Untrashable v5

I know its only 3 shadows, but have you thought about moving into trick of light and rejiggering the agenda count to allow for some scoring from hand? Having this threat would force the runner into running HQ more, where you can customize the pain by holding fetals and snares and shocks. I realize that steals some ice from the remotes and R&D, but you'd need less ice on the remotes.

To do something like that I'd need to increase my agenda count to 11 or more which would cut into my economy and defence. I just do not think this archetype works with FA.

I have much respect for your builds, db0, so I hope you take these questions as me asking for education instead of any kind of criticism.

You mentioned considering Caprice, but how do you feel Caprice stacks against Ash? To me, Ash seems like an influence and credit expensive solution when Caprice provides an 88% probability (only 1 in 9 chances of the Runner getting in) of denial for both herself and the asset via ETR with a cost of 2 credits at the most.

I've seen PAD Campaign in your builds and other people's derivative of your builds. Why does PAD value over EVE/Adonis in this build? I guess a better question would be how many turns does this deck average to a win?

I feel that NAPD Contract is in due to the surprise tax for stealing, but do you think Medical Breakthrough would see value in this deck once it's released?

I don't think Medical Breakthrough would fit in this deck either. Again it's too easy to steal.

PADs are very good early econ that is unlikely to be trashed, or when trashed hurt the runner more than Jinteki, especially if I recurse them with Interns. Generally the games can last a good amount of turns so an early PAD can easily give 10-14 credits during the course of the game. Eve/Adonis also require influence which I cannot spare.

Caprice does not work that well because I cannot enforce my economic power if I have it to guarantee a failed run. She also does not tax the runner enough to trash from HQ or R&D, does not combo with Hokusai, and you cannot use her as a surprise before the run succeeds (you have to rez her when the runner encounters the last ICE, or before the run if you have no ICE.)

Do you spend a turn just to advance Shadow up to 4?

On very rare occasions (e.g. a Mimic is down and I want to cost them more than 2 to bounce off my centrals etc)

What is your biggest struggle with deck? R&D lock? Fail to draw Ash / WoT? Whizzard? ;-)

Whizzard + Imp :)

But honestly, there's very little weak points to the deck. A thing that can happen easily is that I might get economy screwed, getting no sundews and just like 1 pad or something.

Having played a modified version of this for a few weeks, I've found early economy being one of my biggest worries. I haven't had too much trouble yet, but drawing no PADs/Sundews and waiting so many turns for one to pop up can cause one to panic.

My other worry is my opening draw when my only ice that shows up, or when one of my only two ice (and no Grids showing up) are Tsurugis. Big tempo hit having to rez that early.

But those are both luck of the draw worries -- you could possibly mitigate those issues by padding the deck with solutions, but there's hardly anything here you want to cut.

Congrats on the SC, btw!

If you draw no econ, start aggressively drawing through your deck until you get some. If you draw only expensive ICE, don't rez unless you really have to. But it's rare to get only expensive ones, as I only have 4 of them.

Do you have issues getting hit heavily with Keyhole?

Not necessarily. Maybe if they start with it first turn and I happen to draw neither Hokusai, nor ICE, nor Jackson.

Sorry for being dense, but how do you score agendas?

Is Ronin still worth it as a one-of? It seems like it is, as it still provides a potential kill/uncertainty for them, but with just the one trap it seems less useful?

I'm also curious about how you deal with Parasites and Emergency Shutdowns on Tsurugi/WoT respectively. Maybe it's just my local meta, but those seem like pretty omnipresent threats where I am, and mean the Ice's ability to tax them more than you, over time, kinda gets eaten up.

If they're playing Parasites and Shutdowns, it's likely they also won't have enough money to go and trash encrypted sundowns, so I easily make the money to re-rez and the interns to recover while they draw new ones.

Ronin is still good in 1x. Even if it doesn't get a kill, it can either distract them, or make them think I have traps, or slow them down significantly to allow me to score one Nisei.

@Kroen: I'm not sure what you mean. I score agendas by advancing them like everyone.

I mean, you don't have any FA tricks, so how do you keep your agendas from being stolen while you advance them?

ICE and Ash tend to do the trick if they even bother to run ;)

But even if they can't (or won't) break Ash's trace, they can still trash him, and they have 1 click remaining to run your agenda remote again. I feel like after a few games the runner would know that any card you advance in a remote is safe to run on, as you have no advanceable traps (and Ronin doesn't hurt the runner on access- quite the contrary actually).

That assumes they a) have 1 click remaining + enough to trash Ash, b) have enough money to break through any ICE again, c) Have enough cards in hand to survive 2x hokusai ping. This is not easily the case.

Sure, they runner can figure out eventually that any card I advance is an agenda, but by then it can be too late. I might have 2 Nisei Tokens. I might advance a ronin and force them to waste 10+ credits trashing him etc.

Yeah, after a few games with the same player, they might figure out the best way to counter my deck, but it's not easy, even if they know my whole deck.

Umm made a mistake, actually they would have 2 clicks left (click #1 run central, click #2 run remote and trash Ash, click #3 get money or whatever, click #4 run remote again).

Still though, all valid points. I can see how it could work. Just one niptick: Any reason for a Datapike over a second Yagura? I'd much rather the runner shell out 4-5 credits for a Gordian/Yog for a 1 cost ICE than a 4 cost.

Tried playing a slight variation on this last night (swapping one of the Niseis for another NAPD Contract is just about the only change made that didn't backfire), and I got off to some rocky starts where I couldn't protect my Sundews from my opponent (who, to be fair, was the one that showed me this, so he knew what to expect). Thinking I should've installed them as necessary, and not bothered rezzing them, so he wouldn't know what was up until I could keep one safe (when that happened did things ever turn around).

Pretty much every problem I had was player error, but he told me afterwards that he felt a great deal of pressure the whole time. If he hadn't been playing Gabe and Siphoning all my cash, I'd've been a bit safer -- and he kept Siphoning just enough that he could still spend it all. When I did nail him with Close Accounts when he got to 20+ credits the one time, felt so good.

Aaanyway, what I mean to say is: Thanks for the decklist! It's a lot of fun, and it's nice to see a Jinteki deck that (once I work out what I'm doing a bit more) seems to be fairly consistent/not TOO mind-gamey. I like those as much as the next person, but relying on them always feels a bit lacking.

yeah, I'm not much into mindgames myself. I wanted a deck that is simply "win-win" :)

But tweaking my deck without knowing what you're doing first, is a recipe for disaster ;) This is also a deck that needs time to get used to its style.

@Kroen: The Datapike can be very annoying on any other server as well and can actually protect a Sundew if I draw nothing else. Generally It's much more common that I have too much money and not enough taxing ICE, than not having money and needing cheap protection tbh.

Definitely learned that the hard way, yeah! :D Still glad I did, showed me WHY I shouldn't have, helped me understand a great deal more how to play it. Mostly had been trying to fit Caprice in, using a couple of other decks here as guides, but also swapped a Tsurugi out for a Hive.

Tsurugi is so much more useful in this than Hive is, was my discovery. I mean, Hive'd be great on the Super Server, but only marginally moreso than WoT, and it gets worse as you do better... and if it has to go up over a CENTRAL it's just bad news all over, they can bounce off at no risk.

Thank you, your comments are very insightful. Think I'll give this deck a try. Don't have Double Time yet though so would have to replace NAPD with Braintrust but oh well.

P.S. It would be awesome if you could reply to my comment in your Whizzard deck (http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/1003/swiss-army-whizzard) about why you didn't squeeze in some Knights (it's 1 before the last comment). Thanks.

Edit: Oops, that other deck ain't yours. How odd, I could have sworn... anyway, ignore the PS.

After several games with this and previous iterations of this deck, I'm really impressed. It's incredibly intimidating and taxing. The only trouble I'm having is initial economy, especially if the runner prioritized thrashing. I'm sure you considered Server Diagnostics or Private Contracts into this deck. What were the results?

Will Chairman Hiro replace Ronin? :-)

Hiro's ability doesn't feel usable in this system where it might tax the runner but without an on demand ability (like ronin) you can't kill. Then he just becomes an extra 2 points the runner is going to steal. It sounds like it might help by pushing the runner to 3 cards forcing a stop after a snare or even a bad faceplant, but those are rather unreliable.

I think with this deck you need to spend time drawing up because you'll never have a really optimal hand with the ice count. Interns and Jackson will help with anything you need to force to discard, but by saving clicks from making money you need to be spending them installing. You want those Houksai's on central and then Encryptions out fast to keep things on the field.

Exactly. If you don't get initial econ, draw aggressively until you do. Even a single PAD campaign can provide some sustenance than clicking for 3. And if the runner is aggressively trashing you should have much better econ than they do anyway.

Took this to a store championship and had quite a bit of luck with it. Datapike felt a bit clunky, since the cost of making them find their Yog wasn't significant enough in the long run -- although a less well-off runner might have had more trouble.

The Gabe/Desperado combination is actually the only one I've played that seems able to keep Econ up -- hard to Ice both HQ and Archives (because Sneakdoor) enough to overcome his 1-3 credits/run gain and keep him from using that to trash unprotected PADs and Encryptions. I think I could've turned things around, but I rezzed the wrong piece of Ice and things spiraled away from me.

Played against someone with Imp, but once things were set-up he didn't go after Econ in play, trying to use it to get things from my hand and R&D instead.

I'm wondering about including more barriers, though. Eli 1.0 for preference, though I can't think of what to cut for the Influence. Even then, I wish there was a neutral/Jinteki mid-range Barrier that'd be sufficiently taxing -- Wall of Thorns was, by far, the most effective Ice in the deck, and more like it seem like they'd do more for hurting the Runner's progress.

The Datapike is there for everyone who is NOT playing Yog ;)

Against Gabe, go for Hokusai (+ Ash maybe) in HQ, your encryptions down and start recycling them with Interns as soon as he trashes them. This will really frustrate his efforts to make money and keep your poor at low cost.

Realized my other mistake, too -- I failed to advance Shadow, which would have been well worth the turn getting it above Mimic range, I feel, when it was sitting over HQ.

Thanks for all the advice on how to play the deck better, by the way. It's a lot of fun, and I'm starting to feel like I'm getting it a bit better, now. Playing it a bunch is helping, but your replies have also really helped me understand what I'm doing (or SHOULD BE doing) a lot as well.

@db0 hiya. I had fun when you beat me down with this deck. :D

Couple of things I'm trying to understand:

How does Executive Retreat work out for you? Will you consider Future Perfect instead when H&P comes out?

Yagura works best on R&D and Chimera for remotes, but otherwise (and correct me if I'm wrong on those first two counts) which ICE are ideal for which servers?

Same question with Upgrades. Where are they best placed?

For upgrades, it all kinda depends on the state of the game. At the game start you want Hokusai in Centrals where you can't cover adequately with ICE and Ash on your Sundew if you can't protect it better. But your upgrades are like wildcards.

As for ICE: Shadow almost always in HQ, unless they play heavy Siphons. The rest as depending on where protection is needed. Your optimal remote is Wall of ICE + Tsurugi but that's not always possible.

I just tried this deck out with some H&P swaps. Mental Health Clinic did so much more than PAD Campaign that I find it almost hard to believe. No initial investment, so they can't trash it the turn after you rez and cost you credits (costs them more, but still). The people I've run against with it seem pretty hesitant to actually trash MHCs, too -- though I imagine better players will quickly recognize the threats and trash them ASAP, they do make at least a little money first, I've found.

Going to be making some swaps in stages, so I can see how each piece does. Want to try out Shi Kyu in place of a couple Snares or Shocks (no tags, but makes archives scarier/makes the runner potentially need another agenda, works well with strong econ). Might make landing Closed Accounts on non-tagme decks a bit harder, will have to see.

After that, going to try shifting Ice around. I feel like Susanoo-no-Mikoto is probably going to take Wall of Thorns' place, I'll likely put in a couple of Pups if I can find the room, and swap one Tsurugi for a Komainu. Maybe work in an Inazuma? I don't know.

I look forward to seeing your updated take on this. I know it's probably going to be much better than my own, as pleased as mine makes me.

@GreatGreedyGuts The only real drawbacks I can see to using MHC over PAD is that it a free trash for Whizzard and it makes it slightly harder to move things from HQ to Archives to "hide" them. But this is just me nitpicking :-)

I will most likely give this deck a whirl at my weekend league with MHC in place of PAD.