House of Knives

My take on the "death by a thousand cuts" Jinteki deck. It's done OK (3-1-1 at a tournament) but this deck is more fun than it is tier one.

Card Selection

These agendas are obvious choices. You could swap Gila Hands Arcology for Clone Retirement if you want more money. Chronos Project is probably an even better choice in a meta with MaxX and Levy AR.

Only 2 Ronin because they're hard to pull off. The threat is a necessity in this deck but you're more likely to flatline someone by bluffing a Project Junebug as a Ronin. I find the Ronin most useful sitting around double- or triple-advanced, waiting for the runner to slip up, hit a Snare, and end their turn with two cards in hand.

One Shi.Kyū to ditch into archives ASAP is all you need. Two is too expensive to trigger consistently. Put it at one or two less than a flatline to tempt the runner into keeping it in Archives. Snare! is still the best trap because it fires from so many locations. It's best in HQ, deterring multi-access attempts.

Mushin No Shin is the deck's MVP, hands down. It forces the runner to make impossible choices. Use equally on agendas and traps; Future Perfect is actually a great early target which makes the runner second guess every subsequent play. Try to cycle them back in with Jackson Howard.

Medical Research Fundraiser is more efficient than Hedge Fund and this deck doesn't care about how much money the runner has. Celebrity Gift is fine but uses up an extra and can counter the play style by incentivizing holding cards in hand. You want lots of assets and agendas installed, not sitting in HQ.

There's more ICE than some PE builds. Archer is great in the late-game and there are plenty of one-pointers to sacrifice.

Housekeeping was my one interesting addition to this archetype but there are probably better uses of the influence, Cerebral Overwriter being the most common. It's great in your opening hand before the runner's set up a rig but limited in the late game and quickly erased by a stolen agenda. There are better in-faction ways to get one or two damage, such as Hokusai Grid, Data Mine, or Shock!.

Now, a few common inclusions in other decks that I avoided. The deck is not taxing so Pup makes no sense. It only damages a broke runner, which never happens. Neural EMP is usually a 3x in these decks but I've literally never played it. It sits in hand doing nothing. Lastly, the single Scorched Earth is so common in PE that runners tend to clear the Snare tag.

Matchups

My record with this deck isn't great, but I'm also not an experienced player. It suffers in some common matchups. Prepaid Kate has crushed this deck a couple times; Deus Ex recursion, Feedback Filter, & Levy AR are all hard Shaper counters to PE. I had a game where I probably did 60+ net damage but still lost because of Feedback Filter & Levy AR. Leela Patel is also tough because you have lots of unrezzed cards, some that you invested in advancing, & there are lots of agendas to be scored or stolen. Finally, I've Had Worse is a great Anarch counter, far better against the trickle of small damage Jinteki deals than against Scorched.

It is a good matchup against fast-running criminals, particularly Andromeda who starts with a shorter deck.