornerstone of this deck. Only a fraction of my victories have come without the damage it provides. The card is seldom expected, and devastating when played. The Food that Palana graces us seems even less appetizing, and Fetal AI bites back a second time.

3. Net Damage

Net damage, although a formidable threat, neither assists the kill like with brain damage nor kills outright like with punitive. Instead, it's meant to ping the runner excessively, forcing them to draw up every turn lest the meet a premature end. There are the classic Snares along with Ronin, Junebug, and Neural EMP. Ronin, besides dealing direct damage, helps you read the runner. Advanced a few times, the card allows you to see how the runner reacts to traps without risking an agenda or a failed trap.

The Mumbad Cycle saw the release of Bio-Ethics Association, and that card is very helpful in conjunction with larger damage to deliver the final blow. Although Shock may seem like an inconsequential card, it forces the runner to respect unadvanced facedown cards, in addition to chiseling the runner's stack. If the runner is especially aggressive, a snare or two may go down alongside these cards.

Economy

Now, you may be wondering, "Why didn't you stick with PE like with Yin?" There are a couple of factors that make Palana better with this deck, and is one of them. If you compare this deck to Yin, you'll see that the total amount of econ is reduced. Palana fills this gap. With punitives, vamp, and account siphon in play, a large econ lead is necessary to secure the kill and to not fall behind. In addition, the reduction in agenda density boosts power of punitives while diminishes that of PE.

Ice

The ice here is mainly here to discourage R&D access, along with any other shenanigans the runner may be trying to pull. For a lot of the ice, its mere presence discourages runners from running until they have a full breaker suite (if they lose all their breakers). In case they do run blindly without the proper tools, I like to place a single pinging ice and stack a komainu on top. When they get hit, it really discourages them from going any farther.

Silver Bullets

There are a few cards that actively shutdown this deck. To deal with account siphon and vamp, I have a one-off of Targeted Marketing. Play it as soon as possible against criminals. Otherwise, use it for other common pesky cards or hold on to it for a possible vamp.

Film critic and carapace, are other counters seen in many decks. Although this deck has little in ways of dealing with them, on the up-side, film critic slows down the runner considerably, and many toss out carapace against Jinteki. That said, a Snatch and Grab and Shattered Remains each counter these counters respectively. They are also capable of dealing with other nuisances, but adding them would mean taking out cards that actively do damage. Yet, with cards like PolOp and Councilman, it may be worth taking out Ronin for one of those cards, along with a single junebug.

Conclusion

This deck is very brutal and very powerful. Rather than relying on the "competitive" and "efficient" decks that fill the meta, it simply plays mind games, requiring a bit more skill and a bit more luck to win. Many runner decks have to abandon their original strategy and resort to making careful runs. Test it out yourself, and see how well it does.

4 comments
5 Aug 2016 berenzen

How do you deal with getting keyholed into hell?

5 Aug 2016 yang573

@berenzenWraparound, swordsman, and the general threat of flatlining/scoring out usually forces the runner to act. Unless the runner is overly cautious, and I can't find any agendas, the runner can't even setup since their pieces are all in their heap. Worse comes to worse, I'll let a jackson howard sit facedown with some traps.

5 Aug 2016 ivanbarker

I made a very similar deck myself, with a couple of small differences. The Palana ID is super cool here. It punishes the runner for drawing cards, and they will draw either before runs to circumvent damage, or they will draw after they receive damage. Unfortunately, it's hard to do the death by a thousand cuts with Palana versus PE. And some cards that deal more damage, like Ronin, are hard to use in the meta these days. I do think the deck still works, but it's harder, since the runners are getting so many good tools.

The problem with Ronin is the Political Operative or Councilman. I see you only include one. Two might be good, and that way if one gets trashed, then you will have another one sneakily in reserve.

Bio-Ethics Association is a cool card... but not in this deck. With a trash cost of 2, it will be trashed on sight. If the runner sees it in R&D, or HQ, it's toast. And expect only one use out of it, as soon as it's rezzed it will be trashed (especially since it likely won't be ICEd). It's only one net damage, which is more death by a thousand cuts style. I recommend Psychic Field here. I know it's pretty standard, but it works. You also don't advance it (but could use Mushin No Shin on it), and same trash cost, however, it will deal a way bigger punch if it lands. AND it survives cards such as Drive By.

Personally I always found Medical Research Fundraiser a tough sell when you are using Punitive Counterstrike. There is a very short window when you can use Punitive Counterstrike, so why would you make sure that you've given the runner some free credits?

Talking about Punitive Counterstrike, it is harder to use it these days with Film Critic being included everywhere. I'd go down to only one counterstrike perhaps. I also did add in Contract Killer into my deck to help kill Film Critic, or land some damage (this was a recent add, not sure if the influence is worth it though).

I'd also boost up the amount of Cortex Lock. It's a card you want to get down early. There's no point in putting it down later when the runner only has half of his memory remaining.

Swordsman is a good card, but... if they aren't running AIs (which let's face it, Faust might not be used as much due to MWL), it only does a measly 1 net damage.

Personally, I went with a click removal subtheme for my deck. I added in False Lead, Enigma and Viper. That way, if the runner runs, then they will have less clicks to draw, and the drawing will hurt even more with the Palana power. If they don't draw, then I build up further with cards like Ronin.

Oh, one more thing. Account Siphon will wreck this deck. For sure add in Crisium Grid. Or Sealed Vault. Shell Corporation is also cool on failed traps.

Hope that helps!

5 Aug 2016 yang573

@ivanbarker This is not death by a thousand cuts. Although there are elements of attrition, it's meant to kill the runner in one turn. The cuts are simply there to soften the runner. Yes, I may use a punitive when it doesn't kill, but usually, neural emp, punitive, and others are played together in a single turn.

Ronin is helpful in seeing how the runner reacts to advanced cards, within out potentially sacrificing an agenda or losing out on a trap. Some runners will only run, for example, about every other card you install. Ronin let's you sense that. I could add more, to assist with punitives, but that would mean taking something else out.

Bio-ethics is meant to assist with the final kill. You leave it facedown until the the runner steals an agenda or they leave one two few cards left in their grip. It's not meant to ping the runner, like some of the other cards in here. And runners usually save drive by for advanced cards that could potentially kill them outright, rather than something as simple as a snare.

Medical Research Fundraiser does give the runner creds, but it gives you a 5 credit lead. It doesn't matter how much they have, as long as you can beat them.

I mentioned film critic being an issue, and I discussed ways to counter it.

I could swap out a pup for cortex lock, but too often a deck will use up all of its memory and circumvent the net damage. It's a one-off to minimize it's potential downsides. You could swap in another one if you'd like.

Swordsman is meant to ping the runner. It deals with keyhole + eater and other AI cards in addition to punishing whoever decides to facecheck a komainu and keep going. But in general, it's pure attrition, which undeniably helps.

I already talked about account siphon (and vamp). Targeted Marketing works wonders in discouraging such tactics. It's also generally hard to bankrupt this deck past the early game. If the runner wants to waste 3 clicks for 6 creds, let them have it. I often have 20+ creds by mid-game.