Nisei Portal Demonstration

Hey all :)

This is the deck I've been playing the most on Jinteki.net for the last week or so. It isn't very efficient, but it's fun! Nearly all my games ended with a nice chat with my opponent.

Flipside

The most fun part about the deck is that it's different. No one expects to see Encrypted Portals ever. And no one expects a slow glacier when they see Jinteki Biotech. And they're even more baffled when they realize I chose the Tank! (At least against most anarchs I choose Tank.) Why Tank?
1. To reduce the agenda density in R&D. Cycling with Jackson usually makes R&D accesses more and more valuable for the runner and the Tank can compensate that slightly by filling R&D with Shock!s and Operations. With the exeption of Kim, runners tend to not want to access Operations. Especially when they don't gain that much valuable information out of it. 2. To increase the eco density. Basically, after the Tank flip half of the cards in R&D are economy cards and that's how I can afford to stack and rez any ICE I draw and create a glacier that can simply outlast most runners.
3. To recover from ICE destruction. If too many ICE go down the bin, I need to make sure R&D has enough left. Usually, runner decks can't keep trashing ICE forever.
But of course, Tank isn't always the way to go. Most Shaper IDs and Sunny are good indicators for a "big rig" build with stable long term eco. Then I usually pick the Greenhouse to never-advance out a Nisei MK II to fend them off.

Strategy

Jackson, Shock!, Launch and Encrypted Portals are played never-advance. Against non-anarchs, sometimes Nisei is scored that way too with the help of the Greenhouse.
Shock! has won me games. It doesn't seem to do much, but it works wonders. I was baffled when I actually killed runners with this deck and all because of Shock!.

Economy

The deck is super rich, because of the ridiculous amount of burst eco operations. And that's why it's totally fine if you draw one of them and can't use it directly. Heck, I even discard money cards sometimes.
Subliminal Messaging makes them want to run, which can exhaust them against a glacier.
Peak Efficiency is just great for a slow glacier with many cheap and middle class ICE.
Sweeps Week is almost always 5, because most runners keep their hand filled against Jinteki. Even more when they see Neural Katana or Wall of Thorns.
And Successful Demonstration is just plain awesome when combined with Caprice Nisei and Nisei MK II to fulfill the condition.
Celebrity Gift is a bit clunky, but influence is limited and I wanted to make sure I stay liquid. It's probably the first operation to reduce a bit if I try to make it a 49 card deck.

Defense

The ICE seem like a weird "1 of everything I could find", but the mix works pretty well. Yes, there are a lot of positional ICE, but there are also a lot of targets for them and I plan to stack them anyway. Generally, it
Wall of Thorns punishes everyone who thinks they don't need a Fracter against a Code Gate glacier.
Neural Katana forces out a Mimic, which is then good for only Neural Katana. Plus, it's a great target for Wormhole when you don't need the "End the run.". Not that Wormhole would ever fire, mind you, but the threat is real.
Susanoo-No-Mikoto is basically an ETR ICE, though it can be backed up by nasty Archives if needed. It's main purpose is to frustrate runners, that just can't break it for reasonable effort. It's not AP, not destroyer, far from Mimic range, it's annyoing!
Wormhole is almost never advanced, unless I really can't do anything useful with my last or I specifically want to counter derezzing strategies. There are many great targets for Wormhole in this deck, but usually it's a " The corp may deal net damage or end the run.". And no runner would let that fire. Marker into Wormhole with a rezzed Neural Katana is basically Wall of Thorns on steroids.

Nemesis

Ok, the deck is great and all and most runners are completely unprepared for the strange ICE suite and game plan, but it all can backfire if they packed the right breaker suite.
Atman lies in the corner, crying. Like most AI breakers, it is relatively inefficient against this deck. Faust, Overmind and Crypsis are taxed a lot and Eater has it's own problems and can often be played around. Most Eater decks are countered by a simple ETR in front of Archives and then flipping the Tank when there are too many agenda points in the trash. Did I mention that no one expects the Tank?
ABR + e3 can break anything, but doesn't handle stacking well. If the game goes long enough, I can probably win.
Gordian Blade looks like it would be a problem on first sight, but it's actually not. Most of the times, it's very foreseeable if they have it and when they have I can counter it by ICE arrangement. Most of the lower strength multi-sub Code Gates stay halfway taxing even when Gordian is already at 7 strength from encountering Wormhole and Wormhole itself is, well, Wormhole.
Yog.0 on it's own is the natural enemy of all smaller Code Gates and can be a pain if it hits the table before the first Encrypted Portal is scored. If it's scored, however, Yog can get into trouble. The runner is going to need a lot of tokens from Sucker and D4v1d!
Yogosaurus can end this deck pretty fast. Worst case scenario is that WoT, Wormhole and Susanoo are the only 5 ICE in the deck that are actually doing anything. On the other hand... Did you see any dinosaurs around lately? No? Me neither.
Stealth rigs are a pain, too. Especially out of Kit. She's the only one that actually brings enough Lockpicks to get through bigger Code Gate stacks multiple times. Other stealth users can often be shut out by stacking.
That should be it, or are there any other relevant breakers I forgot?
...
Oh, right, there's Torch. Well... I'm screwed.