Basic Zahya

I've been playing netrunner on Jinteki for about a month now and been having a blast. I started off hating playing runner, but then after playing aruzan's Ari deck playing runner became a lot more exciting. However, I never felt like I earned my wins - I would get lucky often with Trick Shot sniping off random agendas and shaper bs (Self Modifying Code, Muse) being able to deal with literally anything the Corp could throw at you. And if getting agendas out of the remote or off the lucky Trick Shot accesses didn't do it for you, Deep Dive would close things out.

So I decided I needed to learn the basics, and I found this Zahya list from Whiteblade: https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/404ba0c0-9188-4638-909d-24778584f384/rongydoge-cured-my-depression

Being able to do a pseudo-Deep Dive with both the fully charged Wake Implant and the Twinning along with Zahya's multi-access economy was like a drug. I've been addicted to Runner ever since. But, perhaps a skill issue, but I bricked more often than I liked. In particular, getting the Wake Implant in play was difficult because you had to make sure you played any card you didn't want to lose before you could play the Wake Implant - and that felt incredibly clunky to me. I also felt like I would lose control against decks that went wide - Zahya's economy is best when focusing centrals, but you can't exactly ignore threats like Amani Senai. So began my first deckbuilding/refining journey.

I'm very happy with a lot of the choices made here. It was very tough getting this deck down to 40 cards but I found at 43 cards the deck was just too inconsistent for my liking. Even at 40 I still often find that I don't find my breakers in time but there's enough other tools at my disposal that it's workable, and that might just be the Criminal life. I also learned a lot about just thinking about "where the agendas are" through playing and refining this deck. Compared to Shaper/Ari, you have much more limited resources. The multi-access is strong in this deck, so you have significantly more control, but your juice runs out faster so you have to choose wisely when you go all in especially early on - if you commit your resources to a remote and your read is wrong, it can be tough to come back from.

I experimented with 1x Poison Vial and 1x Botulus, and though very strong against late game Built to Last, I ended up coming to the decision that the single copy of S-Dobrado was enough BS to steal a win if needed in the late game, and flexible enough that it wasn't a dead draw in the early or mid-game.

I also went between Pennyshaver and Hermes, with Pennyshaver being quite strong IMO against asset spam - it pays you back for checking assets. But eventually went back to Hermes to focus on what this deck is all about - central control. If the meta swings wide I think Pennyshaver would be a fine choice.

Fueno was a compromise to use less influence, but I find him very strong in his own right. He's another source of credits along with Cezve for installs with Bahia Bands, and gives you the econ to trash important cards out of R/D without worrying about having enough credits to pay for Sure Gamble/etc.

Miss Bones helps control wide boards, in case you weren't able to trash them out of R&D with Fueno and is yet another synergy with The Twinning. So now you can control key assets while charging your Twinning for a deeper dive on R&D the next turn.

"Pretty" Mary da Silva is in my opinion, the highlight of this deck and allows you to lock R&D pretty much permanently. Without charging Twinning you can access 3 from R&D every turn, and with a fully charged Twinning along with a Jailbreak, you can access 5 which is just 1 short of a charged Twinning + charged Wake Implant. And she's much less clunky to use.